Recording: Behringer UCA-202 or Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX or Live! 24-bit?

[Fnordisom]

Hello everyone!

Short: Which one of the following should i use for best recording results, Behringer UCA-202, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX (SB0300) or Live! 24-bit? (SB0490)?

Full story: We are getting married soon and our friends will be playing some quality folk music for us, so this is going to be "one of" or rather "once in a lifetime" performance which demands to be recorded in a quality format for future reproduction, maybe a 24/96 DVD-Audio on the last page of photo album... Anyhow, i have all these three lying around the house and i can't find enough info to decide which one to use. Everything will be hooked up to Yamaha MG16 mixer and i will have a pair RCA Rec outputs available for capturing. Material will be mainly various flutes, guitars and voices. Also, Audacity - will do?.. Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

 

[Fnordisom]

Anyone?..

 

[mjbphotos]

I'm not one to recommend Behringer devices, but Soundblaster stuff is not made for music - it is for sound effects, videos, etc. so your best bet is probably the UCA202.

 

[RonE]

I've used a UCA-222 (the pink version of the 202), and can only say that it works fine as long as you don't need to see or control much. If you're comfortable setting levels on your mixer and PC, the Behringer will work okay. Keep in mind that the computer will likely see that interface as a 'microphone', and by default assign WAY too much gain. You'll have to go into the device manager settings and pull the level back (to something like 10% or less) to avoid clipping and noise.

I agree with the comment about the SoundBlaster stuff. Just been through that whole exercise myself.