Soundcard necessary?

A

applesmasher

New member
Okay im gonna be recording vocals through mic>preamp>sound effect thing :P>mindisc or 4 track combination, and am trying to figure out if i need a soundcard for for my comp or not. I will be putting the audio into my comp to edit it with pro tools LE. But after reading this:

"Sound Cards
You will find that most people are bypassing the sound card completely and using USB to import wave files directly to the drive. The sound card comes into play only for the listening of the tracks during and after mixdown. "

Im not sure if I need a soundcard or not. Does it effect the ultimate product ie : burnt cd, or is the soundcard just for listening on the pc?
 
what the hell good is it gonna do you to have a bunch of vocals you can't listen to? maybe if you explain yourself and what you're doing, people can help you out more.
 
Lol, Well im recording the vocals seperatly on like a minidisc, then im transfering them to my comp. to mix with the instrumentals on pro tools le. Then im gonna burn a cd so i be cool and have my own cd. But does the transfer of the audio from the recorder through the soundcard effect quality? I guess waht your saying is no. What if i record mic>pre>soundcard on computer. Then i would think it would influence overall quality yes?
 
applesmasher said:
Lol, Well im recording the vocals seperatly on like a minidisc, then im transfering them to my comp. to mix with the instrumentals on pro tools le. Then im gonna burn a cd so i be cool and have my own cd. But does the transfer of the audio from the recorder through the soundcard effect quality? I guess waht your saying is no. What if i record mic>pre>soundcard on computer. Then i would think it would influence overall quality yes?
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how about monitoring? do you need that? humm?
 
Just out of curiosity how do you plan on recording vocals without the instrumental tracks? How are you going to sync up the music tracks to the already recorded vocals?
 
just lay the vocals over the mix. Maybe use headphones during recording the vocals to keep it in time. Havnt really thought about it I guess. I might wanna record the instruments later but now just vocals. This is pretty low tech here. Monitoring? Oh oh :0 Whats that?
 
Monitoring is listening to what you've recorded...
You are proposing using headphones... What are you going to plug them into?
 
What they mean is: how are you going to check that your mix on the pc is OK??? Are the vocals not to loud? Burn a cd and listen? So each time you want to change the EQ, you will burn a cd and listen? Remind me of buying shares of a manufacturer if you make it big....

Other thing: how are you going to get the audio in the pc? You cannot put a md directly in the pc. Or you transfer digital or analog, but then you will need also a "sound card". Unless the md in question has a usb or ethernet connection, but I don't know of those. OR if it allows to burn cd's itself.

Whatever you do, you will need a means of listening to the audio that is on your pc. Now you can get a soundcard or a box that talks usb to your pc to do the same.
 
well that was kind of my question : will the transfer of the audio from the minidisc to tha computer be effected by the soundcard. Unless i misunderstood, what i have gathered is that it wont. That i only need the card for listening. Is this right??? As far as "monitoring" ill probably be cool with the factory soundcard, im not trying to sell my material or anything.
 
Dude, tell us... What kind of outputs does your MD player have? digital or just analog? I think that's pretty vital for answering your question.
 
I havnt bought one yet. Im tyin to figure out everything i need before i go out a buy it. What players would do best digital output or analog?
 
A lot of portable MD players don't have digital outs. A colleague of mine has been struggling with that. His MD player has a USB connector to load music to the player and a digital in but the only way he can get music out of it is analog..

If you get one of those, you'll need some sort analog/digital convertor to get the music into your computer.
That will create some sort of loss because what happens is that you have two conversions (digital to analog in the MD player and again analog to digital to get in into the computer) but in many cases you can't escape that. But frankly I don't think you need to worry too much about that. When using an MD player to record, you compromise the soundquality in most cases anyway. Getting it into the computer won't be the bottleneck.

The most sensible choice would just be using a soundcard and connect the MD player to its line ins.
(the line in is basically an analog/digital convertor.

As you can see. It depends a lot on the MD player that you'll buy.
 
Oh i think i see what your saying. But do you mean that if a player has a digital out then it will go through the computer just fine without a converter/soundcard? Cause in that case I could just search for a player with digital output. Or what if i use a 4 track recorder instead, then will i need a soundcard for the transfer?
 
applesmasher said:
Oh i think i see what your saying. But do you mean that if a player has a digital out then it will go through the computer just fine without a converter/soundcard?
Click to expand...

You'll still need some sort of digital interface on you computer. In general that would mean a soundcard with a digital input...
Cause in that case I could just search for a player with digital output. Or what if i use a 4 track recorder instead, then will i need a soundcard for the transfer?
Click to expand...
 4 track instead of a MD player? Come on, first digest what everybody has been explaining to you.
What kind of outputs does the 4 track have?
(And that's not something I'm asking you, but that's something you should ask yourself).
 
i think he's been sipping cider a bit much lately, not that there's an issue with that, unless you post shortly after, ahem...
 
LOL i have no idea what that means! I dont like cider though it tastes like piss. Anyways back to the topic, well im still trying to sort out the minidisc computer compatibility feature. I got some people telling me i only need it to for listening to the audio and others saying its needed for conversion of the audio format. Soooo wahts the deal with that? Im confused. Im trying to digest this information on the minidisc but it seems conflicting. Why will knowing if my minidiscs output is analog or digital be vital to my question of whether or not I need a soundcard, if i need a soundcard to convert both?
 
applesmasher said:
LOL i have no idea what that means! I dont like cider though it tastes like piss.
Click to expand...

that's means it's ready :) spicy pissy taste...

humm, think i'll grab that little brown jug now that you mention it...

grab the banjo here, and a 1, and a 2, and a, i just wanna go home sweet, eak! sheesh ba!

just punning, just punning :)
 
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