Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for good quality recording off vinyl records?

  • Thread starter Thread starter billyblackwood
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billyblackwood

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Hi, can anyone tell me if the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
soundcard is good for recording vinyl for remixes etc?
Because of conflicts with my SIS 645DX chipset on my
MSI-6533 motherboard Pentium 4 PC I can't
use the sound cards I had. An Echo MIA 2496, and a
M AUDIO 2496, both worked but each had little conflicts
with my system. All I want is to get better sound quality
for my remixes using Soundforge 6.0 & Acid.
My motherboard came with a built in Cmedia AC97, that
just didn't deliver the crisp sound I'd like on my recordings,
any recommendations, or advice is appreciated.

billyblackwood@hotmail.com
 
The 2496 should have been stable with your system.
Were you disabling the onboard sound ?
The Cruz cards should work well also with a basic system.
 
I disabled the Cmedia card in the bios.
Actually the card I have now which I'm about to return,
MIA 2496 is unable to generate a signal in the recording meter
of Soundforge, when I try to record a computer sound,
such as a Winamp file, or just a computer sound in general,
the built in sound card was able to do it, I was told I
needed loopback drivers, or a virtual audio cable?
 
Why dont you connect the digital out to the digital in (using a 75ohm digital coaxial cable) and record the digital input. Just make sure you are not monitoring the digital in to digital out or you will create a feedback loop ie mute the digital inputs in the mia mixer for the digital out.

ps dont mean to be rude but why did you get a motherboard with an sis chipset given that intel chipsets are the most reliable for audio recording? Any chance of changing it?
 
Thanks for the advice, unfortunately I wasn't even concerned
about the chipset when I bought my computer. It's
a Medion PC, I've had no problems other than little sound card issues. Is it possible to have a tech replace just the chipset on
my motherboard with an Intel one? or do I have to buy
a whole new motherboard? any recommendations on
what model Intel chipset?
 
it sounds like you just need to change settings in Mia's mixer or your recording software.....
 
As consumer cards go, the Santa Cruz has been one of the best provided you don't need proper s/pdif digital audio connections, better than 16bit recording or ASIO drivers. For music, it has the ability to work in several multichannel modes with sequencer software - you can have 4 seperate inputs. Sound quality wise, it's far better than most on-board chips but not quite up to the pro boards like the MIA and Audiophile. For what it can do and for the money it's not a bad choice. Even so, I would certainly disable the motherboard sound and gameport in the BIOS setup before installing another card.
Those "pro" cards probably can be made to work on your PC, but it takes some work setting up both hardware and software and can mean loosing some features you need for other programs (Like virus scanning). The best solution is another pc - one for office/internet stuff and one just for music ;)
Intel chipsets do seem the best choice for you and the boards arn't really anymore expensive than the alternatives unlike the CPU, but you already have that. Just remember that some Intel boards only work with RDRAM (Rambus) memory while you probably have the more common DDR ram so that will determine the type of P4 board you need. You also need to know what socket type your P4 is, there have been 2 types but a tech should answer that for you.
One warning before I finish - Some PC builders have componants built to their own specifications. Power supply connection to the motherboard could be different (Dells are) so it may not be straightforward.
 
Wow, thanks for all the helpful info guys, I'm
going to try the Santa Cruz card for now, and see if
I can get better quality recordings than my onboard sound
card.
many thanks!
 
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