monkeylove17
New member
anyone have any recommendations for a good sound card and monitor speakers? Products in different proce ranges would be helpful. Thanks.
monitors and sound card
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monkeylove17
New member
Thanks for replying. I am going to attempt to answer your questions. I am completely new at this, so i don't know all the terminology you used. First of all, I have Cakewalk Home Studio 9, but am thinking about upgrading to Pro Audio 9, since i am getting more serious about home recording. I need to be able to record and play back audio and midi. After that, you lost me. If by optical, you mean video, i don't need to do any of that. I think simultaneous ins and outs deals with how many tracks you can record at once. If it does, I think i only need one. Do 6 drum mics account for 1 track? Umm, yes, i have a 12 channel mackie mixer. I think the 16/44.1k would be fine. Other than that, in the "Cakewalk Power" book, it mentioned a whole lot of "desireable" features. I don't know what these features do to the price, but i would be interested to find out. The book mentioned: DirectX, digital inputs and outputs, 1/4, RCA, or XLR jacks, balanced connections, full-duplex capabilities, signal to noise ratio, frequency response, wavetable synthesis, and GM, GS, and XG formats for MIDI. I can probably spend up to $400 on it, and would like to get the best card for the money, whatever that is. About the speakers, I have a cd i know inside and out, but from what i've read, they aren't supposed to sound great, like a stereo system. If they aren't supposed to sound good, what should i listen for? Thanks. Your help is much appreciated.
AlChuck
Well-known member
Optical is a digital connection. If you have or ever might have something with an optical digital output, this would be important to you. 6 drum mics to one track would sounf pretty one-dimensional. I'd think you would want at least two channels to be able to spread the drums about in stereo a bit, but no problem, I don't think you could find a soundcard with a single line in if you tried. Stereo in is pretty much the baseline. But your drum tracks would always be mixed together -- with a 6 input or 8 input card you could send each mic's individual signal to an individual channel abnd then have all kinds of flexibility in mixing. One more point I'll make -- in the $400 and unbder range, only the inexpensive consumer cards will have MIDI synthesizers on board, like the Turtle Beach Montego II or the Sound Blaster Live. These can make decent synths if you work with them, but they are not the best recording interfaces in the world.
Actually I got my soundcard setup for under $400 -- my Delta 66 (for recording audio - 4 analog ins and outs plus a two-channel digital in/out) was $299 and my Sound Blaster Live was $75. Be prepared for some potential headsaches getting them to coexist if you go that route, though -- if you want my whole story do a search on my name and look back around late May - late June
Actually I got my soundcard setup for under $400 -- my Delta 66 (for recording audio - 4 analog ins and outs plus a two-channel digital in/out) was $299 and my Sound Blaster Live was $75. Be prepared for some potential headsaches getting them to coexist if you go that route, though -- if you want my whole story do a search on my name and look back around late May - late June
I would say that the best (in MY opinion) card for your money is the M-Audio Delta-10/10 ( http://www.midiman.com ), but that card will run you close to $950 US.. maybe cheaper.. I'm not sure.. it's about $1200 here in Canadian Dollar land.
I have a Delta-44.. the sound quality is almost as good, but there's only 4 inputs on the 44.. and you probably want 8 to do drums.
Each mic generally eats up one input.
If you're *really* good at mixing drums, you can use the board to mix it down to two, or four tracks ( to maintain stereo ), and buy a cheaper Delta 44 card(about $350 US).. but you will lose the ability to do a lot of mixing tricks that you can do with everything in it's own track.. including gating snares & tom's, and applying effects to drums on an individual basis.
Nope.. I reccommend a delta 1010 ( $950 ) and four DMP2 dual-pre-amps ( $200/ea ), plus Cubase 5/32 VST. That's a lot of money, but it will also save you a lot of headaches, and make the recording process easier.. A bit unreal? Maybe.. try and find a compromise that fits your budget.
You'll also need $100 in miscelaneous cables, so dont forget to budget that in.
I have a Delta-44.. the sound quality is almost as good, but there's only 4 inputs on the 44.. and you probably want 8 to do drums.
Each mic generally eats up one input.
If you're *really* good at mixing drums, you can use the board to mix it down to two, or four tracks ( to maintain stereo ), and buy a cheaper Delta 44 card(about $350 US).. but you will lose the ability to do a lot of mixing tricks that you can do with everything in it's own track.. including gating snares & tom's, and applying effects to drums on an individual basis.
Nope.. I reccommend a delta 1010 ( $950 ) and four DMP2 dual-pre-amps ( $200/ea ), plus Cubase 5/32 VST. That's a lot of money, but it will also save you a lot of headaches, and make the recording process easier.. A bit unreal? Maybe.. try and find a compromise that fits your budget.
You'll also need $100 in miscelaneous cables, so dont forget to budget that in.
monkeylove17
New member
First, I want to say thanks for all the replies. I am starting to get an understanding of this stuff, but i still have a couple of questions. First, if I understand AlChuck correctly, good audio interface cards don't usually support recording or playing back MIDI? I don't have any MIDI instrument, i just point and click notes into the Piano Role view of Cakwalk Home Studio 9. I guess this means i don't need a MIDI input, just something that will play it back. Also, the drums are really concerning me. I looked at the Mackie 1202-VLZ last night (that is what i have), and i only see one main out. There are two ALT Outputs in the back but i don't know what they do. Does this mean, I can hook up four or six mics to the drum set, but only have it come out as one track? That doesn't sound very good to me. I would like to be able to mess with each mic's recording separately. It seems to me like, if the Mackie only has the one main out (left and right channel), then the sound card only needs one input. But, if i wanted six separate tracks for drums, i would need a card that has six inputs, and possibly a new mixer?
I was looking at the MIDIMAN 1010. It looked good to me. It does MIDI and audio in the same card, right? It is only $600 down here. But, if my mixer only has 1 out, does it do me any good?
Finally, i looked at the Echo Mona which has 4 mic preamps. Isn't a preamp why i am using the mixer in the first place (besides the EQs)? This way I could plug 4 drum mics direclty in and get 4 separate tracks?
Basically, there is no way i can afford a new sound card and a new mixer, but i want to be able to record drums effectively with some type of control over individual drum sounds.
Thanks again to everyone
I was looking at the MIDIMAN 1010. It looked good to me. It does MIDI and audio in the same card, right? It is only $600 down here. But, if my mixer only has 1 out, does it do me any good?
Finally, i looked at the Echo Mona which has 4 mic preamps. Isn't a preamp why i am using the mixer in the first place (besides the EQs)? This way I could plug 4 drum mics direclty in and get 4 separate tracks?
Basically, there is no way i can afford a new sound card and a new mixer, but i want to be able to record drums effectively with some type of control over individual drum sounds.
Thanks again to everyone
Yeah.. the pre-amp is the main reason for having an analog board in a digital studio.. Forget the EQ's, cause your software can do that (with quite a bit more power as well!).
If your mixer has "post fader track inserts", or even "post pre-amp track inserts", you can drain a pre-amped signal off of those, and plug them directly into the Delta.. Some mackie boards have as many as 8 inserts.
Midiman also has the 44(which is what I use), which is much cheaper, but only 4 inputs.
Hope that helps some more
If your mixer has "post fader track inserts", or even "post pre-amp track inserts", you can drain a pre-amped signal off of those, and plug them directly into the Delta.. Some mackie boards have as many as 8 inserts.
Midiman also has the 44(which is what I use), which is much cheaper, but only 4 inputs.
Hope that helps some more
sonusman
Banned
A little education....
There is a little misunderstanding about what exactly you need here.
Let's talk about midi first.
There reason you are able to hear midi with your current soundcard is because it has a built in tone generator for midi instruments. Midi in itself is just a bunch of Note On and Note Off values, along with some other values such as Volocity (how loud the not should be played) and some other stuff that is of little importance. The point is that you can record all the midi you want, but you need a tone generator to hear it.
These are sometimes called a Wave Synths or whatever. It's job is to take the midi information supplied and create the sound. They usually allow you to define which sound you want to use for the midi part. Blah blah blah.....
You have to have this tone generator to hear midi. Bottom line! There are however programs that will take midi parts and create .wav files of the sound you want.
Now, a soundcards job is usually to provide Analog to Digital (A/D) and Digital to Analog (D/A) conversions for sound coming in and out of the computer. You could wrap that all up by saying it is a A/D/A converter. Without these A/D/A converters, you cannot record sound in the digital realm.
As AlChuck already pointed out, cheaper soundcard provide A/D/A conversion, as well as a Wave Synth right on the card. The downfall is they usually don't do either one all that great. Not that it is the worst sound in the world, but certainly not the kind of quality that is normally associated with big time sound production. The A/D/A converters are usually pretty noisy and don't provide very good conversions, and the Wave Synth's are usually pretty limited in the amount of sound they can create.
Now, AlChuck also pointed out that most upper end soundcards don't have Wave Synth's on them, although, he didn't really clarify that too well. Many good quality soundcards have midi In and Out on them, they just don't have a Wave Synth. This is usually because the more descerning user will have a nice keyboard or a tone generator for midi that will supply the sounds they want. Processing the midi information and creating the sounds also takes a little dsp power, and most of these card I suppose would rather let dedicated units handle these functions.
So, you can find a soundcard that has very nice quality A/D/A converters on it, and will allow midi In and Out on it, but you will need some type of Wave Synth to actually create the sounds from the midi information. There are a few options available to you.
One is that you can usually use two soundcards at the same time in your computer, so you could purchase a nicer soundcard to handle the A/D/A conversions, and use your present card for creating eh midi sounds.
The other is that you can get a keyboard or a tone generator, and purchase a nice soundcard with midi I/O to feed the midi to them them record the keyboard/tone generator sound back into the keyboard with your nice soundcard.
The last is you could live with your crappy card which will do both.
You will not find a nicer soundcard that has a Wave Synth on it that I know of. So in a sense, you are either going to get a nice soundcard where you will need to use another option for midi, or have a crappier soundcard that will handle midi tone generation on it. Many are using the two soundcard approach until they can afford a nice tone generator or keyboard.
The rest of the stuff that has been posted on here is helpful and pertinent to your questions, so I won't elaborate on them anymore as this post is long enough already!
Good luck.
Ed
There is a little misunderstanding about what exactly you need here.
Let's talk about midi first.
There reason you are able to hear midi with your current soundcard is because it has a built in tone generator for midi instruments. Midi in itself is just a bunch of Note On and Note Off values, along with some other values such as Volocity (how loud the not should be played) and some other stuff that is of little importance. The point is that you can record all the midi you want, but you need a tone generator to hear it.
These are sometimes called a Wave Synths or whatever. It's job is to take the midi information supplied and create the sound. They usually allow you to define which sound you want to use for the midi part. Blah blah blah.....
You have to have this tone generator to hear midi. Bottom line! There are however programs that will take midi parts and create .wav files of the sound you want.
Now, a soundcards job is usually to provide Analog to Digital (A/D) and Digital to Analog (D/A) conversions for sound coming in and out of the computer. You could wrap that all up by saying it is a A/D/A converter. Without these A/D/A converters, you cannot record sound in the digital realm.
As AlChuck already pointed out, cheaper soundcard provide A/D/A conversion, as well as a Wave Synth right on the card. The downfall is they usually don't do either one all that great. Not that it is the worst sound in the world, but certainly not the kind of quality that is normally associated with big time sound production. The A/D/A converters are usually pretty noisy and don't provide very good conversions, and the Wave Synth's are usually pretty limited in the amount of sound they can create.
Now, AlChuck also pointed out that most upper end soundcards don't have Wave Synth's on them, although, he didn't really clarify that too well. Many good quality soundcards have midi In and Out on them, they just don't have a Wave Synth. This is usually because the more descerning user will have a nice keyboard or a tone generator for midi that will supply the sounds they want. Processing the midi information and creating the sounds also takes a little dsp power, and most of these card I suppose would rather let dedicated units handle these functions.
So, you can find a soundcard that has very nice quality A/D/A converters on it, and will allow midi In and Out on it, but you will need some type of Wave Synth to actually create the sounds from the midi information. There are a few options available to you.
One is that you can usually use two soundcards at the same time in your computer, so you could purchase a nicer soundcard to handle the A/D/A conversions, and use your present card for creating eh midi sounds.
The other is that you can get a keyboard or a tone generator, and purchase a nice soundcard with midi I/O to feed the midi to them them record the keyboard/tone generator sound back into the keyboard with your nice soundcard.
The last is you could live with your crappy card which will do both.
You will not find a nicer soundcard that has a Wave Synth on it that I know of. So in a sense, you are either going to get a nice soundcard where you will need to use another option for midi, or have a crappier soundcard that will handle midi tone generation on it. Many are using the two soundcard approach until they can afford a nice tone generator or keyboard.
The rest of the stuff that has been posted on here is helpful and pertinent to your questions, so I won't elaborate on them anymore as this post is long enough already!
Good luck.
Ed
monkeylove17
New member
about the Mackie, i have no idea if it has post fader track inserts, or post pre-amp track inserts. I don't see anything on the board that says this and my bandmate lost the instruction book. All i see on the board is: a main out, a tape output, 2 aux sends, 2 stereo aux returns, 4 channel inserts (pre-fader/pre EQ) that say tip send/ring return, a right and left alt output, and right and left control room. Anyway can I get a pre-amped signal from any of these?
Thanks
Thanks
dachay2tnr
One Hit Wonder
The "channel inserts" on your board are what Ebony Run was referring to as track inserts. Since the labels you quoted say so, they are obviously pre-fader (meaning your fader will have no control over the level coming out of them going to your sound card). They are also, post-preamp. This means that the signal has been boosted to line level and can therefore be used to feed your sound card.
You'll be wanting to use the inserts as a "send" (i.e., to send the track signal to your sound card). The label on your board is telling you that the "send" signal is on the "tip" of a TRS connection (Tip-Ring-Sleeve). This simply means to take a balanced cable with 1/4" TRS connections and only insert the connection half-way into the channel insert jack (i.e., to the first click).
Use of the channel inserts allows you to send a seperate signal to your sound card for each device (mic) you have plugged into your mixer. This will place each singer/instrument on their own track in your recording software and give you much more flexibility later on than if you had run from the main outs of your board to the sound card (which would just give you a stereo signal of the entire mix).
I believe this is covered in more depth in the mixer manual. More than likely you can download another copy of the manual from Mackie's web site.
You'll be wanting to use the inserts as a "send" (i.e., to send the track signal to your sound card). The label on your board is telling you that the "send" signal is on the "tip" of a TRS connection (Tip-Ring-Sleeve). This simply means to take a balanced cable with 1/4" TRS connections and only insert the connection half-way into the channel insert jack (i.e., to the first click).
Use of the channel inserts allows you to send a seperate signal to your sound card for each device (mic) you have plugged into your mixer. This will place each singer/instrument on their own track in your recording software and give you much more flexibility later on than if you had run from the main outs of your board to the sound card (which would just give you a stereo signal of the entire mix).
I believe this is covered in more depth in the mixer manual. More than likely you can download another copy of the manual from Mackie's web site.
monkeylove17
New member
Cool! Do I just ignore the main out then?
You can use the main out to monitor the sounds you're recording, and the cool thing is, after you set the level with your pre-amp volume knob(usually labeled GAIN ), you can screw with the fader and EQ's all you want and it won't affect your recording.
The crappy part is that since you only have 4 inserts, you can't use this board to pre-amp 8 tracks at once.
Rather than inserting cords half way, you may want to buy insert patches. It is a cord with what looks like a stereo 1/4" plug on one end (TRS), and two mono 1/4" plugs on the other end. You would plug the stereo looking end into your board, and the tip (usually grey in color) into your sound card. The Ring wire(usually red) will just dangle. Tape some paper around the end of it so you don't accidently short your mixing board to something.
The crappy part is that since you only have 4 inserts, you can't use this board to pre-amp 8 tracks at once.
Rather than inserting cords half way, you may want to buy insert patches. It is a cord with what looks like a stereo 1/4" plug on one end (TRS), and two mono 1/4" plugs on the other end. You would plug the stereo looking end into your board, and the tip (usually grey in color) into your sound card. The Ring wire(usually red) will just dangle. Tape some paper around the end of it so you don't accidently short your mixing board to something.