What MOBO are you using with Delta 66?

[Cuzin B]

PearlDiver,

Despite the fact you are AMD, you might want to ask yourself how important this is to you. I am not saying Intel is the answer but I can tell you I have never had any problems - ever.

Motherboards are cheap and chips ain't too bad either. Think about what it is you want to accomplish. Too many people on these boards lose sight of what it is we are really trying to do here - writing, recording and making music.

My motto - If my wallet (within reason) or equipment is ever holding me back, then maybe I am in the wrong hobby/business/passion. Clicks and pops and "this doesn't work" and that doesn't work" are so minor to me in the grand scheme of things. For me - my creation of music and digital media is paramount and I will take and investigate any advice to arrive at a place where I am not hampered by technology. I need gear that works day in, day out - all the time - every time.

That is not not to say that I have a bottomless pit of cash - I am just as strapped as the next guy - but I buy carefully and I buy properly. Best advice I took for the Delta card was to get an ASUS motherboard with a Intel CPU. This was after 3 months of investigation - but it works like a dream. No downtime here.

You came to the forum looking for help - You never did say what was wrong with your Delta - I would like to know.
Curious question: Why AMD anyway? I have heard that certain configs work well but not well enough to get me to buy one.

And finally to answer your question - For my company, we use the entire Sonice Foundry Suite (Forge, Acid and Vegas) plus Steinberg Nuendo and next week Cubase SX for our multitrack apps.

Cheers,

Cuzin B

 

[alonso]

Those of you who got as specific list of MOBOS from M Audio, why don´t you post it here for all of us to see? That info could be really
useful because as I said, they only gave me one MObo with a Via Chipset...........

 

[shackrock]

as in my other post:



got an email back, and this guy was a ton of help, not like the last guy who replied, lol.


Scott,
Thanks for your email. I think somebody must have given you some bad information if they said NO VIA chipsets. Newer VIA chipsets have performed much better. There has been problems in the past however. I have experience with this myself. I had one of the 133 chipsets and never got it to work properly with digital audio. Even MP3 playback was a problem. Digital distortion, pops and clicks, and dropouts were common. After upgrading my motherboard, all was well. I made sure to not use a VIA chipset, but I've spoken with friends who are using them with no issues. They are using some of the newer chipset models though.
Here are a couple of boards for you.
http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v333/overview.htm
http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7s333/overview.htm
I know that both of these boards work very well.
Sincerely,
Erik Andersen


there ya have it. i'm goin with the ASUS A7V333


peace

 

[Pearldiver]

AMD

Surprisingly,

I bought AMD, because 1) it was cost effective. 2.) They Perform! MY AMD has worked quite well for audio! I had an ISIS system by Guillemot, which was 16 bit/44.1 KHZ, in fact I still have it. The AMD machine worked quite nicely with this setup. Secondly, unlike you, I have had a lot of problem with INTEL. I don't believe, they are as good as so many people state. I also don't like their upgrade path, they change their architecture so frequently it's ridiculous. Before I bought AMD I researched a bunch of AMD owners, and quite surprisingly, there are a LOT of AMD users who are happily producing AUDIO. In my opinion, personall, if one wants to get techincal here, the way to *really* do audio to disk is APPLE/MOTU/MACKIE or say PROTOOLS. I'd be very surprised to hear many "big boys" using any windows/intel/?? system PERIOD. Afterall, if music is your business, why buy a machine thats made to 100 things instead of one thats proven to do one. I think the argument that "if your serious" go INTEL, is borderline pathetic! If your serious get away from Windows period!

But here I am making do with what I have. The fact of the matter is to me, guitar playing, and songwriting is my thing - recording is purely secondary. As most know, if your not trying to push your band into the limelight, or your act, and you are trying to craft and sell songs, the recordings are not the main issue here - the songs are. Long before 2" tape and digital audio people submitted songcraft on cheapo cassettes, not even fourtrack, and those songs got picked up - it's not the performance even, or the production they care about, it's the song - so having said that, I'm interested in getting my existing equipment to work quite well, and get my songs down. If I can't I'll go back to using my four track multitracker cause it works just fine, everytime I think however I will be able to; theres nothing wrong with AMD machines, I have NEVER, EVER seen a blue screen error that states a CPU error crash - more than I can say about any INTEL machine I have personally owned. CPU error are actually fairly rare. M-AUDIO states that the delta 66 works fine with AMD cpu's and I have heard stories of people getting great success. The other argument is this. Buddy A can go spend 3G's on an Intel system, and 1 year later I can buy an AMD machine that blows his out of the water for half the price. Whatever you buy today is shit tomorrow! Doesnt matter what brand u buy, it'll end up being slow, one day. I buy more, frequently, and stay closer to date, because I can't afford an Intel machine every 2 years, but I can afford a new AMD every two years, and a current AMD machine runs faster than a 4 year old Pentium! Enough of that argument tho... The *REAL* issue for me, is how to get my machine's BIOS, OS, and soundcard all on the same page, and thats problem for any CPU choice - IRQ's / DMA channels etc.

Thanks

 

[alonso]

Pearldriver, I second you on the opinion that, that a comuter only designed for one thing, recording, will perform better than another one that is used for all the crap one can do...but let´s not turn this thread into a MAC vs PC war. Surely if I had $6000 to spare I would go for MAC, but with $2000 u can get an AMD PC that will Kick any $2000 Mac´s ass anytime.

 

[alonso]

Shackrock: what other mobos did they tell u would work, because they also told me the Asus 7v333.......

 

[shackrock]

well when i emailed them i told then my badluck with MAUDIO support so far, and that if you could list as many working boards as possible, and about how VIA could be "bad", etc.

that is the only thing he sent me back, but lucky for me it was the board i was about to buy anyway, lol. So i was satisfied...lol

 

[alonso]

you lucky bas.....no offense jejejeje

 

[Cuzin B]

PearlDiver,

"In my opinion, personall, if one wants to get techincal here, the way to *really* do audio to disk is APPLE/MOTU/MACKIE or say PROTOOLS. I'd be very surprised to hear many "big boys" using any windows/intel/?? system PERIOD. Afterall, if music is your business, why buy a machine thats made to 100 things instead of one thats proven to do one. I think the argument that "if your serious" go INTEL, is borderline pathetic! If your serious get away from Windows period! "

Fair enough - you are entitled to your opinion but you obviously do not spend a lot of time with the "big boys" at pro studios. If you did you would know that the "Slowtools" revolution has come and gone. Sure - Protools is still out there and so are Macs of course. But you would be surprised to know that Nuendo, Vegas and (soon Cubase SX ) are all making great strides (again dependant on what the studio does) and it's all on Windows, my friend. Windows 2000 is the studio standard where I work.

And I do not mean to infere that to go "serious" you have to go Intel. I am just as serious as the next guy and Intel has been completely troublefree - my Delta is working just fine.

I firmly believe that any chip combo (AMD, Intel, whatever) needs a careful assembly of known good parts to perform well all the time. And I don't "buy" machines per se - all our DAW workstations are custom built...with hand picked parts as well. So your argument about "affording" things every 2 years is not very accurate. I don't "buy" a new machine ever. I upgrade the chip and the MOBO. That's it. And I haven't spent more than 500-600 at a time.

The point I am trying to make is that if your AMD box is so great and affordable and is "blowing mine out of the water" for half the price, what's your gain if you are having issues that are preventing you from recording and enjoying yourself?

Downtime (BIOS tweaking, hardware problems, popping and clicking) should not be an issue considering how cheap parts are these days. If I ever had a hardware issue that was heading towards frustration - I would just get an new piece of hardware instead of banging my head against the wall trying to get some sort of acceptable performance.

And I hear ya on the old 4 - Track cassette - those were the days.

Cuzin B

 

[Pearldiver]

Cuzin,

Obviously you havent followed PROTOOLS hehe, they are up to 192 KHZ now... and theres better out there too, even higher res than 192khz - coupled with dual 800 RISC chips or even more on a network, RAID level 10,000 rpm SCSI disks in silent casing -and MACKIES control system/effect cards + UAD - I guarantee that system would make your windows system look a home studio again, trust me - or better yet , don't trust me pick up an EQ MAG and read for yourself .. it aint SLOWTOOLS anymore... an the beauty of it all is, you get the reliability and SPEED of an RISC based MAC OS environment..

but anyway.. let's put the CPU thing aside, shall we?

AFTERALL this is a MOBO thread.. not a CPU thread or environment thread

I already have a great P4 Intel machine running a web server, so I may switch to that, if my AMD machine cant seem to do it, I know it can handle the web server, but at this time the web server is more of a priority.. you see... i'm not setting up a PRO studio here, merely a demo making machine for me and a partner here in Kelowna BC, a songwriting team.

I don't have a reg copy of WIN2000 but I do own WIN2000 Advanced SERVER (talk about cash out OUCH), it's a great system, I must admit for WINDOZE it's pretty reliable. I think I may be able to install it and minimize it to a basic workstation configuration but I'm not sure.

I am interested in finding solutions with gear that I own, I don't make a living at this you see, this is my hobby not my profession... I'm not really interested in arguing the CPU battle anymore... it's not worth the time and effort for me I have what I have and I'm going to try and make it work before I go spend more money or switch off a money making machine to a new task... but thanks for the advice none the less.

 

[Pearldiver]

Cuzin

In regards to all this...

I have a PC
I have a DELTA 66
I have a MACKIE 1402 VLZ PRO board


All of this equipment is considered consumer grade equipment (albeit higher end consumer grade) None of this however would be considered in a high end studio.

First PC's are too noisy. Standard IDE drives are too noisy. The Mackie, well its nice, but it isnt digital, theres better equipment out there for the job (even better MAckies!) The DELTA 66 its ok for home use, but really, the A/D and D/A - that takes place inside the computer on a PCI card (as far as I know) And ofr serious studio work, a system outside of the NOISY PC environment should be used, like the higher end stuff, MOTU or even M_AUDIO but higher end, or ECHO or something like that.

But getting back to reality, I think a person who is a songwriter can use this stuff and make totally adequate demos, you just have to get all the configurations right and have a stable OS, which I'm now learning ME is not... I had a pretty good setup using my old ISIS card and 98, I cranked off some good demos at only 16 bit/44.1 KHZ, good enuff anyway. I hope to do even better, and I know theres nothing wrong (physically) with my Delta66 I have had it to record. once for about 10 minutes anyway LOL... it really doesnt matter.. I spend most of my time writing and I dont need a computer at all to do that When I get er up n running Ill record the songs I have stockpiled.. no biggie till then, no need to get crazy and run out buying more PC crap.
All I need is demos - If my band gets more serious we'll go into the studio anyhow... despite all the gear choices I'm making, or have made... theres still way better stuff out there.. I know this. Two months ago I was in a high studio in VAN and was blown away, I mean BLOWN away by the quality available now. I was just there to do a couple tracks but it appeared to be stacks of hot swappable SCSI powered by 192KHZ high end new PROTOOLs but there was also MOTU and some other box the guy said blows away the 24bit/192khz protools gear... it was three letters i forget... DNV or something... higher resolution tho, so good he said it rivals any two inch tape analog, for pure resolution... and blows any two inch tape away on dynamic range of course (i think all digital does if im not mistaken).. he says the use it for critical bass intensive applications where he says, 24 bit/96khz BLOWS - like bass and drums - they use this new product DNV or whatever, now where they always use to use 2" tape- and they record on 24 inch slab concrete under the studio floors, just to be certain they dont lose frequency ...anyway he just laughed when I mentioned I had Cubase and was using PC... theres so much out there.. it's not even worth arguing... the digital age is in such a race right now its nuts... once we reach that point where the ears cant really tell the difference between the new standard and the old standard, then things will calm down a bit and we can return to reality on this stuff. I know lots of guys like me tho, who dont care... leave it to hollywood, just get your demos out there to the right people and let them worry about the end product, its all way above us.. its beyond us... out of our range its the song that counts, capture the magic, the hook, the catch...thats all they want anyway, (from songwriters anyway)

cheers

 

[Cuzin B]

PearlDiver,

CPU thing is now put aside.

In closing, I know all about Protools and their ridiculous 192KHz update that no real studio would ever use. We work with two Protools houses and really - I can't tell the difference between their stuff and mine. Their system cost more than my house. I am happy with my gear - it's cost effective and very profitable.

I hope you work the kinks out of your gear. One other tip - dont use Win2K server for your DAW - you can't really dumb it down to the workstation level. There is just too much overhead.

Have a good summer and good luck with your somgwriting.

Cheers,

Cuzin B

 

[Pearldiver]

DElta 66

Cuzin,

Hehe I just took off the cover for my Delta 66 "Break out BOX" haha what a joke, in fact, they shouldnt even be allowed to call it a break out BOX> the old standard of this terminology is that the BOX contained the A/D D/A converters, jeez even my old ISIS has a real break out box. This isn't a break out box! It's a connection device, a but of quarter inche phono plugs, a few resistors, and a printed circuit to take those signals along into the cable that runs to the machine.

If you know anything about audio this tells you two things. Your nice 100 dollar gold 1/4 inch cable you bought especially for recording just got reduced to a tiny little wire running to your pc - oops talk about signal loss and degradation, as well as resistance - no wonder why you gotta jack your signal levels so high on a delta just to get respectable line input levels on screen!

Secondly, that means the A/D exists on card, within the noisy environment of your PC - a definate NO-NO

But hey the thing is only 500 bucks what do you want? At least you get 24/96! thats great. And dont believe the statistics of the M_AUDIO stats on the card, because thoise noise figures are purely what the card produces, not the noise levels that end up on disk due to all the fans and hard drives that exist inside your PC.

Delta 66.. pro studio use? Serious Pro Use? Not a chance. Home studio? FOR SURE! awesome home gear. Thats the reality of the situation here.

Cheers

 

[Lame Thrower]

ok.. so maybe it isnt' as bad as Linux...

Huh!?

Please elaborate!

Oh, and if it helps any of y'all, I'm running a Delta 1010 on an ABIT KR7A-133 mobo. It's based on the VIA 266a chipset, and I've had zero problems so far.

Well, actually, I've had lots of problems, but they have more to do with my bad songwriting skills and my noisy recording environment. But enough about me...

I emailed MAudio about six months ago before I bought this machine, and they sitll haven't replied. Awesome!

 

[Pearldiver]

Telling the Difference!

Ah yes you do have a good point there... Telling the Difference!

Isnt that what it's all about? See your comparing your studio output to old Protools systems their max capacity for resolution is 24 bit / 44.1 khz i believe... whereas yours is 96 khz, like mine is.

Now the Difference...

Man is it ever noticeable at that 24 bit or 32 bit workfile level.. it sounds soooooo good! (i'm comparing to my old 16 bit system - ISIS)

But once you dither down to a 16 bit/96khz CD, its like.. hmm can I really tell the difference anymore.. theoretically it is a little better. What I notice is the frequency RANGE, the lows are a little lower.. the highs are a little higher. Digital all sounds a bit thin to me none the less... it just lacks warmth...This is why I think the argument for still using analog tape can be a good one.. sure the dynamic range is less , less dB, but the frequency range is great, and the flavour is distinctive, tape sounds like tape, you get that big headroom with a bit of compression from the tape its recorded on, gear can be pushed harder on input... and the Cubase tape mode, im sorry that doesnt do it for me, it isnt the same.. its like.. guitar amp simulation - its only about 85% effective. But then again Im talking rock n roll here too, which is a major issue.. maybe if you were doing a female pop vocal song, and clarity and presence over ruled warmth, and pump.. well then none of this would apply. I think you gotta use what works best for your *(or the clients) material!

I do however give u credit for trying to do the best you can with the gear you can afford, cause I'm doing the same, one scale down from you, for my own project. I'm going to try and setup for Windows 2000... Do you have to buy special versions of Cubase for that? I just have the old one 5.0 was running it on 98.

BTW- when you have your delta up and running with a dedicated HD for multitracking, how many 24bit 96khz files can u write to disk, at once, like how many tracks? Do you run more than one Delta?

 

[WATYF]

Huh!?

Please elaborate!

LOL.. I was just jokin' man.. thus the *wink* and the *smile*

I would prolly use Linux if it weren't for the fact that it's so d@mn un-user-friendly, and that you can't find enough software to run on it... (read "enough good software) such as something for a DAW.. and mainstream games.. etc. etc. etc.

WATYF

 

[Lame Thrower]

Okay then!

I thought you were probably joking, but then you're kind of a wingnut, plus the whole semi-Canadian thing, so anything's possible!

Actually, the games for Linux are getting better. It just depends on what you're into. I'm an Idgames first person shooter fan myself, so I'd do just fine with Linux for gaming purposes.

Now if I can only convince Flavio to compile a Linux version of n-Track, I'll be all set.

 

[Cuzin B]

Re: Telling the Difference!

I do however give u credit for trying to do the best you can with the gear you can afford, cause I'm doing the same, one scale down from you, for my own project. I'm going to try and setup for Windows 2000... Do you have to buy special versions of Cubase for that? I just have the old one 5.0 was running it on 98.

BTW- when you have your delta up and running with a dedicated HD for multitracking, how many 24bit 96khz files can u write to disk, at once, like how many tracks? Do you run more than one Delta?

PearlDiver

See? That's what I am getting at - for my company and clients - Protools is way overboard. I can work faster and more efficiently in an app like Vegas and turn out product that my clients love. They don't really care what app I am using as long as I deliver the goods.

As far as Track count - I have 6 in so far (with Omni Studio) and I can do all 6 at once. It's really not about your card (obviously you need to have enough inputs), it's really about your recording app and your machine. Can it handle the load? That's the question. At one of my competitors studios - we have run laid down 24 tracks at once with Nuendo (Intel PIII runnng Windows 2000) during 2' inch tape transfers with no problems at all. Can remember waht cards they have but they had 3 of them (8 inputs each). Could have been the RME or something like that).

And for recording - let me separate my individual interests for you - I use Sonic Foundry stuff for my broadcast production work and I am getting Cubase SX this week for my own composition work. I don't think the original Cubase 5.0 worked very well on Windows 2000 - there are updates available from Steinbergs website to bring it up to snuff for ya. Again both of my recording genres use the Delta 66 with Omni Studio and it is a very flexible and excellent sounding combo.

Cheers,

Cuzin B

 

[James927]

A reply from M-Audio

Here's a copy of three replies I got from M-Audio
in response to my 44/66 motherboard/CPU compatability question. I got some speedy responses by the way.

!) "We recommend Asus mother boards and Intel Chipsets. DDR RAM is faster but you have to have a mothboard that supports it."

2) "Here is a list of recommendations:

Pentium:
· Asus P3B-F(P II)
· Asus CUBX(P III)
· Asus CUSL2C(P III)
· Asus TUSL2C(P III)
· Most mobos with an Intel 815 chipset(PIII)
· Most mobos with an Intel 850 chipset(Pentuim 4, Rambus DRAM)
· Most mobos with an Intel 845 chipset(P4, PC133 SDRAM)
AMD:
· Asus A7A(AMD chipset, Athlon)
· Abit KG-7 Lite NA(no audio)(AMD chipset, Athlon)

We are still strongly in favor of the Pentium."

3) "At 01:35 PM 7/18/02 -0700, you wrote:
Thank you Casey,
One other question.
Would you please recommend a specific mobo and processor that have been found to work well with the delta 44?
I've heard on the message boards that the 44 and 66 have issues with crackling and popping with some boards.
I was looking specifically at the Asus A7V333 for use with an AMD processor. I understand it does have a VIA chipset
which used to be a problem when using a delta sound card. Still a problem?
Thank you, James

"James,

Yes, VIA chipsets are still a problem. We recommend ASUS boards and Intel chipsets. It has been our experience that there will be the fewest problems with that configuration.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can check on for you.

Casey Kim
*** Please include all past correspondence with any email reply. Thank
you. ***
Technical Support
Techsupt@midiman.net
Line # 626-445-8495
9am-5pm PST Monday-Friday
<(©¿©)>"

James

 

[shackrock]

well i'd still say that we could play it safe with at least those 2 boards the other guy recommended me...

AMD is just so much cheaper, i gotta go that way.ha.