External Sound Card

Four-Percent

Hi guys,recently i broke the headphone jack on my laptop, so i'm looking into getting an external sound card - what would a top of the range card be?

I've got no ide what to look for in a card, so any advice is appreciated.

madtheory

Hello. It depends on what you need. How many inputs and outputs would you like? What software are you using? Is your room acoustically treated?

dav nagle

Sorry you said external, thread wiped!

BumbleB

Dont buy a creative audigy they are rubbish for music production .

frobisher

What kind of use will it get?

Four-Percent

It'll be used frequently, every day at least.

I've changed my mind and decided to just go for something cheap that will tide me over until i can afford a mac.One input and one output will be grand.

I was looking a a creative card before, can't remember the name but it was only €60.Why are they so bad?

mike65

Its got the word Creative on the box (snob alert!)

PMI

Leave creative for the gamers

top of the range cards and alot of dosh why do you need top of range now when youve just come from using an output from a laptop?

I would recommend one of the M-audios like the fasttrack pro or ultra or something, great card and does most of what people want.

madtheory

Yes, the M Audio USB boxes are great value, so are the EMu USB boxes. For not much more than €60, you'll get something decent that will serve you well for music production- for your purpose, the Creative card is a false economy.

rayzercork

emu and m-audio are supposed to have good soundcards from what ive been told by others

littlemissfraze

I'd like to jump on this if its alright! I'm looking for help on getting a usb audio interface also preferably with at least 4 in/outs as i'd like to record drums and then use drum a gog, i'd also need midi i/o.

My budget would be about €200 but could maybe go €50 more if it was highly recommended.

I've done a bit of research already and found the lexicon omega studio: http://www.thomann.de/ie/lexicon_omega_studio.htm I googled some reviews and it seemed to get good ones from magazines etc. but on harmony central it got quite poor reviews so i was hoping maybe someone on here knows something about it, or could recommend other gear?

The m-audios just seem a little out of budget for 4 outs but maybe it would be worth waiting a little longer?!

EDIT: was just looking at the m-audio fast track pro: http://www.thomann.de/ie/maudio_fast_track_pro.htm
In its description it says its a 4x4 24bit... so is this a 4in/4out because it has the two mic pres at the front and two inserts at the back? Thanks

i57dwun4yb1pt8

the lexicon omega is awful, so avoid it .

you wont be able to just record drums and drum agog the lot .

you will still need cymbals , hats , and these will come via a pair of good overhead mics into a right and left hand track.

you can replace the snare , toms , kick , with drum agog on the seperate mic tracks for each .

but then you will have great sounding samples of drum agog close mics , and cymbals that sound like sh1t - due to the cheap overhead tracks.



if you want to use drum agog , you need to have a very good quality over head mix to sit on top of the drum agog samples. - this means - great mics, preamp and converter.

you could do it if you close mic everything - including hats , each cymbal etc, but you need about 8 to ten trqcks , mics , inputs.

Rockshamrover

littlemissfraze wrote: »

I'd like to jump on this if its alright! I'm looking for help on getting a usb audio interface also preferably with at least 4 in/outs as i'd like to record drums and then use drum a gog, i'd also need midi i/o.

My budget would be about €200 but could maybe go €50 more if it was highly recommended.

I've done a bit of research already and found the lexicon omega studio: http://www.thomann.de/ie/lexicon_omega_studio.htm I googled some reviews and it seemed to get good ones from magazines etc. but on harmony central it got quite poor reviews so i was hoping maybe someone on here knows something about it, or could recommend other gear?

The m-audios just seem a little out of budget for 4 outs but maybe it would be worth waiting a little longer?!

EDIT: was just looking at the m-audio fast track pro: http://www.thomann.de/ie/maudio_fast_track_pro.htm
In its description it says its a 4x4 24bit... so is this a 4in/4out because it has the two mic pres at the front and two inserts at the back? Thanks

Hi Littlemissfraze (funny name for a bloke):D

Welcome to the MP forum. The fastrack pro just has two mic inputs. The Fastrack Ultra has four but probably costs a lot more. Some of the other lads on here are expert at the drum recording thing and can give you some good advise.

PMI

I use the fasttrack pro live all the time and have no probs....

For 4 in's I would say go for fasttrack ultra by M-audio....

few things to keep in mind when using these, the driver wont allow the buffer size, I repeat wont allow the buffer lower than 128 they havent changed this yet.

Also if you looking to run giga anything there hasnt been a giga usb driver produced yet...

Thats all really after that its plug and play and get paid !

littlemissfraze

Hey thanks a lot for the replys, i didnt know drum a gog couldn't replace the cymbals but know that i think about it, i realise that would be very difficult to do!
Just to fill you in the main reason i want to do this is to record my own band just so we could have a decent recording of our songs for ourselves in order to make decisions on them because i know from recording before once you have a song recorded and can listen to it from an outside perspective you often want to make changes on structure etc. I'd also just like to educate myself on the whole production/engineering side of things in order to know whats going on when we use professional studios.

So my new plan, (which makes sense to me in theory but mightn't work in practice?), is to get the m-audio fast track pro which has 2 in/outs. So i'd mic the kick and the snare and record just that track to a click. I'd then use ez drummer and the piano roll/a midi controller to manually insert the hi hats/cymbals and toms (hopefully this wouldn't be too laborious as the beat shouldn't be too complex!). I'd be able to tell the location of each hats/cymbals/toms from the bleed from both the kick and snare track. When i apply the drum a gog vst the bleed from the snare and kick track will go so even if the cymbal/hats/toms or out a tiny bit due to drummer inaccuracy and/or phase this shouldnt be a problem.

the only problem i could think of would be an inability in replicating the hats/cymbals/toms using ez drummer or else maybe the drum a gog and ezdrummer samples clashing?

Any advice before i go experimenting? Thanks

PMI

Just seems why bother?

Youve got easy drummer use that if your gonna be using it for cymbals, hats etc...anyway?!? the kick and snare will sound a bit crappy going straight into the fast track anyway without some other preamp?!? so just more hassle?

trigger it up and use the whole of easy drummer if you have a drummer who insists that he hits all the beats in....