Comments on Turtle Beach cards...?

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downatone

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I'm putting together a very cheap computer for a friend who just wants to do very simple 1-track recordings. I've noticed and read a few good reviews about turtle beach cards. In your educated opinions - how do they fare?
For further information, I'm currently looking at the Turtle Beach Riviera 5.1 ($33.99 CAD).
cheers for your time
 
Turtle Beach is a multimedia card which is not intended for recording.

If you really want to record, even really basic stuff,be prepared to raise your budget for another card.
 
as someone once said in here, "buy cheap, buy twice". i dont know how much the audiophile 24/96 card is in CAD but its $99.99 US. if you want to start some basic cheap recordings...I'd say start there. but if hes just planning on messing around and will probably move on to something else in a few months...go ahead and get the turtle beach card. when i started messing with recording...i just used my onboard sound for an input....i was on the fence about getting turtle beach or Soundblaster live. but i just stuck with the onboard audio. now that I'm a little more serious about it...i bought the audiophile 24/96
 
I like the Turtle beach cards for gaming - I have the Santa Cruz, but I second what BrettB says, they are NOT for recording............
 
Well, onboard would be great - but the motherboard I'll be using doesn't have onboard anything...so I need to put a card in it - and I figured a Turtle Beach or SoundBlaster 16 card would suffice for the time being...the SoundBlaster card can be picked up for under ($20 CAD) - I realize both are not MEANT for recording, but can be used - just like onboard sound. Maybe someone can suggest a cheap card that will do what I'm looking for - otherwise I'm sure the SoundBlaster card or Turtle Beach card will do. I was just asking about Turtle Beach because I've never used their cards - but have read good reviews about them in regards to multimedia usage...
 
Very good gaming card; I've had one in my son's game computer for over a year.

But how much does that guitar (or whatever your friend want to record) cost. And you'd run that through a $33 soundcard??? Don't cry cheap when you're already paying for a multi-hundred dollar computer and musicial instruments.

Get an Audiophile or Emu404 for $99....
 
It does depend on how serious you are.
The Santa Cruz driver has a neat "multichannel" option that lets you configure as a 4in 4out, plus there's a reasonable midisynth on it. The drivers for WinXP are rock solid. If you can get one, the Santa Cruz still looks like a better option for music than Turtle Beaches recent "surround sound" cards.

Soundquality wise, it falls well behind the latest offerings from the likes of M-audio, Terratec, Echo and E-mu, although it's still acceptable unless your friend is recording quiet acoustic pieces, in which case a 24bit capable card like an Audiophile would be well worth the extra expense.

Interesting that you found a mainboard without on-board audio! Every time I'm looking to purchase, I can't find any without some sort of AC97 audio. Is it a server board?
 
Interesting that you found a mainboard without on-board audio! Every time I'm looking to purchase, I can't find any without some sort of AC97 audio.
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This is generally true for down market PC's these days...

Is it a server board?
Click to expand...

In short; yes. Its an old(ish) Intel server with dual processors.

Get an Audiophile or Emu404 for $99....
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I appreciate that these are better cards - but given I can build this PC for under $300 with a 200 gig hard drive, 512 DDR RAM, 2x1ghz intel server processors, 19" monitor - he isn't overly keen only spending an extra $100+ on a GOOD sound card - he'd rather spend $30 on a DECENT card, play around for a few months and go from there...to see if its something he really wants to invest in. Thats the bottom line, that's all I'm asking :p.
Anyway, looks like turtle beach will fit this category, unless someone advises better given the price cap.
Thanks for all your input.
cheers
David
 
The Santa Cruz driver has a neat "multichannel" option that lets you configure as a 4in 4out, plus there's a reasonable midisynth on it. The drivers for WinXP are rock solid. If you can get one, the Santa Cruz still looks like a better option for music than Turtle Beaches recent "surround sound" cards.
Click to expand...

Are you referring to this card here?
Thanks
 
downatone said:
Are you referring to this card here?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Yup, that's the Santa Cruz. If you must go the consumer soundcard path, this would be a good choice. I love mine gor gaming (as I mentioned earlier), and was delighted to toss my audigy, which IMHO sucked, and had absolutely dreadful drivers (I had to spend a lot of my time cleaning out the drivers via my registry, what a mess....).

I would still prefer the emu404, but the Santa Cruz should suffice.
 
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