Sound/Midi Cards

[magoo]

Trying to find the right setup to combine my new 890 with my computer. Have tried to get advise from VS Planet, but they are not accepting any new membership at this time.

Need to find the right Midi & Sound cards to match the two units up. The diagram in the Roland Owners Manual makes it look like they are 2 seperate cards needed. 1 Midi interface card & 2 Sound card. It also refers to special cables, either coaxial or optical for the digital in/out ports. I have alot of other equipt to buy and don't have an extreme amount of money to invest in these items, but want resonable quality out of the combination.

Questions:
Are they seperate cards or do they come as one?
What is the best card(s) to use?
What type of sound card cable is best? (coaxial or optical)
Is the Midi driver an additional piece of hardware or in software?

Thanks for any help in advance,

Magoo

 

[MOFO Pro]

Email the administrator with a request to join, and he should get back to you within a day or so (it worked for me).

 

[tntkemp]

For me the optimum configuration was the Dakota card. It has 2 midi ports plus dual ADAT I/O (8 ins and outs each)....plus S/PDIF i/o, which the Roland VS's use. I have a Roland VS-840ex that I use with it and Sonar under Windows 98 second addition. The nice thing here, with everything on one card, is that they all run off of the same clock, so locking midi, ADAT and S/PDIF together is extremely precise. Best of all these cards cost only $399. Try http://www.studiocat.com.

However, if you don't have a digital mixer or other kind of external A/D and D/A converters, you will have to find another solution, or buy the mixer or converters as well. The other option that comes to mind is perhaps less expensive than buying a Dakota and a Digital Mixer is buying an Echo Layla for around $799. That includes analog ins and outs, headphone out with volume control for personal monitoring plus a midi port and single ADAT I/O.

I have absolutely no problems transferring tracks from my VS-840 into Sonar. It only is capable of transferring two tracks at a time, but it uses the midi I/O to sync with Sonar using MTC. It was virtually painless...worked the first try...and me with no previous experience with Midi sync!

Tom Kemp

Trying to find the right setup to combine my new 890 with my computer. Have tried to get advise from VS Planet, but they are not accepting any new membership at this time.

Need to find the right Midi & Sound cards to match the two units up. The diagram in the Roland Owners Manual makes it look like they are 2 seperate cards needed. 1 Midi interface card & 2 Sound card. It also refers to special cables, either coaxial or optical for the digital in/out ports. I have alot of other equipt to buy and don't have an extreme amount of money to invest in these items, but want resonable quality out of the combination.

Questions:
Are they seperate cards or do they come as one?
What is the best card(s) to use?
What type of sound card cable is best? (coaxial or optical)
Is the Midi driver an additional piece of hardware or in software?

Thanks for any help in advance,

Magoo

 

[magoo]

Midi/sound card

Thanks MoFo for letting in on how to get registered on VS Planet. Your Idea worked like a charm.

And you TNT, great info. I was hopeing to get out of this stage a little cheaper, but I also want some quality out of this stage. You spoke of a converter or mixer. Any suggestions on names and what you think they might cost. The Dakota card is one I'm going to look up. Thanks for the web site address.

Thanks for all your info,

Magoo

 

[tntkemp]

More info on the Dakota at http://www.frontierdesign.com

I have read a bit here and on Cakewalk's newsgroup (www.cakewalk.com) about a digital mixer from Teac. I use one from Fostex called the VM200. It has 20-bit A/D and D/A converters, whereas the Dakota and most current computer pro audio cards are capable of up to 24-bit. I can't hear the difference, myself, and most can't. These mixers can be hard to find, because they are discontinued now. There is also a lower model from Fostex called the VM88. I think that it is capable of alot, but the VM200 includes eight 1/4" inputs, 4 XLR inputs, ADAT I/O, S/PDIF I/O and Midi I/O, plus motorized sliders. That makes it very compatible with the Frontier Design Group's Dakota and the WaveCenter/PCI, as well as the Echo Gina 24 and Layla 24.

Frontier Design Group markets their Tango 24 for A/D and D/A external converters, but they are very proud of that product cost wise. It's too expensive in my book.

To save money, go for the good stuff such as what I listed above, but try eBay for them. You can often get great deals on used stuff.

Hope this helps. I'm sure that others have less expensive solutions that work for them. I'm surprised that nobody is speaking up on this subject. you might try posting the same question on the Cakewalk newsgroup, even if you're not using Pro Audio or Sonar.

Tom Kemp