SoundBlaster Live AND M-Audio Delta 44 compatible?

[Graymalkin]

I've heard some say the Sound Blaster Live (which comes with the Gateway I'm designing primarily for recording) is sufficient for a soundcard, while others say "trash it". I contacted Cakewalk, and got a good recommendation for the M-Audio Delta 44. While obviously the Delta 44 appears to be designed for recording, there are features (midi, PCI and hardware voices) I like about the Sound Blaster Live. So, my question is, is it possible to use BOTH Sound Blaster and Delta 44 for recording purposes? Any advantages or disadvantages to using both? How to set up, if both are used?

 

[dachay2tnr]

I'm far from an expert here, but I pretty sure you can use both cards. When you initially start Cakewalk (at least Pro Audio 9.0) it will profile any sound devices that your computer has installed (including modems for example). When you wish to record, you tell Cakewalk which device you wish to use as the source for each track. Any device you have installed will be available to be used as a source. I'm not sure if you can use them on the same project, but I would assume you can. You should be able, for example, to designate the SB Live as the source for a midi track(s), while also using the Delta as a source for an audio track(s).

I'm pretty sure you will only be able to playback through one of the sound cards at a time - but you should be able to switch back and forth between the two if you wish.

 

[AlChuck]

Yes, they can work together swimmingly. I have an SB Live and a Delta 66 -- same card as the 44 with the addition of S/PDIF i/o. I use the SB Live for its onboard synth and its capability of using Sound Fonts. I use the Delta for audio recording, and i also have a Midiman MidiSport 2X2 USB MIDI interface, which I had from before. It all works very nicely. The only time I need to use the SB Live's audio is when I record MIDI tracks to audio prior to mixing down to stereo for making a WAV or MP3, and also my CD-RW's audio cable is plugged in to the Live, too -- the Delta doesn't have a connector for this. I'm using them with Cakewalk 9, Sound Forge XP 4.5, and ACID 2.0. You can certainly use both cards in the same project.

As long as you can get them onto there own IRQs, they should work fine.

If you want to know the full horror story of the problems I encountered getting this setup to work right, do a search on this BBS back to about mid-May. But the problems were caused by a flaky UDMA66 controller on my motherboard and when I disabled it and installed a Promise Ultra66 PCI card to replace it, all has worked like a top since.

-AlChuck

 

[Graymalkin]

Thanks!

I thought they could both be used, and for the specific purposes you both mentioned. Thanks for the replies! Just what I needed to know!