Is this soundcard good...sb live

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bball_1523

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I am probably gonna buy a new computer soon, one thing that was on my mind was a good soundcard. One reason I need a good soundcard is because I want to be able to record my Electric Guitar well into my computer.

I need a soundcard that is very good, reliable, and not costly.

Here's a card I stumbled upon Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Dolby Digital 5.1 - OEM

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=29-102-156&DEPA=1 <---link to the soundcard.


---how good is that soundcard? It seems too cheap, but is it worth getting? How about any of the live 5.1's or audigy's?

-I don't want to create a music studio, I just want to record my voice and my guitar as accurate as possible, not the best studio quality just as good as I can. Also I want to plug in my guitar and emulate amp models, etc. Thanks
 
Yes that is cheap...you get what you pay for.
Although the SB's are geared more towards gaming and general audio, it can be used to record but will not perform as well as you may like. If you want to make a good investment, go for the M-audio Audiophile 24/96 for a great entry level recording card and can also act as your systems sound card for general use.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/m-audio/audiophile.php
 
the thing is, I just basically need a good enough card, that is not over 200 bucks, that will record my guitar (maybe not the best recording but good enough).

the m-audio card is too expensive for me. I don't want to just record on my computer.

I found this m-audio midiman card on ebay: Costs $149.99 to buy
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1288&item=931722244

How good is that for beginner recording? Will it be reliable and good enough quality, I don't want pro or semi-pro, I'm just a beginner.
 
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bball_1523 said:
the thing is, I just basically need a good enough card, that is not over 200 bucks, that will record my guitar (maybe not the best recording but good enough).

the m-audio card is too expensive for me. I don't want to just record on my computer.

I found this m-audio midiman card on ebay: Costs $149.99 to buy
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1288&item=931722244

How good is that for beginner recording? Will it be reliable and good enough quality, I don't want pro or semi-pro, I'm just a beginner.
Click to expand...

Almost every store online and elsewhere sells the Audiophile for $150.

$229 is the MSRP (Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price) on the M-Audio website.
 
I saw at musiciansfriend.com for $179
I'm in the same boat
My question is can you mix down to sterio with SB5.1?
 
bball_1523 said:
the thing is, I just basically need a good enough card, that is not over 200 bucks, that will record my guitar (maybe not the best recording but good enough).

the m-audio card is too expensive for me. I don't want to just record on my computer.

I found this m-audio midiman card on ebay: Costs $149.99 to buy
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1288&item=931722244

How good is that for beginner recording? Will it be reliable and good enough quality, I don't want pro or semi-pro, I'm just a beginner.
Click to expand...

That card on Ebay is the Audiophile.
 
bball_1523 said:
I need a soundcard that is very good, reliable, and not costly.

Here's a card I stumbled upon Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Dolby Digital 5.1 - OEM

---how good is that soundcard? It seems too cheap, but is it worth getting?
Click to expand...
Define "good"............
 
for me "good" would be recording quality almost as good as cd-quality professional (not 100% pro).

-Also being able to connect my electric guitar to my soundcard and playing through different virtual amps on my computer, or recording through different multitrack recording programs, efficiently.

-Being able to record voice just like guitar.

-Making music, like drum tracks, hiphop beats, electronic beats efficiently with good sound quality.

-I don't want to spend over 200 bucks for a soundcard.

So is that midiman from ebay priced at $150.00 good? Is it as good as possible to the "good" soundcard I want?
 
So is that midiman from ebay priced at $150.00 good? Is it as good as possible to the "good" soundcard I want?
Click to expand...
Yes it is good. I don't know what you mean by the last sentence. The Audiophile is an excellent sounding, semi-pro recording card. In addition, the Audiophile has a 1 in 1 out midi interface and a S/PDIF stereo digital input. Don't bother with the Soundblaster.
 
you can record in "cd quality" with a sound blaster 16-it'll sound like shit, but it will be 16-bit, 44khz. the soundblaster live is what i'm using right now-the signal to noise ratio is so-so, but it kicks ass at MIDI and compatibility at gaming-there are also some intersting driver options out there for it. i wouldn't buy another creative labs card for recording-i'd just hang onto this until i could afford an m-audio or similar. the sblive is NOT a recording card- it is NOT "prosumer"-it is a great all-around PC soundcard that happens to be drastically better for recording than earlier creative labs cards. the amps on it are crappy and noisy, the recording quality, while workable, will not stack up against something intended for recording, but it will easily work with any software you have around, more or less. if you can't justify the m-audio, you might do alright here, especially if you're contrasting with recording to 4-track or older consumer-level cards. i've done alright-i still find my ability more of a liability than the quality of the card, but i intend to get a real recording card when i can.
 
for m-audio $150 one, can you use those virtual amp programs for guitar on the computer? like revalver?
 
If you want to monitor your incoming signal with effects (the sound is going "through" the software) you will have to take into account latency.

With an sb live you will obtain with some fiddling the following latency figures:

Direct X driver (512 buffer size): 11 ms

Alternative Kx driver: latency reported of about 5 ms.

This is for ASIO capable apps. Do not know if sb live has good wdm drivers.

A good semi- pro soundcard will come with dedicated asio AND good wdm drivers. Look for these cards, brands? M- audio, terratec (I heard the dmx6 fire is a good one), aardvark, RME...

These will give you latency down to 3 ms for ASIO and 2 ms for wdm (sonar).

Watch it! : For soft synths a latency of 11 ms is perfectly workable. For live input monitoring of incoming singnals (guitar) I have the impression the latency is doubled. (at least), and that is unbearable.

In cubase my card reports 4 ms, but for input monitoring I have a considerable delay.

In sonar with wdm driver I have 2 ms, and do not feel or hear any delay.

This is not the case with effects on existing tracks, mixdown, soft synths, reason...

Only with signals that are incoming.

Also: the noise floor on an sb live is crap!!! You will constanly be adjusting input loudness to obtain a hot enough signal to avoid hiss. I think someone has better things to do :-), I do!

Hope this helps a little
 
indeed, the noise floor on the sb live isn't all that great, but by turning off unnecessary input amps (onboard mic amp/etc), it becomes noticably better, and vastly better than previous SB offerings.
 
For what it's worth, all I've had to use since day one of pc recording is a SBLive card. If you want to hear some real world examples of a guy using his pc and a SBLive card, you can hear some of my samples at:

http://www.buzzsawmusic.com - go to the music section and download or stream any of my songs. All of these were done on my computer, with that card. (please note that the more finished version of Finally Free has some drum and keyboard programming that were done on another friends computer.)

I'm looking at someting USB and with mulitiple inputs now, but only because I would like to track my buddy's drum kits over at his place, otherwise I've loved the SB.

Good luck!

Paul
 
bball_1523 said:
the thing is, I just basically need a good enough card, that is not over 200 bucks, that will record my guitar (maybe not the best recording but good enough).

the m-audio card is too expensive for me. I don't want to just record on my computer.

I found this m-audio midiman card on ebay: Costs $149.99 to buy
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1288&item=931722244

How good is that for beginner recording? Will it be reliable and good enough quality, I don't want pro or semi-pro, I'm just a beginner.
Click to expand...

Buy a decent soundcard sooner than later, it will make a big difference. Creative Labs cards are not geared towards recording studio work.

I saw an Audiophile 2496 on eBay, buy-it-now for $140 last week

http://search.ebay.com/search/searc...=1&st=2&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&BasicSearch=
 
zer0sig said:
indeed, the noise floor on the sb live isn't all that great, but by turning off unnecessary input amps (onboard mic amp/etc), it becomes noticably better, and vastly better than previous SB offerings.
Click to expand...

How do you do this? I recorded a blank track last night to check out the noise floor (nothing connected to card) and it bounced back and forth between about -72dB and -63dB. In my opinion, this kind of noise floor is WAY too high to do anything useful on. I recorded a piano track shortly after and after a little compression to try and bring up the softer notes you could easily hear the compessor 'breathing' as it amplified the hiss.

Can someone with a 2496 or a Delta card record a blank track and post the picture of the waveform?
 
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