home studio rebuild - pcie soundcard?

[stillanoob]

Hey there. First post. Back in 2004, I put together my first home recording setup, intended for analog acoustic one-man-band stuff, and sadly, never really found the time to use it much. Hope springs eternal though, so I'm currently working on updating my setup; the intent remains the same.

I recently purchased a Dell XPS 8300 (6gb ram, 1tb hd, Intel Core i5), and I plan to use REAPER. My old recording setup involved:

M-Audio Audiophile 2496
Behringer Eurorack UB1204-PRO mixer
2 Event TR-6 monitors
Studio Projects B1 condenser mic

I'm still happy with these components, but I'm not so happy to find that the 2496 won't fit in the new comp's PCIe slot! I've spent the last couple of days doing online reasearch, and discovering that usb and firewire interfaces appear to be on their way towards replacing the old mixer/soundcard standard.

With the new comp, I have to retire the 2496, and in order to keep the UB1204 in play, it appears that I'll need to acquire a PCIe sound card. So far, the only such cards that fit my budget (< $200) are the ESI Maya 44e and the E-MU 1212M PCIe. Has anyone had experience with either of them, or do you know of anything as good or better?

Of course, I may have to bite the bullet and go the firewire-or-usb route, but I was quite happy with the sound I got from my mixer/soundcard, and I'd hate to have to mothball a perfectly good mixer. But I'd appreciate any suggestions in either direction! (I see that M-Audio Fast Track Pro and Presonus Audiobox get mentioned a lot around here...)

 

[Ed Kanoi]

Came across the same problem, when I the Dell 8300 XPS. I had spent some $700 on a Lynx L22 only a few years back. I ended up having a computer guy build a new box for me. It was a lot less than buying one off the shelf and really is fast, it came with only what I needed, (no additional programs etc). and I know I can expand it the way I want to in the future. This was the best decision I've made in a while. I will need to make a few changes and I needed to up date a few specs in the basic box besides ram size, speed etc. The adjustments will be made in what we did for cooling. It'll be upgraded to a quieter cooling and fan systems not found in today's gaming boxes.

My system is voiced to record voice-overs and radio commercials in my small living room studio to a quiet box is important.

Ed Kanoi
Hawaii

 

[stillanoob]

Thanks for the response, Ed. Lynx, eh? I see that Lynx has a couple of PCIe sound cards available, but they're both priced comparably to yours (~$700), and that's out of my reach.

Annoyingly, it appears that M-Audio does not plan to develop a PCIe version of the 2496 in the near future, and I'm hoping to come across something along those lines from another manufacturer. In my research, I've come across enough grumbling about usb/firewire interfaces to make me wary about going that route. But if that's all there is...

 

[stillanoob]

Result of research: PCIe sound cards for home recording just aren't out there. External audio interface is the way to go.