sound cards

[sully]

Here's a newbie question.

I'm a 414 Porta-studioite who finally got a computer(I know,welcome to the 90's).
I know nothing about sound cards.Are the price differences related to the quality of the A/D converters?Are there any cheap ones that are worthy?

 

[Gidge]

Price will definitely reflect quality in most cases....as far as worthy, it depends on how good of results youd like....project studio quality, demo quality, pro quality....Starting around $150 you can get a Delta Audiophile 24bit/96khz card....only downfalls are unbalanced inputs and only stereo input and output....the quality of the converters are very good....if you need more inputs, the Delta 44 goes for around $220, with 4 inputs/outputs.....a step up in quality of Converters would be the LynxOne, which has similiar features are far as inputs to the Audiophile, but has balanced inputs, and goes for approx $450.....

So, it really depends on how much you want to spend and what results you are after...Ive heard very good stuff done on $30 sound cards.....

 

[sully]

Thanks,Gidge

I'm looking for demo quality,but only as a song writer(the demands are slightly less than for an artist)and for personal distribution.Unless/until it starts producing revenue(or I win the lottery),I'm on a real budget.The $30 range sounds real attractive,about now.I'm guessing that the sound cards generally sold with smaller computers are not very useful for music production,although I haven't tried connecting my outs to the mic port on this one yet.I am also shopping for low-end music-production software.Any suggestions?

 

[Gidge]

Hey you can get some decent quality (not very good, but decent) out of the sound cards that come with the computer these days....by the way, what are the specs on the computer youll be using?....As far as software, N-Track from www.fasoft.com would be perfect and Goldwave from www.goldwave.com as a sound editor (to clean up and edit tracks) would be a perfect combo.....N-Track will hit you for $39 but you can download the shareware version to play with...Goldwave is free (my kind of price)...if I were you Id download those and start playing around....also, dont use the mic port...use the line in port....which brings me to the next question....what instruments are you recording and do you have any type of preamps?....

 

[sully]

This one is 133mhz/24mgs-ram(don't laugh,it was free).A better one is coming soon.
I'm currently recording electric and acoustic guitar,vocals and midi keyboard with the 414's preamp,or the preamp out on 40w guitar amp.Playin' around with the levels,eq,Nanocomp and a multi-effects stomp box,I get results that are adequate for those who hear it(for free),but I'm ready get semi-digital,so I can do some non-destructive editing.Where can I download the stuff you mentioned?

 

[Gidge]

Just click on the links....

www.fasoft.com
www.goldwave.com

Im not sure how many tracks you'll get out of that machine, but the only way to find out it to try it out....

You can still use the preamps on the 4 track......

Or am I understanding that you want to keep recording on the 4 track and edit individual tracks? or the mix?...

 

[sully]

Digtizing is my ultimate goal.I want to see what I can do prior to buying a digital recorder.All I want is non-destructive editing and CD quality w/o tape hiss.It sounds like with a decent sound card,preamp and the right software,I could line-out into the computer and bypass tape completely.The 414 does pretty well,but bouncing 8,12 or more tracks into 4 means a lot of bridges burned and a lot of "I wish I hadn't done that"s.There may still be some of that at mixdown,but I can live with it.