Soundcard or Audio Interface?

[KnockOut]

Hey what's up people. I've been recording in other people's studios for years and have finally decided to spend little money and put together a small project studio in my home. So far all I have is the pc, monitors, headphones, tons of software, tons of instruments, a midi controller, condenser mic, and a cheap Behringer mixer.

My question is: Should I get an internal sound card or an audio interface? What are the pros and cons? (I'll be recording mostly vocals and doing hip-hop style production if that helps). I'm on a tight budget also, but I want the best fit for what I have.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

 

[dgatwood]

An internal card gets you a little lower CPU overhead at the expense of locking you permanently to an expansion bus architecture. Since PCI is already being phased out in favor of the incompatible PCI Express (PCIe) standard, I personally wouldn't recommend spending over about $100 on a PCI card, give or take.

Since there aren't (AFAIK) any PCIe audio cards out there yet with the exception of a few really high end beasts from companies like Digi, that pretty much rules out cards unless you're buying something really cheap.

USB sucks for audio, IMHO. Avoid it unless you can't possibly afford FireWire.

As for PCI, the reason I'd set a cap at $100 is that most machines don't have FireWire ports, but they are becoming more prevalent, and odds are your next machine will. You'd spend almost half that $100 buying a decent FireWire card to support a FireWire interface, and that money would be wasted when you got a new machine with FireWire anyway.

Thus, if you're only spending twice as much for an audio card that you would for a FireWire card to run a FireWire interface, you're really not that much worse off getting the audio card, and thus you're not going to feel too bad when you get a new computer in five years or so and can't use it.

Along similar lines, anything you buy for $100, you're likely to outgrow by the time you get machine without PCI slots anyway, so it's no great loss.

Of course, if you can afford it, go with a FireWire interface (and card if needed).

 

[dirtyp]

I havent tried firewire but I heard people argue thats its not worth it.
Theres not alot pci soundcards for around 100, just the lower end deltas.
I would go with a interface m-audio dmp3 is good.
The pre-amps are good and it will alow you to plug in your mixer.

 

[studiomaster]

A soundcard and an audio interface are both same. Both occupy audio converters.

Your question really depends on portability. If you're willing to do live shows for example, you would get a Firewire or USB audio interface. or even if you think that your band wants to record at an alternate location, you simply would bring the interface there.
However, if you think that you're gonna do everything at one permanent place, then go for a PCI interface. but really, there's no difference. All i know is that, out of all the different interfaces, USB is the most troublesome. Firewire is awesome..and personally i love it with my Motu. I had a PCI interface before and really liked it as well. So it really depends on what you are gonna do.

 

[TimOBrien]

I havent tried firewire but I heard people argue thats its not worth it.

Garbage. I'm using a Motu828mkII with my XP laptop with ZERO problems. Well worth it, bud...

 

[dgatwood]

I havent tried firewire but I heard people argue thats its not worth it.

It's worth it. I'd be happy to argue the technical merits of FireWire over USB with anyone crazy enough to make an attempt....

My short list:

• USB is capped at 500 mA (2.5 W) power load per bus. FireWire up to 2A, depending on machine---7 watts on an iBook, 15W on my PowerMac G5.
  
• FireWire's Mandatory GUIDs ensure that mutliple interfaces by the same manufacturer won't keep switching places like they do on USB.
  
• USB time stamping tends to be buggy and unreliable under load.
  
• USB produces far more CPU load than FireWire.
  
• USB's isochronous reservations are not guaranteed in the same way that they are for FireWire.
  
• There is no official USB 2.0 audio standard, so USB 2.0 audio devices are all violating the spec.
  
• There is no official USB 2.0 audio standard, so USB audio devices (without violating the spec) are basically hard limited to 4 channels at 96k/24b, 2 channels at 192k/24b.

Or to translate for folks who don't write or debug device drivers on a regular basis... USB results in higher CPU load than FireWire, along with a higher frequency of various problems like pops, crackles, and even outright stalls, along with such lovely fun problems as interfaces swapping places. Then there's the whole power thing. You can do a lot more with a self-powered FireWire interface than with USB. The FW1814 from M-Audio has two phantom-powered pres with six other inputs, four outputs, and S/PDIF optical or coax and/or ADAT optical, all without the need for an external power supply (assuming your computer has standard 6-pin FireWire ports).

The bottom line is that USB wasn't designed for high throughput data transfer, and the support that is there is a bit of a hack. The result is that it tends to have issues unless the bus is dedicated to audio. And don't get me started on bugs in USB hubs.

Compared to that mess, FireWire is a pretty major improvement.

 

[LeadFingers]

Good to know!

What about the mLAN?
I thought I read that it used the same protocal as FireWire.

 

[altitude909]

m-lan is firewire, its just a protocol that yamaha uses so multiple vendors can be used in m-lan system. Although it has not caught on too much, I have used mlan very successfully and if you are going the Motif route, its a very good solid system (SOS did a review last month of the motif expansion)