SB Live! Platinum?

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sjaguar13

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I have a really sucky Compaq with an ESS Allegro sound card. It doesn't even have a line in port. I want to make a really good computer and start my little studio, and maybe even record a few other local bands, but I'm having financial problems right now. I have a few demos I want to make. I don't have a real drummer, so I was going to use the SB's SoundFonts. I already have the one I want to use. Can it record my guitar well? It doesn't have to be perfect, but better than the mic input on my current card. The other problem I have is, my bays are all full. I can't use that front panel interface. Is that going to mess it up, or is it just optional?
 
You don't need the front panel interface.

The Platinum is the exact same card as the other SBLive cards, except it has the front panel. Use any of them and just plug into the Line-in port.

You WILL need a preamp or small mixer with mic preamps. The standard guitar setup is to put a Shure SM-57 up against the amp's grill, run the cable to a preamp or mixer and then run to the line-in of the soundcard. There have been tons of articles in Recording, Electronic Musician, Sound-on-Sound, Home Recording magazine, etc. on how to record guitars.
 
So I can get any SB Live! card, like a cheaper one? I want to get the Delta 1010, but I just something now that can handle my guitar and SoundFonts until I get a good computer. As for the preamp, I have the Line6 POD, will that work?
 
The POD will work great for guitars or other line-level signals, but it's not a mic preamp.
 
So I can geot a cheap SB Live! card and use the POD to record my guitar? These are just for scratch tracks, so the band can hear what the song is supposed to sound like.
 
I was under the impression that the X-GAMER, MP3+, AUDIGY PLATINUM AND AUDIGY PLATINUM EX (all of which have the AUDIGY cards) were all the same card but not the same as the SB LIVE! card...because of the 24 bit with AUDIGY cards and 16 bit with the SB LIVE! cards....is this wrong?


MM25
 
Sound-on-Sound did a very revealing review of the Audigy at the beginning of the year... you may be able to find it on their website by now.

They found out that while the Audigy created 24-bit files, the bits above the 16-bit level were all ZEROs (basically, it's faking a 24-bit file with 16-bit info.... therefore it's really only records 16-bit.) They also found serious read/write problems with the Firewire interface.

The Audigy only >plays back< 24-bit files. Beware of Creative's marketing hype. Unless you have a need for the MIDI synth or Soundfonts, consider getting a $150-$200 true 24-bit card instead.
 
So until I get a better set up (Delta 1010...I just gotta collect those bottles for the $.10)...I could just put in a SB LIVE!?..and I thought that it had MIDI and Soundfonts on it.....?

MM25
 
MusicMan25 said:
So until I get a better set up (Delta 1010...I just gotta collect those bottles for the $.10)...I could just put in a SB LIVE!?..and I thought that it had MIDI and Soundfonts on it.....?

MM25
Click to expand...


That's what I'm going to do. Get the Live! card until I get enough for the Delta 1010. It better have SoundFonts, that's the main reason I'm getting it. I would use the line in port for my guitar, right? What is S/PDIF In?
 
Rest assured, the Live! card does have a Sound Font-capable synth and a MIDI interface on board. It will not give you "professional" results but it will sound just fine for the purposes you describe, way better than a cassette multitracker and way more than adequate.

Yes, you would use the line in for the output of the POD. You should get yourself a cable that has two 1/4" plugs on one side and a single stereo 1/8" minijack on the other to get the POD's output into the Line In.
 
GOOD NEWS! I'm the proud new owner of a SB Live! card. Bad news, I can't get it to work. My on-board audio card is still the active one. Anyone know how to make it the SB Live!?
 
I too have an onboard ESS Allegro sound card...(its a piece for sure)...anyway...I believe the problem you are having has to do with the device drivers and something to do with disabling it in the BIOS...consult you computer manufacturers tech line and explain the situation...Im sure they d be able to help...


MM25
 
Which one did you get...?...I think I'm going to get the SB Live! 5.1....any thoughts?....or should I get another one?

MM25
 
There is probably an IRQ or driver conflict with your cards. Completely uninstall the old piece of crap and the new piece of crap will probably work fine ;)
 
Hey now...its the only piece of crap I can afford until I can get a better piece of s*it..so play nice Tex!...lol

MM25
 
After downloading drivers which turned out to be the wrong ones, call Compaq tech support to turn of onboard audio, talking to SB support, and downloading drivers in another language, I finally got the sound card working! I had one hell of a time getting Cakewalk to make the SoundFonts menu to turn black, but I finally figured it out. There's only one problem left. The soundfont is 26mb and Cakewalk doesn't like it. It locks up when I try to attach it. Is there another way I can get this into Cakewalk, a way I can split it up so it isn't so big, or what should I do? I tried different, smaller soundfonts and they all work, but this one doesn't. I tried waiting, thinking it was working at it, but soon everything stops working like IE, and when I hit ctrl + alt + del, it shows Cakewalk not responding, as soon as I end that task, everything else starts working again. Any suggestions?
 
Are you using the Allegro on-board sound? I didn't think that could support Sound Fonts at all.

Anyway, I suppose you could open your large Sound Font in Vienna Studio and make it into a smaller Sound Font... but I suspect your problem is that you haven't allocated enough memory to Sound Font storage. However, as I said before, I didn't think the Allegro chip could support Sound Fonts at all, and if there's a way to adjust the amount of system RAM it can use for Sound Fonts, I have no idea how.
 
Go to your control panel, open AudioHQ, then open SoundFont.
Click on the Options tab, and you can adjust the memory allocated to soundfonts. How much depends on the amount of system RAM you have. You can use half of the total.

Unless your system only has 64 meg of RAM, you should be good to go.
 
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