Soundcards

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Bearing123

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Hi,

I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to soundcards. I used to operate a G5 Quad with Logic 7.1 with the MOTU Traveler as the interface.

I am now setting up my home studio and want to know what my options are with regards to affordable sound cards. I am about to buy a G5 Dual 2.0Ghz and Logic 7.2. Question is..... Can I use some of the older Motu's like the 828 or the 2408 or do I need to go for a higher spec. I know that when we bought the other set up as a block purchase, I was told that some of the older S/cards wouldn't work with the G5.

Any thoughts please would be really appreciated as I am on a pretty tight budget.

Thanks:)
 
Bearing123 said:
Hi,
I am now setting up my home studio and want to know what my options are with regards to affordable sound cards. I am about to buy a G5 Dual 2.0Ghz and Logic 7.2. Question is..... Can I use some of the older Motu's like the 828 or the 2408 or do I need to go for a higher spec. I know that when we bought the other set up as a block purchase, I was told that some of the older S/cards wouldn't work with the G5.
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I would not buy a 2408, as it is PCI-based. If you ever upgrade your hardware, you would then have to go out and buy a new PCI Express (PCIe) version of the card, as Macs built after late 2005 do not support legacy parallel PCI cards.

Worse, the old models of the PCI cards don't work with the original PCI-X-based G5s, either. The early 324 and 424 cards were not notched correctly for 3.5v PCI, so you have to use a recent 424 card (which many used 2408s would not come with) or pay to get the newer card.

The 828, however, should work withut modification for the forseeable future, since it is a FireWire-based interface. Those are pretty safe.

WARNING: If this is not a very late model of dual 2 GHz G5, you might want to reconsider your choice. The first generation of dual 2 GHz G5s had somewhat deficient grounding in the power supply, which resulted in audible noise when used with some audio interfaces (including both my internal and external M-Audio interfaces).

Affected machines can be easily identified because the GPU noise and CPU noise also manifest themselves acoustically in several ways: a chirp in the fan every second, whining during heavy computation, etc.

There are a number of workarounds for the problem, and if you don't have any choice in the computer, I'll help you work around the problem if you run into it, but if you haven't bought it already, it would be worth picking a clock speed that didn't exist in the first rev just to avoid any possibility of running into it. :D
 
Thanks,

It will be a late model G5 so hopefully no probs there. I will take your advice and stick with the later S/cards and prob go for something like a late 828, traveler or fireface at least I know they work.

Many thanks again
 
what sound card do i need, if any, or cord to have my pa to my pc, so
i can record and plug my guitar in?:(
 
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