!?**Dilemma**?!

[Jimarick]

Is it more logical to go for the e-mu 1820 package at £300 (~$520) or a Yamaha MG 10/2 mixer and a delta 44 (or an audiophile) soundcard for about £200 (~$400)? I will be recording acoustic guitar and vocals at the same time. I may want to add instruments in the future, but i guess i can record each one seperately.

Is the main drawback with this is that I wont be able to record 2 tracks at the same time and have them seperately recorded in cubase SX2?

Since I am also quite new to all this, if i DONT go for the E-Mu, that means i dont get all the built in plugins? Is this a great loss or does cubase SX2 have all that included anyway? (Im going to be running a 3ghz AthlonXP with 768DDR and >250gb HDD)

Thanks

 

[Sklathill]

Cubase SX will come with the plugins you need (compressors, verbs, Eq, etc...) The Emu plugins are hardware things that are decent but are a hassle to add into your sequencer files via E-wire. I suppose I could use them if I was really hurting for CPU time, but I've never had that come up. Your CPU should be more than enough.

Why not get the MG 12/4, so you can effectively use all 4 ins on the Delta? And it's a pretty nice mixer to boot...

I've honestly had trouble with M-audio on AMD platforms (including nforce 2) in my 4 year stint with them, but I'm certain others can say it better than I when it comes to their driver quality. If I was building an AMD DAW and I had a choice between E-mu and M-audio, I'd probably go E-mu. BUT...

If you get the E-mu, you're going to have to be happy with what you have: NO multi-card drivers. Who knows when they'll get those out the door. M-audio has had multi-card drivers for half a decade now (and properly working ones for at least a few years...)

Joke joke, M-audio users.

Assuming no major hardware headaches, I don't think either card's ASIO drivers will be significantly better than the other. I've used both with Cubase at 4 ms no problem on biggish projects on my P4 2.4.

I think if I was in your situation, I'd go for the Delta because of its driver maturity and the ability to build up with a multi-card setup for relatively cheap. The E-mu is still a bit wet behind the ears, I must admit despite my love for my 1820...

 

[Jimarick]

Hi,

Since im rather new to a lot of this, can i just clarify a few things...

1. By Multicard driver support you mean that in the future, if i want more than 4 inputs into the DAW, I would need another soundcard. If I got another Delta 44 then the drivers will be upto handling this easily.

2. If i get a MG 12/4, all 4 outputs on the mixer can go to the Delta 44. Does this mean I can select/combine certain channels in the mixer which will go to each of the inputs on the souncard, and hence record upto 4 different tracks in cubase at a time?

3. The only other thing missing from the equation is MIDI input outputs. I may in the future want a keyboard to be plugged in. I realise you can do this without the MIDI in/outs, so what is the advantage of having MIDI, and would it be an expensive upgrade if i needed it in the future?

Thanks again, its been very helpful.
James

 

[manning1]

jim - i assume you want 4 input simultaneous recording ?
if so tracertek.com have a new maya mk2 4 in soundcard out.
its very cheap . but check with maya that its compatible with your system,
its about 100 bucks. so new - no reviews yet. but apparently it does 24bit 96khz.
alternatively - but pricey look at rme sound cards. (solid drivers).
the key to the daw game is to make sure any soundcard you get is compatible with the pc motherboard you use/chipset.

 

[Bulls Hit]

James
I'm not familiar with the emu, but the delta 44 doesn't have midi capability.

The MG12/4 will certainly let you combine/route different channels to any of the 44's inputs. The MG12/4/Delta 44 combo is the one I use for recording drums and guitars. You can actually get about 10 seperate channels out of it using the inserts and aux sends as well as the 4 main buses.

If cash is a problem, you could get by with the 10/2 mixer, as you can get 4 outs from that