Sound Card AND Interface?

N

nickporter

New member
Hey, as a continuation to my other thread... I'm looking to start recording directly to my PC. I've got Audacity set up, but do I need a new sound card AND a new audio interface to make it sound decent? My budget isn't huge as this is purely a recreational pursuit, so if it's possible to trim costs I'd definitely like to.
 
You will see the terms "sound card" and "interface" used synonymously, and I suppose on some level they are.

But I, and a lot of others, think of "sound card" as the cheesy "beeps and bleeps" thing that comes in your computer, while we think of an "interface" as something used to give more-or-less high quality recording.

In general, you may be able to use your computer's sound card to record with Audacity, but I hope you won't be satisfied with the quality...:)

Typically, an interface may include preamps, or it may be built into a mixer.

I recently bought one of these for just goofing with my laptop when I don't feel like going down to my studio...

Buy Alesis MultiMix 4 USB Compact Mixer | Unpowered Mixers | Musician's Friend

I've been pleased with the results.

You can find cheaper and/or better interfaces, but that is the only low-end unit I'm familiar with enough to recommend; some of the other folks here may have other suggestions...
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply. The Alesis looks nice and is definitely cheaper than the M Audio one I was looking at.

Another newb question: impedance. I'd like to be able to record simultaneously a guitar, bass, and vocals on separate tracks. The Alesis has only one "high impedance" channel, and the others are "line" channels. I've been trying to read about the difference but I'm getting kind of lost. Will the quality of an instrument plugged into the "line" suffer compared to one plugged into a high impedance line?

Thanks,
Nick
 
when i hear audio interface i think of ones like m-audio fast track that connect via usb or firewire but in the case of soundcards i think of pci cards(can be high quality or low) My opinion
 
If you want to record 3 sources at one time (guitar, bass vocal), you are going to need a device with at least 3 output channels. The Alesis is 2, I believe.
 
mjbphotos said:
If you want to record 3 sources at one time (guitar, bass vocal), you are going to need a device with at least 3 output channels. The Alesis is 2, I believe.
Click to expand...

According to the link listed above, the Alesis is a "Four-channel mixer with USB stereo input and output". Will that be what I'm looking for? According to the specs, both lines 1 and 2 are High-Impedance (10k Ω), which would allow for guitar and bass and the XLR slots would be for my mics. Am I understanding this correctly?
 
mjbphotos said:
If you want to record 3 sources at one time (guitar, bass vocal), you are going to need a device with at least 3 output channels. The Alesis is 2, I believe.
Click to expand...

What???

If you want to record three sources you need three INPUTS.

You can sum the inputs to a mono output in your DAW if that's what you want.
 
c7sus said:
What???

If you want to record three sources you need three INPUTS.

You can sum the inputs to a mono output in your DAW if that's what you want.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification. To make sure I have it right, "You can sum the inputs to a mono output" refers to combining the tracks in my DAW (in my case, Audacity since free = good) from the multitrack inputs?
 
One last question-- four channel DOES refer to four inputs, right? Meaning that I COULD record guitar, bass, and vocals to it simultaneously? I'm 99% on this but I'd hate to make a stupid mistake.
 
c7sus said:
What???

If you want to record three sources you need three INPUTS.

You can sum the inputs to a mono output in your DAW if that's what you want.
Click to expand...

Well, duh, you could just 'Y' them together, but if you want to record them on separate tracks, you need separate inputs and outputs for each.
 
You can have four inputs into the mixer (2 mic, 2 line/instrument) but only two outputs at once via USB. For example you could pan your vocal hard left and the guitar/bass both hard right but you would NOT be able to separate the guitar and bass later in the mix...you'd be stuck with the mix you recorded.

If you really want 3 separate and simultaneous inputs you'll need to find an interface with more facilities.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top