My Soundblaster Live Soundcard

[Natek53]

I've recently been doing a bunch of research on home recording, because our band is planning on recording some of our music. We're trying to keep costs as low as possible. I'll be buying a mixer at some point in the near future, and possibly a few more mics. I have Cakewalk Pro, one mic, and a 700mHZ computer with a 20 Gig hard drive.

My question is about the Soundcard on my computer. I currently have a Soundblaster Live (Xgamer or soemthing but I don't think that matters). It seems that people here are disgusted with Creative, and are completely against using Soublaster cards, but my question is this. Will I be able to record anything with my soundblaster? I think it has 1 line-in and 3 line-outs. I ask this, because I've heard people here talk about using their soundblasters to record, but when I talked to the Pro Audio guy at guitar center he said that there was no way that it would work. He told me that the Mackie mixer that I was looking at had a left channel out and a right channel out, which would require me to have at least two inputs. Then he tried to sell me a $600 soundcard. Is he just giving me a pitch, or is it true that i need a card with at least two inputs? If there are other mixers that would work with my soundcard, could anyone suggest any?

Finnaly, from what I hear soundblasters are crap for home recording. If we decide we want to start seriously recording stuff, I will probabaly buy a new card at somepoint (or immediatly if you tell me that my soundblaster wont work at all). Can anyone suggest any low priced cards that are somewhat decent? Thanks a lot.

Nathan

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Think about it. A stereo line input has a LEFT side and a RIGHT side, hence it is two channels!

Your soundblaster will work for two channel recording. It will sound ok; it's definately a usable card.

More expensive cards provide better sound quality, more I/O, and better connectivity. For instance a Delta 44 ($230) will get you 4 ins and outs via balanced 1/4" TRS connectors in a breakout box on a 6' cable. Plus the sound quality is considerably better...but until you actually hear the difference your soundblaster will work.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[housepig]

The problem with SB cards is not that you can't get a stereo signal into them (you can).

The main problems are:

- most of them don't have adequate in-out jacks for pro audio (most have an 1/8 inch stereo jack, which you have to adapt down to, and adding adapters degrades your signal)

- their analog to digital converters aren't very good (most cards optimized for pro audio have much better [and more expensive] a-to-d converters)

- thier drivers and software aren't well written or well updated. This becomes a problem because SB cards are resource hogs, and they take away from your computer's ability to do the processing of multiple audio signals.

Basically, you can get signal into them. Due to latency problems, I don't know how well you can record something while playing something else back (overdubbing). And when you start to crunch hard numbers, you may find yourself with glitches and dropouts as the SB sucks resources and clock cycles from your machine.

I would suggest checking out stuff from Echo Audio - the Gina and Layla cards are good, solid, built for pro audio, and can be found on eBay at a good price used.

For mp3's, gaming, streaming audio... SB is okay. For multitrack, serious audio work, get something else that's serious.

good luck.

- Housepig

 

[Natek53]

most of them don't have adequate in-out jacks for pro audio (most have an 1/8 inch stereo jack, which you have to adapt down to, and adding adapters degrades your signal.

What is an "adequate" in-out jack size. My Soundblaster does have 1/8 inch jakes, but what is the standard, or what would i find on these pro audio cards? Also, what cables and adapters would I need to hook my mixer up to my soundcard's 1/8 inch input, and would I just buy these at Radio Shack? Thanks.

Nathan

 

[housepig]

pro audio jack size should be 1/4 inch or RCA jacks, or XLR (microphone) jacks.

I would suggest going to Guitar Center and getting (at the minimum) Hosa audio cables rather than Radio Shack. You should be able to find just about any combination of plugs you need.

good luck.

- housepig

 

[DougC]

Fellow SBLive user's opinions:
-Beyond needing adaptors, the small input jacks aren't the problem: the adaptors don't mess up the sound quality to any extent you'll be able to hear.
-SBLives aren't the best audio quality cards, but they certainly aren't the worst either. They sound far better than a cassette tape, which is the low-end of most ordinary people's standard of reference. It's a good cheap card for doing simple home recording. (-There's two ways to go about this: spend lots of money buying your own equipment to try to get perfection at home, or spend the money on studio time and actually get perfection. If you want a perfect recording, you're way better off renting a studio and engineer than you are buying a $600 soundcard for your home PC.)
-SBLive's can be used to monitor while recording, even while monitoring already-existing material. There is no lag in this use, I do it all the time.
-The job that SBLive's are best at is playing MIDI/soundfonts. All EMU/Creative cards are really, but the SBL is the cheapest of the bunch. It has no lag, even while playing huge amounts of soundfonts (depending on your PC's ram). I can run 150 megs+ of soundfonts on a 256meg machine with no problems.
-What causes lots of lag is using softsynths, or running real-time effects on recording. To an extent, you'll get that with any card though.
-Radio Shack is great if you need something in a pinch, but avoid them if you can: they tend to be overpriced.

 

[blipndub]

Ditto to above post.

I've had projects with 20 tracks and never have had trouble tracking while playing all back.

I run an RCA to 1/8" Hosa cable from my mixer into the SBL and have no problems with stereo signals.

The only thing I really hate about SBLive are the preset environmental audio settings, i have to turn them all off everytime i start recording, or it's set to like "Play Unreal Tournement" or something (it's just reverb, but still a pain)

 

[djc]

I've been using the SB Live Value for 3 years with no problems. I think it sounds pretty good although I'm not doing anything of a serious nature. It's just a hobby for me. As far as environmental audio settings, mine remembers the last setting. If I turn EA off, it's off the next time I start the computer. I like the SB Live cause it's cheap, and I can use sound fonts. I have recently bought the Audiophile 2496 card and have it installed too. I'm trying to get off the sound fonts and start using real guitar, bass and sampled drums ALA Sonar and DR-008. Anyway the point is, like others have said, if your just starting out, and don't need the best pro sound, the SB Live is a good card to start with. (Approx. $30 on the Net) Later on, you can get a better one.