SONAR2 and TB Santa Cruz and XP

B

bpoco

New member
Is anyone successfully using a Santa Cruz soundcard with XP and SONAR2?

I'm looking to upgrade to SONAR2 (from PA 9.0). But, this will require a new PC which will likely not support my ISA-based sound card (TurtleBeach Pinnacle). As a result, I need a new PCI-based soundcard - but I want an on-board synth too - the Santa Cruz seems like a good replacement. The sound specs are decent and if the synth is anything like the Pinnacle, I'll be happy as a clam. However, I'm worried about WDM drive compatability.

Thanks all,

BPOCO

PS: Please, no posts on how the Santa Cruz is as crappy as any Soundblaster card.
 
As a reply to myself :). I see Best Buy has the Santa Cruz on sale for $39 !!! At that price it's cheap enough to try out.

Nevertheless, I'd be interested in feedback. Maybe I can save a drive to BB and hours of PC-tweaking.

BPOCO
 
If you realy concern about on board synth (internal MIDI) I'll say go with Creative cards. SBLive! or Audigy. It's common used compared to Santa Cruz. Creative's ensure you won't have any problem with soundfonts either.

Anyway, if money is not the problem, then get some better card instead. M-Audio Audiophile or Terratec EWX2496 at least. You still can do MIDI work with DXi with SONAR... :cool:

;)
Jaymz
 
bpoco said:
Is anyone successfully using a Santa Cruz soundcard with XP and SONAR2?

I'm looking to upgrade to SONAR2 (from PA 9.0). But, this will require a new PC which will likely not support my ISA-based sound card (TurtleBeach Pinnacle). As a result, I need a new PCI-based soundcard - but I want an on-board synth too - the Santa Cruz seems like a good replacement. The sound specs are decent and if the synth is anything like the Pinnacle, I'll be happy as a clam. However, I'm worried about WDM drive compatability.

Thanks all,

BPOCO

PS: Please, no posts on how the Santa Cruz is as crappy as any Soundblaster card.
Click to expand...

Why do you need an onboard synth? Most softsynths sound just as good or even better. Sonar already comes with Edirol's Virtual Sound Canvas DXi and Livesynth (a softsynth that lets you load and use SoundFonts).

Personally, I'd buy something like the Audiophile or MiaMIDI which has much better WDM and ASIO drivers (Sonar 2.2 now uses ASIO drivers)
 
bite the bullet and upgrade

Hi, BPOCO.

I'm using a TurtleBeach SantaCruz with Sonar 2 and Windows XP at the moment. It works ok for me, but latency is still not so hot. The best I can do is 10-20 msec for latency, which is alright but can still leave some things sounding a little off in terms of timing. The soundfont issue doesn't affect me, since I bought the LiveSynth Pro soundfont utility. But, definitely one thing on my list is an upgraded sound card -- I think I've got my eye on the Audiophile, which isn't all that expensive (although much more than $39 that's for sure... but I think less than $200). I just bought myself a PODxt though, which set me back a few bones, so I'm gonna have to grin :D and bear my SantaCruz for a while longer. Plus, I'm considering the upgrade to Sonar 3! :eek: There's always something out there to spend your money on, eh? :rolleyes:

HTH, :)
-Jeff
 
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