Sound Card Dilemma

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lookout

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I'm a keyboard player that is looking at getting into digital recording. My main hangup now is on what soundcard to get. I've been tossed up between three. I'll list them in order of current preference. Delta 66 w/ Omni I/O interface. Aark24/96. Layla24. Quality-wise, I've heard good things about all three. I'm leaning towards the Delta right now because it appears to have the most flexibility when using the Omni I/O interface. I'm planning on getting a USB MIDI port as well. At the current time, I'm going to bypass getting a mixer. Most of my recording will be a mixture of MIDI and audio recording. I will probably not need more than four inputs at once for now. When I need more, I can get a mixer. I'm also planning on using Cakewalk Pro Suite and Gigasampler ($150 upgrade from old PA6), so that rules out MOTU and Lexicon Core since they, as far as I've heard, won't work with Gigasampler. I'm primarily curious to get input on the above three soundcards, especially those that have used them with Cakewalk. I'd appreciate any input. I hope to buy one of them before month's end. Thanks for your help.
 
I have the Delta 66, with an outboard mixer feeding into two of the four channels and a POD plugged into the other two. I love the Delta -- no problems at all.
 
delta has no mic preamps

i was leaning towards the delta 66 (actually more towards the 1010 for the added I/O - can anyone answer if these are equal otherwise - in other words, did the 1010 sacrafice any performance of the delta 66 to accomodate the extra I/O?) - anyway what put me off the deltas was that they have no mic preamps and i'll need these. so now im looking at the digi001 (has 2 of 8 analog inputs with mic preamps) - or the aardvark 24/96 (has 4 analog inputs with mic preamps).

maybe u already have the mic preamps covered in other gear. just thought i'd mention that though. (ppl let me know if im off base here - thanx)
 
gbvgbv,

The Delta 1010 has a couple of other advantages besides the 4 additional analog jacks. For one, the A/D and D/A happens in the rack box rather than on the PC card. It also includes a MIDI interface and a Word Clock port for synching with other digital gear.

lookout was considering the Delta with the addition of the new Omni I/0 box that gives it mic preamps. The ones you mentioned are good boxes too, but I'm pretty sure the Aardvark unit you mean is the Aardvark DirectPro. They have another model with just line inputs with a name similar to the one you quoted. They also have just released or are just about to release some new products in the DirectPro line -- one with a rack box and more I/O, and one cheaper model (no preamps but with the DSP).

-AlChuck
 
thanks for the good info, al - hey, i'm even beginning to understand this stuff (beginning to).

the 1010 sounds worth it, if for nothing else, having the converters in a rack box instead of on the card - i've heard this really cuts down on noise.

thanks for pointing out that the Omni I/O interface gives the deltas the preamps - i'll take a closer look cuz i've heard nothing but good things about the deltas.

yeah, yer prob right about the Aardvark being the DirectPro config - again i'll take a closer look.

ppl - u wanna get into this stuff? this bulletin board is the WAY to go!!!!!!!!!
 
lookout, AlChuck or somebody, where can I find info on this Omni I/0 preamp box? I havent heard of it before and it may be of some help to me. Thanks!
 
You can go to the following link: http://www.midiman.com. Go into the MAudio section and you should find info on the Omni I/O or the Omni Studio package (Omni I/O and Delta 66). I've gotten it and it works pretty well. I'm using Cakewalk and am having a little trouble getting all four channels in. It could just be that I'm new at this though. I'm just getting into recording, so I'm having to learn a bit.
 
yo, you're crazy. Has anybody checked the signal to noise ratio on the layla 24? The layla has way better a/d converters and it has midi in, out & thru so you'll save $50 you would have spent on that USB connection. And I learned my lesson about midiman mic preamps, they're cold as shit (I returned my OMNI). If ya get a tube preamp and that Layla, which comes with a headphone output also, you'll save money and have way better sound. PEACE
 
thanks atomic - another life-saver tip (maybe?)

well, then it looks like its boiled down to the aardvark direct pro 24/96 (unless u know of something i should know about this one too - lol).

so here's a summary of my sound card investigation:

digi001 - $800 - outputs not balanced, inputs not 24 bit(?)

delta66/omni - $700 - preamps "cold as shit"

delta 1010 - $600 - no preamps (?)

layla 24 - $1000 - too expensive (how do u say this saves money over the omni???)

motu 1224 - $1100 - too expensive (but nobody seems to say anything bad about this one)

aardvark direct pro 24/96 - $500 (least expensive, best sound?, best preamps? = no brainer????)

am i missing anything here?
 
you're almost right. i don't believe the layla has preamps though. maybe youalready know, maybe not ey?

the aardvark gets great reviews soooooo if you need 4i/o i would buy the aardvark (it's a bit expensive though...)

IMHO;)

greetz guhlenn
 
A this point, I can't say anything definitive about the Omni pre-amps because I'm new to recording. However, $700 is not an accurate price. I got the Delta 66 with Omni I/O for $459. I wish I could give more of a technical yes or no, but I haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet. I hope it does a decent job though. I had heard good things about Delta 66. The Omni is still pretty new. If nothing else, I'll get an outboard mixer with some good preamps. I need to get one sooner or later anyway.
 
thanx for the comments everyone

guhleen - yeah, atomic mentions that u need to add preamps to layla also (and i didnt even add this to the cost - so again, i wonder why he said it was cheaper than delta/omni). i'm curious too about your comment that the Aard direct pro is "a bit expensive" - do u mean for getting only 4 inputs?

elle - thanx for the tip - every dime saved can go into some other stuff.

lookout - i'm as newbie as they come, haha, so i dont know - maybe "cold as shit" is good - lol (but i dont think thats what he meant). and yeah, yer rite - i got the price wrong somehow - looking at my notes again, i see that i can get the delta66/omni package for $400. so i guess that makes it the least expensive one (damn - there are no "no brainers" here - haha).

from what i can tell, however, the preamps seem to be better in the aard (it sounds like u have an alternative with the outboard if "cold as shit" is as bad as it sounds) - im trying to avoid any outboard gear at all - wondering if that's wise....
 
Sorry guys. I thought yall meant the Delta 10/10. In that case it would be cheaper. The omni is just a mic preamp and mixer for your headphones and speaker. I just bought a Gina 24($355) and a tube preamp($150). The gina24 has the same converters as the layla24. It has a headphone output and I just run 2 of the outputs straight to my amp until I can afford a Mackie 1604. Then when I get my mixer I can record 4 channels at a time and mix 8. And in Vegas I can subgroup channels so I'll be able to mix even more. As for the Aardvark card, I have no comment cause I've never used one. Check out EBAY for the card you want, you can buy it new from a dealer and save at least $50. Yo gbvgbv, outboard gear is definitely not a bad thing. PEACE
 
Aardvark

I own the direct pro - It sounds very nice - -works well - It has midi in and out, spdif in, phantom power on all inputs - nice to have it all in the box.

lD
 
I just went through this same thing, and had decided on the Delta 66 w/ Omni in order to have some more flexibility in my setup. I don't need the extra pre's, but it offered more routing options.

I got the Delta and installed it, and apparantly there are some issues with my motherboard/cpu setup. I have a K6-3 that I have been trying to milk for a while longer, with an Epox mb with the VIA MVP3 chipset. The Delta won't have any of it - coughing and popping and spitting when ANY sound is played. The Midiman Tech Support were helpful, but we finally decided it just wasn't going to work, no matter what we tried. He also said they have some issues w/ a lot of the Athlon motherboards. Just something to be aware of. (It would have been nice if they said all of this on their website for when I was researching.

I had gotten the Omni package for $395 from Bayview Pro Audio, who beat the Guitar Center sale price of $400. Anyone considering it may want to call them up and haggle with them, as they will probably do it again.

Anyway, after e-mailing Aardvark tech support and getting the reply that it is probably going to work, I RMA'd the Omni package and I'm waiting for my new Aardvark Direct Pro LX6. Bayview waived the restock fee for oredering through them again. I don't need the pre's, so I went with the LX6 instead of the 24/96.

I'll let ya know how it works out. I had narrowed it down to these two before anyway, so if it works out ok, I am not going to be upset about it.
 
I hate being such a damn critic, nuthin' against yall, I just hate midiman/maudio products. The reason they use the name M Audio now is cause their products sucked so they wanted to come out with a new name. I bought a digi soundcard from them for $200 and it didn't work. I bought the audio buddy and omni and hated them both. But I think its cause I'm used to being in pro analog studios.
 
well, i think i've come to a conclusion for myself.

i stumbled onto two very good sites:

http://www.pcrecording.com

which links to

http://www.pcavtech.com

(sorry, i dont know how to put those in here as links)

anyway, these sites have comparison tables and hard data on all the major cards we have been talking about. the pcavtech site is actually a testing site and they have reams of technical test data on all these cards.

in their final summary, they ranked aardavark direct pro 24/96 as the #1 best, followed by Darla/Gina/Layla, and Digital Audio Labs.

so, i'm sold, esp since i was leaning towards the Aardavark already and esp after the last couple of posts to this thread.

so - hurray! - i'm on my way

i plan to get the computer i need for around $1600
direct pro 24/96 for around $500
n-track software for about $50
reason software synth for about $300

all together for under $2500, i think this will be a killer system.

thanks for all the help everyone - check out those sites - they cut alot of confusion out of it for me. i'm ready to rock!!!!!
 
lol - well i guess this put those up as links automatically - so there u go.

dragon - this BBS is da bomb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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