Soundcard Driver Limitations?

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r1dg3d

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Hello,
Been having a question rolling around in my mind for quite some time and I've come to a few of my own conclusions, just figured I'd get more input. Thanks

Some soundcards have the ability to hear yourself when recording in real time, others just cant do it. The laptop I'm using for recording is one that cannot and recording vocals is almost impossible w/ out hearing myself.

Why is this? I've decided its simply driver limitations or a crappy effort on the coders side. If a soundcard is fullduplex shouldnt it be able to do this easily?

Welp, what do you all think. :)
 
its all in sound card design.
if you want to hear yourself properly you MUST get the right equipment.
laptop soundcards are very poor for recording and mainly for windows beeps in office packages. also laptops have, untill the advent in the last year of powerfull processors been woefully underpowered for dealing with audio streams particularly for folks wanting high track and plug in counts.
if you pst your recording chain (eg what mixer you have), and your laptop specs i'll make some suggestions to make your life easier so you can hear yourself unless your laptop is quite old.
peace.
 
Would a decent PCMCIA sound card help? The Echo cards sound pretty fine based on reviews.. Also, Creative Labs' Audigy 2 ZS Notebook is claimed to help out with lapotop sound problems.. Any comments on those products?

Taavi :cool:
 
manning:

It is a 3.2ghz P4 / 512 ddr / 64mb Nvidia FX / Dell Inspiron 5150

it's using a SigmaTel C-Major Audio onboard. Sigmatel is just a chipset designer so it's pretty crappy, but gets the job done for the majority of stuff. Was thinking of going with a usb Audigy Platinum or Audigy 2, would that allow me to hear myself w/ real time effects "slighty echo or reverb, ect" ?
 
r1dg etc. that is an excellent fast laptop.
it would help to know what hard drive you have.
if its 7200 rpm then i would say your in excellent shape.
if youve read my past posts (i'm a puter engr) i always caution folks to be carefull of usb sound solutions. sometimes they work well , but other times
they dont. it seems to vary based on the individual pc.
i dont personally like usb. but dont let that put you off.
it might just work for you on your pc. i would get one based on the fact you can return it if you have problems.

traidma i would need to know as well for yourself what your current laptop configuration is ? do you have a laptop currently ??

also a tip. if operating a usb sound solution try not to have other usb devices operating at the same time so the usb sound solution is allowed full rein over the usb bus.
 
Yea,

I have Toshiba Satellite A55, 1.5GHz Centrino, 256Mb, 40 Gb 4200. Pretty crap but all what i have.. planning to get better hard drive and extra RAM soon.

yea.. so far Ive used Korg PXR4 and edited the files with Sonar.. time to get something more efficient.

Taavi :cool:
 
traidma. you know if you could put a replacement upgrade 7200 rpm drive in
the toshiba (check with toshiba) and 512 memory. it should do quite a lot of tracks. if your thinking of a new laptop i would hold off for a few months. maybe after xmas and follow what is happening with amd 64 processors in laptops. as more and more vendors are bringing out amd 64 laptops
with 7200 rpm drives. fyi - i expect (its already happening) amd 64 laptops to be a huge success with daw users due to the speed of the amd 64
and its architecture and ability to run high track and plug in counts.
some crazy high numbers are being reported already with the amd 64.
but prices are quite high right now. i would also wait and see if the early adopters are having any problems with these new powerfull laptops.
one key point when shopping for sound solutions for laptops is if your looking at firewire solutions to contact the vendor of the firewire audio solution
and ask if there are any potential conflicts with your laptop firewire
interface. if you want more info or have Q;'s just ask.
also - i dont know if this interests you but RME might be a company to look at due to their history of rock solid drivers and quality convertors in pc systems.
expensive though. peace.
 
Manning : it is a 40gb 7200rpm.
What is your suggestion all around then?
 
umm.. that question might be pretty off-topic and basic.. anyways, is there such thing as Firewire adapter or something? so, that if i dont have it with the original package I can get it through that.

Taavi :cool:
 
traidma said:
umm.. that question might be pretty off-topic and basic.. anyways, is there such thing as Firewire adapter or something? so, that if i dont have it with the original package I can get it through that.

Taavi :cool:
Click to expand...
And here it is.
 
traidma. 7200 rpm . good. make sure dma is enabled.
get tracking. download diskbench from prorec.com.
post the stats. it will give you a rough idea of your laptops capabilities.
 
I think you'll find the device does have the ability to send the inputs to the ouputs. The trick is to add the mic-in or line-in to show in the windows playback mixer. Adjust Audio properties...
 
Jim Y not all boxs have this ability, that is limited by the soundcard, or rather the soundcard drivers on the ability of the card.

Manning1 : not to be rude, but having a 7200rpm hdd only guarentees the fastest preformance from your box w/ file xfer'n. My question was not about the proper and "up2date" hardware required to record digitally. My question is merely wether the driver itself is the factor limiting the ability to have 'Microphone' on the 'Playback' section of 'Volume Control' and abroad.

Traidma : I don't think a PCMCIA card would able to handle it as well as a Firewire or Usb2 connection. I've been looking at a few things like the USB Omni Studio and M-Box. Not really sure if its what I need. If your just needing a better way to get game/dvd/mp3 sound then Audigy would definently be what you'd want for laptop sollutions in my opinion.

Meant no rudeness above Manning, getting my ? back on track hehe.
 
Many consumer sound cards are half-duplex, meaning that you can't hear inputs and outputs simultaneously. You need a full-duplex card. It's not the drivers, it's the hardware.

Beware Creative Labs (Sound Blaster) cards. Even though they advertise full duplex for some of their cards, many of their soundcards achieve this by halving the bandwidth of both input and output.
 
did you not read my original post?. I clearly state that if it is a Full-Duplex card, why can it not do this.

...
 
Full duplex is the ability to play back what's been already recorded while recording a new track.

What you want to do is monitoring. Can you hear yourself thru the speakers while you talk through the mic?
 
Yup .... just what Bulls Hit said.
Full Duplex = playback+record at the same time. Not input monitoring.

Double click the little speaker by the clock, this should bring up the Windows playback controls.
Click Options then Properties.
Under "Show the following volume controls", place a check mark at all of the options. There should be one for the Microphone input.
Now click the button for Recording under "Adjust volume for". place a check mark for all of those options as well.
Click OK.
If you are recording via the Mic input, select that input in the Recording Controls and adjust the level.
Now double click the little speaker again. You will now have both the Recording Control and the Playback Control visible.
Make sure the Mic input is not muted and the level is turned up in the Playback Control mixer.
Talk into the mic and you should hear yourself in the speakers. You may actually get some feedback depending on how close the mic is to the speakers and how you've got the levels set.
If for some reason that doesn't work, then yeah .... your internal sound device is a POS.

By the way ... I beg to differ on the PCMCIA audio interfaces. Have a look at an Echo Layla Laptop and try to stay away from a USB1.0 interface.
 
I'm sorry to mean any disrespect when I say this, there is none intended.
But not one response to this except possibly the first, which really didn't, had anything to do with my original question, from there it just got distorted furthur.

I am no n00b. I wasn't asking how to set my pc to record, nor the hardware to do it, nor the pc required to do it. I simply asked that if you guys thought that the drivers were the limiting factor when using Full Duplex to its full potential ..

You fail to realize that I HAVE NO MIC INPUT in the Playback options. If you've read my last post you would see that I do infact posess the knowledge to go to my Volume Control.. I mean "the little speaker by the clock"

I've got these two laptops and three fullflex boxs and 2 dummy boxs. Its not a question of wether I lack the intelligence to figure out how to unmute my mic. It's the fact that the option is not exsistant on this laptop. I know its the soundcard, the question is, is it the drivers limiting it, or is it just a full blown case of shitty soundcard lol.

I think you guys misunderstood my question. I don't wish to hear how to get it done, I do it fine as is, just not on this computer, and that leads me to this post ;) lol

Anyways dont worry about it, just del this post modz. This question just isnt meant for this place. I'm coming to realize this is more of a FaQ for the recording helpless's.

Crankz that looks great but that pricetag is insane :( lol Thank You, bookmarked.
Thank You for your help and input all.
 
Sorry if any of what I had said came across as an insult to your level of intelligence. It wasn't meant as any. Quite often it is hard to decipher ones knowledge level and translate that into a meaningful response. I, sometimes try to cover all bases.
The fact that you aren't given any option to control mic playback could be due to either the sound chip or the drivers limitations. Or both, for that matter.
Short of using some other form of audio device, you may try and see if there are any updated drivers for your sound device or you could see if something like the ASIO4ALL drivers will unlock the option.

Good luck with it.

P.S. If you think that Laya is expensive, you pry don't want to look at what I use ..... MOTU 828mkII and a PCMCIA IEEE 1394a adapter. ;)
 
r1dg. ok - i guess i misunderstood what you wanted to know.
bottom line - on board sound cards are garbage. not really meant to be used
for decent recording quality. at best there are workarounds.
they are meant for windows burps/sounds. i still dont know if this helps.
if you want decent monitoring your going to have to spend some money.
peace.
 
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