upgrading soundcard. SB live (yes) to... ? delta 44? 66? audiophile 192?

[bewildered]

huh, it doesnt even say "out", it just says "main", whatever the hell that means.

 

[dgatwood]

Never get a clean signal with a PCI card? Some cards do make some noise because of interferance with other parts in the computer, but well built cards don't, at least not to the point where it's audible.

The only way you can guarantee a clean signal with a PCI card is if the converters are in an external box with a separate power source, sending the signal back to the computer digitally (e.g. the Delta 1010).

As long as the card is inside your machine and is powered from your computer's power supply, all it takes is a noisy power rail or a ground rail that's not perfectly grounded and suddenly your interface is generating chirping noises or other lovely artifacts. I've seen it happen with the Delta 1010LT, for example.

 

[dgatwood]

Please explain this. When I read about PCI Express, such as in the new Mac Pro, it claims to be backward compatible with PCI, meaning PCI cards will work in PCI Express slots. So, what's the big deal? Seems like PCI gear should be usable for many years to come.

No, it isn't. PCI Express is NOT backwards compatible with PCI, at least at the signal level. PCI Express is a serial bus. Legacy PCI is a parallel bus. You need a bridge chip to convert between them, and to adapt a card to work = $$$$.

This misconception is because of some poor wording on the part of the spec writers. It is possible to design a "backwards compatible" 1x PCI Express slot. This slot uses only a single bus lane which happens to fit at the end of PCI slot. AFAIK, few (if any) manufacturers are using these Frankensteinian slots, however.

 

[dgatwood]

Bingo. As long as business use PCI based hardware (which is alot) PCI will be common on PC's. We have almost $50k invested in PCI DAQ hardware and if PCI goes away, we just wont upgrade those computers.

You're making a very incorrect assumption here---specifically, you are assuming that your situation is typical. I saw some statistics a lot time ago about slot utilization in computers. I don't remember the specifics, but IIRC, the average computer---business machines included---has less than 1 non-graphics card in it. That means for the vast majority of users, PCI could go away tomorrow and they wouldn't know the difference.

Parallel PCI is already going away. Apple's entire line no longer supports it. HP's laptop line is switching from CardBus to ExpressCard, as is Dell's. (I'd give CardBus a year at most.) The average number of PCI slots is decreasing on an ongoing basis. The original plan was to basically eliminate parallel PCI by EOY 2006. It's going a little slower than that, but even still, most motherboards these days come with one PCI slot and several PCI Express slots. A year ago, a typical board had one PCI Express slot and three PCI slots. They're fading fast.

Why is this? PCI Express offers huge advantages for motherboard designers. Parallel PCI requires 64 parallel wires at precisely the same length, and requires that the bridge silicon be no more than about two inches from the slot. PCIe (1x) requires two lines of precisely the same length (it's a differential serial bus) and the bridge silicon can be up to 20 inches away (i.e. pretty much anywhere on the board). So it wastes less board real estate and simultaneously allows more flexible board layout.

The big problem, though, is not that PCI is going away. The big problem is that it is silently becoming a bridged standard. Most of the chipset manufacturers are phasing out parallel PCI in the short term. So new board designs in six months to a year will likely all use a PCIe to PCI bus bridge to provide the PCI slots. While that's okay for many devices (network hardware, FireWire cards, USB cards), PCI audio interfaces tend to be much less tolerant of bus latency. This means that you are likely to find hardware in just a couple of years that has PCI slots but in which your audio card won't work reliably.

PCI is dead. It's not just sleeping; it did not move---you shoved it with a stick. If you're investing $50 on a card, go for it. Don't spend lots of money on a PCI card these days, though. If you do, you're basically throwing money away. Buy cautiously or buy twice.

PCI is still faster than firewire and unlike firewire, has DMA and u cant beat that for audio

You must be thinking about USB. FireWire has DMA. If you don't believe me, check out FireStarter.

 

[Robert D]

The only way you can guarantee a clean signal with a PCI card is if the converters are in an external box with a separate power source, sending the signal back to the computer digitally (e.g. the Delta 1010).

As long as the card is inside your machine and is powered from your computer's power supply, all it takes is a noisy power rail or a ground rail that's not perfectly grounded and suddenly your interface is generating chirping noises or other lovely artifacts. I've seen it happen with the Delta 1010LT, for example.

Can we STOP holding up the 1010LT as an example of why PCI cards can't be trusted? Look at the $ per channel plus other features on the 1010LT, and you know some corners were cut. Look at Lynx cards, with converters in the box, and as clean as clean can be.
As far as using an external power supply, what guarantees that it's clean anymore than putting a high quality power supply in a PC guarantees it to be clean?

 

[bewildered]

oh i get it, your the types with the 20ft mixing boards walled off by soundproof glass from a giant studio room. isnt this site called HomeRecording?

Look, have any of you "industry pro's" ever heard of Four Tet? you know what he makes that beautiful music with? an ADAT recorder, some mics and mixing equipment, his crappy home computer with a soundblaster card and this ghetto ass free software. Fuck you and your "this piece of equipment isnt as good as that piece" bullshit.

 

[Bulls Hit]

Anger management.


Anyway re the original question, let me offer this:

I used to own a delta 44, used it to record drums. It's a great card for the price.

You can only record 2 analog tracks at a time with a 192. If you're happy for 2 tracks, go for the audiophile 2496. If you need 4 tracks, get the 44. If you want s/pdif as well get the 66.

You also might want to consider the Alesis firewire mixers. These have the advantage of having built in preamps as well as the protability of firewire, and they're pretty reasonably priced

 

[Fetusborg]

great suggestions.

i have learned a valuable lesson.
that if i upgrade my soundcard... i must upgrade other things as well.
i had never thought that my SB live has a built in preamp (crappy or not) and because of that... i had never given thought to having one, as well as a DI box for bass recording.

but if i actually buy the delta 44 (which is now the best bet), id have to use a preamp and a DI box i assume.

more than i was bargaining for... but nice to know. i might just hold on to my SB for a little longer.


so with the delta 44, my drum will have at most 4 tracks. lets say kick snare hh and overhead. what do pro recording studios use to record like 8 drum tracks at once? do they have like a 16 track soundcard or do they link a few deltas together ?

 

[mshilarious]

so with the delta 44, my drum will have at most 4 tracks. lets say kick snare hh and overhead. what do pro recording studios use to record like 8 drum tracks at once? do they have like a 16 track soundcard or do they link a few deltas together ?

First off if you can't get a good drum sound with 4 mics, using 8 won't help anything.

Pro studios will use a 24 track tape machine, 24 track hard disc recorder (or several of either), or dedicated DAW systems like the high-end ProTools HD stuff, or another high-end interface, often one that uses external converters.

 

[Robert D]

If you're on a budget, and recording drums, I'd suggest you take a look at the ESI ESP 1010 interface. It's 8x8 analog plus 2x2 digital I/O, with a pair of mic pre's to start with, all for $350 (plus a bunch of included software). I can't vouch for it, so do your homework, but it seems like that might be a good option for you. With a small 6 channel mixer, you'd be set for 8 mics. Add a dual channel preamp with digital I/O later and you'd have 10 mic
inputs.

http://www.digitalproaudio.com/esi-esp-1010.html


I think there was a thread about this unit just the other day, look for it.

 

[NL5]

so with the delta 44, my drum will have at most 4 tracks. lets say kick snare hh and overhead. what do pro recording studios use to record like 8 drum tracks at once? do they have like a 16 track soundcard or do they link a few deltas together ?

Kick, Snare, X/Y for OH's - fantastic drum sound. The HH is the LAST thing I mic (and I mic everything)

 

[underp]

ok I've been off the field for a while...

i didn't like the disaster you made with my reply btw...

----

anyway.... maybe i overreact a little bit with the PCI stuff, but i got rid of my delta because i couldn't get a noise floor under -69db ( nothing plugged ).

It's a big deal to me..., and it's obvious that some of you just don't care about that stuff...


it's true: a Lynx card will never do that, but the boy is not planning to buy a Lynx CARD.... and i know this kind of thing always happen with cheap soundcards.

AP192 has much better A/D converters and i would go with the AP192, in case you don't care having to put your HEAD behind the CASE and moving the furniture everytime you have to plug something.


NOW... if i were you.... i will save the money and get a FW1814 at www.4beatz.com, it cost 400$ there.


If you buy a cheap PCI soundcard now, i garantee you , you'll be selling it in the next 6 months....