soundcard hook-up help

[delah]

whats the best way to hook up my audiobuddy to my emu 0404 soundcard? the audio buddy has a balanced output and the emu has an umbalanced input, so do i get a cable with an unbalanced end and a balanced end? or at least use an adapter to get that kind of a cable? and what kind of a cable should i be using to go between those too?
this sound basic but i obviously dont know what im doing.

 

[scrubs]

whats the best way to hook up my audiobuddy to my emu 0404 soundcard? the audio buddy has a balanced output and the emu has an umbalanced input, so do i get a cable with an unbalanced end and a balanced end? or at least use an adapter to get that kind of a cable? and what kind of a cable should i be using to go between those too?
this sound basic but i obviously dont know what im doing.

You should be able to hook up 1/4" balanced(TRS) or unbalanced(TS) cables to the soundcard inputs. For short cable runs, it is not as critical to have all balanced cables, I don't think.

 

[crankz1]

Just use 1/4" un-balanced TS shielded instrument cables.
So long as you don't have the audio buddy over 20 feet away from the 0404, you'll be just fine.

Try and keep your cables away from florescent lights, dimmer switches and CRT monitors/TVs also.

 

[delah]

if i use an unbalaced guitar cable with my audiobuddy is it not as good as using something that whas balanced? i mean, would that be something i should upgrade to?....like going from a standard mic cable to one with XLR outputs for my cool XLR inputs on my preamp. how much of a difference do these things make?

 

[TimOBrien]

Everything audio is just two wires. The only thing balanced does is add a metal shield around the two wires in the cable.

Don't worry about it if you are not picking up any interference.

 

[crankz1]

Well yeah, you certainly can use XLR cables to connect your mics to the preamp. However, it's pointless to use balanced cables to connect the preamp to the soundcard seeing as how the soundcard uses unbalanced inputs.

Balanced cabling involves a bit more than just adding an additional shielding.
Light gives a damned fine explanation in this thread.