what soundcard do I need

  • Thread starter Thread starter jurgen
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jurgen

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I 'm looking for a good sound card for a small home studio. my requirements are:

< 250 EURO
2 x 1/4" jack in
break-out box or easy accessibility
midi interface
possibility to use sound fonts
1 mic preamp with XLR or 1/4" jack
low noise and good sound
upgradeability

I will be using sonar.

can anyone advise me about what I should get? or am I too demanding for the buck?
right now I'm hesitating between the echo mia, the delta audiphile or delta 44, the staudio DSP24Value and the audiotrak maya.

thanks
 
jurgen said:

can anyone advise me about what I should get? or am I too demanding for the buck?
right now I'm hesitating between the echo mia, the delta audiphile or delta 44, the staudio DSP24Value and the audiotrak maya.
Click to expand...

1)Delta 44
2) Staudio Dsp24 value
3)Audiotrak Maya, or inca
3)Audiophile or Dio2448 or 2496
 
Check out the Delta Omni Studio and a Sound Blaster Live Platinum, a lot of people have the two cards running side by side without any problems and they fill all your criteria (not sure about price).
 
you wont get all you what for that price....Vox pretty much hit the nail on the head, but Id settle for just the SoundBlasterLiveValue, because you will probably only use it for SoundFonts.....

last I saw, the Omni was going for 399.99 EURO....

if you can settle for 2 RCA inputs instead of 1/4" inputs, you can get

Audiophile 169.99 EURO
Mdiman AudioBuddy preamp 69.99

these prices came from
Digital Villiage
North london
020 8440 3440
230 High Street,Barnet
Herts EN5 5TD

of course you still will need the SB Live but that shouldnt be more than 49.99?????
 
thanks guys. I guess I should lower my requirements or spend some more. but if I took the audiophile or the delta 44, would I really need the SB, just for the sound fonts? it seems weird that a card that has midi connections would not handle sound fonts?
would a SB PCI 128 do instead of the SB live?

and for the omni, wouldn't I need the delta 44 too? that would be another option, so I can start right away with low cost and expand my system when I really need it.
 
Sound Font is a SoundBlaster only deal (i think).....
 
jurgen said:

......it seems weird that a card that has midi connections would not handle sound fonts?
Click to expand...

Soundfonts are actually "Samples" that you can load into memory and play back, they can be any sound in the world once they are converted to the right format , not all midi cards have the ability to load up soundfonts, most just do the standard Midi functions of sending instructions to sound modules to play their existing sounds.

Tell us EXACTLY what you want to record, live drums? vocals? acoustic guitar? Just doing MIDI tracks?
 
ok, here it is:
I am going to use it for demo recordings and songwriting: at first I will record some guitars through my boss GT3, add bass and drums using midi (mainly through my korg N5, in sonar) and then add some vocals, do the mixing, add fx, and do the mastering.
maybe I will want to record an acoustic guitar every once in a while, but through a mic.

as you see I have a good synth, but i would like to fool around with soft synths (and be able to play these through the keybord of my synth), I don't want to limit myself to just the Korg. I was told I need the sound font option to do so.

and last but not least: I would like to be able to record a real band demo, that means, indeed recording live drums...

thank you guys for your help so far...
 
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