running dual sound cards

  • Thread starter Thread starter Milkman
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Milkman

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Hi All,

I currently use an SB Live Platinum 5.1 with Live Drive.....and would like to keep it for MIDI.

Is it possible to use this, and a prosumer card at the same time, and how could I set this up? (do i need additional software, or is the Windows Mixer enough)?

Specs:

win xp pro
PIII 1GHZ
Maxtor ATA/100 5400 RPM 40 GIG
asus mobo
512 mgs SDRAM
etc.

Thank you and Merry Christmas.
 
Hi

What card are you looking at?
What recording software are you using?
I do it and have no problem my self but I need to know more.
 
Yeah, it can be done easily...its quite common to have one card for Midi/Soundfonts and one for audio.....

once you get past the original installation woes, they run fine together......

no additional software is needed...the new card will have its own software mixer....
 
Just a note....

...a lesson I recently learned (with Skippy's help!) the hard way......

Some software will simply not accept working with multiple soundcards (say, for example, Cubase)..... ie, I couldn't use one card to record from and another for monitoring to without a workaround (which was to patch the digital out of the "recording" card back to the digital in of the "monitoring" card).......

Bruce
 
I'm running an SBLive with an Echo Mia and love it. I'm using the SBLive for MIDI, soundfont stuff and cd-audio... the Mia handles all audio recording and playback. Let me give you a quick rundown of my experience:

I had the SBLive installed, running and configured FIRST. I've heard horror stories of users trying to install the SBLive second and having problems when it tried to grab resources and IRQs as it figures it will be the only card in your system.

I popped the Mia in and installed the drivers during the plug-and-play startup. No problems, came right up. (Always get the most current drivers for any card you get from the company's website tho.... always good practice 'cause the CDs in the box can be way out of date.)

I think of the SBLive as an internal sampler/instrument with the Mia as the primary soundcard. No hookups to the SBLive inputs. The Line-out from the SBLive goes to my mixer, and the outs from my mixer go to the Mia inputs. The outs from the Mia go to my monitor system.

In every audio program that uses MIDI and audio, you'll have to set the global setup or preferences. MIDI out to the SBLive; audio to the other audio card. (I use N-Track Studio, FruityLoops, LogicFun, Cubasis, Melody Asisstant and SoundForge5.... everything works great.)

Since MIDI and CD-audio is set up through the SBLive, I have to make sure my mixer is on to hear them. No big deal. Having both cards working together is well worth it and I was glad I made the decision to keep both of them running in the same PC.
 
I'm running a Sound Blaster card along with a Gadget Labs card with no problems. The Sound Blaster has a Sound Canvas daughterboard, and I have had no problems using it for mIDI, although I very rarely do so. The Sound Blaster itself I use just for games. I'm using Windows 98SE, so long as you pick the proper hardware in Control Panel / Mutimedia and watch for IRQ issues, you can add multiple sound cards - I've heard of one guy runing 4 Turtle Beach cards. In fact Windows treats the Gadget Labs 824 card I own as 4 seperate stereo cards. Although Bruce is quite correct that if your software is cranky, it wont matter if the OS is happy.
 
TimOBrien,

One question I have about your setup -- when you record your MIDI parts to audio, do you use the signal routed out through the mixer and back into the Mia to do it? Or do you use the SB Live to record audio from its own bad self?

I've run across a few people who actually send the SB Live's audio output into the second sound card, and while this works, to me it seems more sensible to just use the SB Live's own internal audio stream and use the SB Live to record the soundfonts to audio.

I think some people assume because the second card is superior, that this is a better way to do it.

But consider -- if you send the MIDI sound out the outputs, they are converted back to analog (using the SB Live's D/A converter, which is probably inferior to the second card's), then sent along a cable, runs through the mixer, and finally through another cable and then converted back to digital by the A/D converter of the second card.

If you record internally from the SB Live's own audio device, there's no cable required, no D/A conversion and redigitizing... so the signal flow is as short and sweet as it can be and it stays in the digital domain.

I think people might think that because the second card has superior converters, they should run it into the second card. But since it's already digitized, there's no conversion going on at all when you record off the SB Live's audio stream.

-AlChuck
 
I do it internally....using NO converters is better than GREAT converters.....
 
AlChuck,

You're right... internally with no conversion is always best. But it's always good to try different ways and see what works best for 'ya.

My point was to make your setup flexible and then you can make your choices and do what'ca want.....

:-)
 
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