Multifaceted Soundcard....Audiophile?

[GregS]

Hello all,

After reading the many posts regarding soundcards I'm more confused about what I should get. I would really appreciate any help or advice. Here are my needs

I'm looking for a soundcard that can do the following:

1. Accept a MIDI digital piano for entering music into notation software. Do I need a MIDI synth for this? What is a soft synth and do i need it?

3. Hook it up to my stereo system for playback.

2. Ablilty to transfer music from my minidisc and then burn to CD.

3. Ability to record directly to hard drive. I have a Audio Technica 822 Stero mic that i use for live recording to my minidisc. Can i use this? I play saxophone. Do i just plug it into the sound card and record away? Do i need a preamp?

4. I would like the ability to play a track and record myself at the same time, but may be willing to forego that feature for price considerations.

5. I'm willing to spend about $300 dollars or so.

6. I'm looking at the Audiophile 2496. Is this the way to go?

Thanks so much for any advice at all

Greg

 

[AlChuck]

I'm looking for a soundcard that can do the following:

1. Accept a MIDI digital piano for entering music into notation software. Do I need a MIDI synth for this? What is a soft synth and do i need it?

Well, not necessarily, if the digital piano has its own sounds.

A softsynth is a synthesizer that is impelmented by software running on your coumputer and using the audio hardware for output as contrasted to one implemented with dedicated chips and circuitry.

3. Hook it up to my stereo system for playback.

2. Ablilty to transfer music from my minidisc and then burn to CD.

3. Ability to record directly to hard drive.

Any card can do this. But the minidisk recordere probably has an S/PDIF digital port, so it would be nice if you had S/PDIF on your soundcard so you can keep the data in the digital domain.

I have a Audio Technica 822 Stero mic that i use for live recording to my minidisc. Can i use this? I play saxophone. Do i just plug it into the sound card and record away? Do i need a preamp?

You can use the minidisk as a preamp. Otherwise, you need a preamp somewhere in the chain. Some soundcards have built-in preamps (M Audio OMNI Studio, Echo Mona, Aardvark DirectPro...)

4. I would like the ability to play a track and record myself at the same time, but may be willing to forego that feature for price considerations.

This is called full duplex capability, and you would have to try really hard to find a soundcard nowadays that does not have this capability, so it's not an issue.

5. I'm willing to spend about $300 dollars or so.

6. I'm looking at the Audiophile 2496. Is this the way to go?

The Audiophile is very similar to the card I have (Delta 66) and I've headr a lot of good things. It does not have preamps, but it does have S/PDIF, so you could probably use the mic you have into the minidisk recorder as a preamp for a start. But you'll want a "real" mic if you get serious. It also has a MIDI interface, so if your digital piano has sounds, you can hook it up and record your performance data as MIDI and play it back to trigger the keyboard's onboard sounds. But it does not have an onboard MIDI synth.