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-- importance of soundcard

importance of soundcard

i was wondering if it matters how good your soundcard is, if you only use samples, and never recorded audio in your music?

I suppose not, im on an old card total piece of shit actually. so long as you have the best drvers its fine

Depends what you're doing. Better soundcards can achieve lower latencies. If you're just running FLStudio with a couple VSTs, you wouldn't really mind a latency of 23 -50 ms. For some producers thats just way too much.

Re: importance of soundcard

quote:

Originally posted by efficace i was wondering if it matters how good your soundcard is, if you only use samples, and never recorded audio in your music?

If you're not doing any recording, nor recording to an external recorder via your analog outputs, then no, it really doesn't matter a whole lot. If you're strictly using samples and softsynths, and mixing down internally to a wave file, then the analog I/O doesn't make any difference in the file's sound quality.

If you have an absolute shite card that doesn't reproduce exactly what you are playing though, then you might accidentally add more bass if the bass response on your card is crap.

thanks for the info! i might still upgrade my soundcard just in case.

more expensive sound cards dont necessarily yield lower latencies. it depends on how you work for one thing.

i can start with 1 ms on my delta 1010. but if i add a few instruments it starts to pop and crackle as my asio buffer is overflowing. so up the latency to 5 ms. add a few effects. pops and crackles again. gradually ill increase it to the point where its no longer really possible to do live automation without recording in a separate project.

any cheap entry level pro audio soundcard will do and you'll also observe the need to increase your ASIO buffer and thus your latency, the more stuff you are crunching live, simultaneously.

the expensive soundcards - the big 10 in, 10 out, ADAT monsters that are rackmountable. those cards offer lots and lots of balanced analog ins and outs. basically so you can record sound from more external devices simultaneously. and output that audio to multiple channels (for 5.1 mixing and so forth). some will even have in built preamps so you dont need to buy one separately in order to record from mic sources.

bottom line: it depends on what you want to do. if you are in a band and want to record all your bandmates playing at the same time you'll need alot of mics. alot of preamps. and a soundcard with lots of inputs. so a good soundcard with all those features is a must.

if you are in a band and dont mind overdubbing, then you dont really need such a big soundcard although you'll still want decent pres.

if you dont record audio from any external devices (i.e. you write dance music, entirely using software and freebie samples off the net) then you dont need any pres and you dont really need any ins either. just a stereo out.

BOTTOM LINE:

You NEED a soundcard to produce.

quote:

You NEED a soundcard to produce.

nah ya dont! i was producing for about 7 months without an audio interface. and of course, cuz i had no interface i had no midi keyboard (still dont have one) and i had to use my PC speakers cuz i didnt have any audio outs except a headphone jack. back in those days i was working entirely out of fruity loops 4.1 + albino, superwave trance pro and FM7 demo (which i had to restart every 30 minutes when the sound cut out and write down the settings cuz it wouldnt save). i wrote this: without a soundcard, without a midi controller and a pair of 5 watt PC speakers. yea its old and crap. i also believe if i had to go on writing on this setup i would have gotten better at it (back then i didnt know what compressors were and what they did. heheheh).

you dont need a souncard to produce. although once you get used to writing music with a reliable audio interface, using a midi keyboard and playing it back through monitor speakers, you will find it very hard to write music on a shit setup again.

erm derivative, you know that you can't hear something if you don't have an audio-interface!? even for crappy speakers it's required to have an audio interface (soundcard)

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative any cheap entry level pro audio soundcard will do and you'll also observe the need to increase your ASIO buffer and thus your latency, the more stuff you are crunching live, simultaneously. hen you dont really need such a big soundcard although you'll still want decent pres.

Very well said dude, the whole post was actually!

quote:

Originally posted by thecYrus erm derivative, you know that you can't hear something if you don't have an audio-interface!? even for crappy speakers it's required to have an audio interface (soundcard)

that's what i'm thinking..

I said you need a soundcard as a joke.. u know.. funny ha-ha

I've used a $40 soundcard for all of my productions. It's terrible, but it doesn't matter much since I don't record anything, and I don't particularly care about latency from my midi keyboard.

I made this track using the integrated sound card on a $40 motherboard

Download track

I hate to say this but you need at least decent D/A converters on your soundcard. This is so you can HEAR what you are doing. If the output is non-linear then you're simply shooting yourself in the foot right out of the gate..

Decent A/D is required if you are going to record.

There is a ton more to this than first meets the eye (ear). Don't get me started on poor clocking leading to high jitter which will REALLY messes your sound up, and unless you have trained ears you probbably won't realise.

Well, apart from no matter what you do your mixes sound "Cheap".

That said.. Great Enginner + Poor Gear > Poor Engineer + Great Gear

Of course Great Engineer + Great Gear is the goal...

In the modern paradigm of "The Computer is the Studio" you need to spend on the most bas assed CPU you can lay your hands on, decent soundcard and good monitors.

Remeber your tunes are only as good as the weakest link in the chain. Simply keeping it in the computer you might think that your quality is ok, but without the monitoring and the soundcard in the chain to hear what is going on in there you're doomed.

Bwahhhaaahahahahaa...

Sorry. /me gets coat.


Ok, back. Well done for reading this far..

Now, if you are on a budget on day one, get a sound card with at least a digital i/o so you can bypass the chintsy internal converters with some better ones later down the road. Ideally externaly clocked, as a cheap soundcard is going to have aweful Jitter.

There is a reason people pay thousands for 2 channels of DA.

well i didnt really have a soundcard up until about june of last year. i had an integrated sound controller on my motherboard which had an amazing *one* headphone jack! i think practically every motherboard manufactured these days has an integrated sound controller on board.

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