Is an enhanced soundcard really necessary?

[mercyme]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to all this and still establishing my setup. Unlike most of you, my primary use of home/PC recording is not for music (although that will be a hobby use for me), but to record voice-over material.

I was hoping to sort of dip a few toes into the water to get started (as opposed to jumping off the high dive) but I keep discovering that I "need" yet another piece of equipment or software. Here is my planned setup:

- Good mic (probably Rode NT1000)
- dbx 286A mic preamp/compressor/de-esser/noise gate/expander
- CoolEdit 2000 (or perhaps Pro Tools Free -- I'm open to suggestions here)
- Dell laptop Inspiron 5000e, PIII 700, 128 MB RAM (512 max), 20GB HD w/ ESS Maestro 2E sound card.

From what I'm reading, it appears that my laptop's onboard soundcard (ESS Maestro 2E) might be a critically weak link in this setup. I'm aware that the MIC IN input is basically worthless, but I had been under the impression that if I ran the mic preamp into the LINE IN input, I could get a decent recording. Is this not the case?

I've seen talk about various laptop sound card solutions, primarily the Digigram VX PCMCIA sound card and the MOTU 828 firewire interface, and I'm left with this question: IS SPENDING ANOTHER $500 - $700 FOR A SOUND CARD REALLY NECESSARY TO GET GOOD RECORDINGS?

Remember that for the most part, I will be recording one mono channel of voice. I will be adding some effects with the editing software and that is about it. Of course, my musical hobby needs may grow, but that remains to be seen.

I'm aware that the ESS Maestro 2E is NOT a high end recording device by any measure, but I was hoping that it might suffice to get a reasonably good job done. Is it too much of a cheat?

I truly appreciate any advice you can offer.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Your A/D converters are as important to your sound as your microphones and preamps. Honestly.

You typically wouldn't need to spend a ton of money in your situation. Something like the M-Audio Audiophile would probably work, except that you're on a laptop. With a laptop your options are severely limited, and you might end up spending more money than you'd like to.

Basically, I think you could get away with an entry-level stereo card with decent 20 or 24bit converters....given your current gear and the fact that you're only interested in voice-overs. People are a little more tolerant when it comes to spoken word quality.

The difference between a simple "prosumer" 24bit card and any consumer grade hack job like the ESS in your laptop is absolutely night and day. You know how sometimes you get water in your ears and everything sounds really dull, but you don't really notice it until *pop*, then your suddenly overwhelmed by the detail and clarity of the sounds around you? That's the difference.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[mercyme]

A compelling analogy!

OK, that says a lot to me. In fact, I think I might have some water in my ears right now.... aahh, that's better.

Now, do you have any opinion on the better choice between the Digigram VX Pocket PCMCIA soundcard and the MOTU 828 firewire interface, given my relatively modest input needs?

By the way, is the monitoring latency issue something I need to address? In the setup I proposed, my headphones will come out of whichever soundcard I end up with. Right now, with my onboard ESS Maestro, if I use headphones while recording with either the LINE IN or MIC IN, I hear my voice in what seems to be real time. Is this likely to change with the use of the Digigram or MOTU units? I can't imagine that it would, but I wanted to ask. In fact, MOTU 828 addresses this as one of its main selling points -- "no-latency monitoring".

By the way, so far I have just been tinkering with the CoolEdit demos (both 2000 and Pro) and they do not provide real-time recording effects. So perhaps this renders the delay issue moot?

Short of the very expensive professional DAW packages, is there any recording/mixing/editing software that provides for real-time effects WITHOUT a delay? Or is that purely a function of hardware specs (i.e. processor capability, RAM, etc.)?

I know I've strayed a bit from the original question. That's what water in the ears will do ;-)

Thanks very much for the help.

Regards,

MercyMe