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advice on a soundcard

i'm looking to buy a new external soundcard for my current setup. I use a guitar heavily and i'd like to have a nice ASIO soundcard to use with guitar rig. atm i'm using a cheap soundblaster external that has ridiculous latency in guitar rig, FL studio, etc.. so using it to record is near impossible. i've been looking at the M-Audio Fast track pro. it looks like it has everything i need, 4 RCA outputs, 2 1/4" outputs/inputs, 2 mic inputs, SPDIF and MIDI I/O.. any opinions on this?

everyday man... there are soooooo many great cards that could benefit you... i've hooked my guitar up to a firewire 410 with no issues but this isn't the only card great for such a set up.

there are endless soundcard threads you should really search first because i've answered the guitar questions before

Echo AudioFire 4

After buying a Firewire Audiophile, I sure as fuck will never be buying anything from M-Audio again.

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0729 there are endless soundcard threads you should really search first because i've answered the guitar questions before

yeah, i know. i've glanced over them a bit. just wanted to know if the soundcard was shit or not. thanks for the advice though.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm Echo AudioFire 4 After buying a Firewire Audiophile, I sure as fuck will never be buying anything from M-Audio again.

will check it out. thanks. edit: i really like the universal inputs. very handy. (though the m-audio one had the same thing going on). if i may ask, why not m-audio? just a shoddy product? i've read that m-audio's drivers are great.. i dunno.

DigiDesign MBox 2

E-MU 1616M
It has 4 balanced inputs, two of them has built in pre-amps, plus you get Protools HD AD converters.

Stay the fack away from EMU soundcards - I have literaly seen one catch fire under normal useage conditions and they don't sound as good as many other similar priced audio interfaces either.

Echosystem -Why not M-audio? I've done tech support for them in previous life and have to say they probably have some of the lowest electronic failure rates (aside from Motu) of all the kit had to deal with.

Omega blue, if you can stump to it, check out motu. They're also build like tanks.

Yeah E-MU cards look fantastic on paper, hell I was going to buy one...

But the drivers are absolute shite, I read a review in computer music I think, the latencies they managed to get down to weren't impressive and they said it was unstable the whole time. Echo wins for driver efficiency/stability, but theyre a bit more expensive than others.

@echosystems: you believe in everything you've read somewhere, don't you? The emu-drivers aren't the best out there, true, but they are more than useable!!!

@Omega_Blue: If your present soundcard is alright for you except for that latenc issue, you should try this ASIO4ALL and be happynot having to buy anything :-)

quote:

Originally posted by John Doe @echosystems: you believe in everything you've read somewhere, don't you? The emu-drivers aren't the best out there, true, but they are more than useable!!! @Omega_Blue: If your present soundcard is alright for you except for that latenc issue, you should try this ASIO4ALL and be happynot having to buy anything :-)

Um...

The current E-MU drivers are based on SoundBlaster drivers... Which is enough to make them shit IMO. Creative aren't exactly renowned for high quality, low latency, drivers dude.

You're right, I'm sure they are "more than useable". However, like most other people, if I had the choice between paying a little bit extra for something awesome over something thats "more than useable", I would choose that which is awesome

Echo wins. They have one of the best reputations for drivers, probably only rivalled by RME, apogee etc. Also, the AD/DA in the new Echo lines are roughly comparable to those "ProTools equivalents" in the E-MUs.

johndoe: i mentioned this in the other soundcard thread that's going on, but ASIO4ALL hasn't done shit for latency for my card. still performs the same as before/or the same as my onboard laptop sound, even after changing the buffer length and whatnot.

echosystm once again thanks for the advice on the audiofire 4, it looks like exactly what i need. the digi mbox 2 lacks enough outputs, and if E-MU sucks then i guess the audiofire sounds the best (pretty cheap too).

I'm buying one too :P

Just one note thats important to make... I'm pretty sure the headphone port isn't an independant channel, meaning you cant route something to the headphones only. From my understanding, you link it to an output (SPDIF, analogue 1/2 or 3/4 etc.) which has nothing on it (or something turned off) to only get sound through the headphones. Eg. if your monitors are on analogue 1/2, and your headphones were set to monitor analogue 1/2, then you would need to turn off your monitors to hear the sound only through the headphones.

Double check that! It's no issue for me, but it may be for you.

ive had an E-MU 1212 for about a year now and havent had any problems with drivers or anything at all, maybe i just got lucky

How low does your latency go before you get crackles and pops with a maxed out project file?

Echosystem - you're right that the drivers for Echo cards are good and reliable but I have had a lot (I mean several dozen over a 18 month period) of negative experiences with the echo (pcmcia) cards (maya etc.). The drivers were fine but the hardware was really flaky and often they just plain didn't work out of the box. Also, they really are not the cheapest and when you're spending that sort of money I would save up a little more and get a motu - it's like people who buy �30,000 japanese "sports" cars, instead of spending another �5,000 and getting a porche - if you get what I mean?

MOTU have notoriously bad Windows drivers man.
They are getting better... ALOT better, but I still hear gripes. Some guys on ITM organised a group buy for ultralites, at least half of them complained about it. I'm yet to hear anything about the Echos.

Also, an AudioFire 4 is well below the range of the cheapest MOTU stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm How low does your latency go before you get crackles and pops with a maxed out project file?

ive got it set to 10ms (dont see the need to have it any lower) and havent had any stuttering at all, thats using cubase and more recently ableton, i do run a lot of CPU intensive stuff like z3ta+ and SIR reverbs.....

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm MOTU have notoriously bad Windows drivers man.

Says who? My 828 had the most seamless installation of any interface I've tried to date. Required a reboot, but other than that it was just a couple of seconds to install and it was working on bootup. Never had even the smallest problem (even though I have *gasp* a non-Texas-Instruments firewire!).

I've heard of some strange issues with the Ultralite, but that would be product-specific.

I just always hear people saying "If you have a Mac, get a MOTU. If you have a PC, STAY THE F*CK AWAY". Heard all kinds of things from connections to the card dropping out completely, low latencies impossible to keep, etc.

I know MOTU have improved them ALOT though. You've probably just been lucky to have had one of the ones that didn't have problems, or you bought it late enough that the drivers were actually stable already.

Don't be a smart ass about the TI firewire thing. If you can get a board which is otherwise identical for LESS, which is guaranteed not to have any problems with any firewire cards, then you would have to be retarded not to buy it "just in case".

Sorry echosystem but you're plain wrong - I'm with diginut on on this and I don't even own a MOTU unit.

I think you talk about a lot of things on this forum that you've read somewhere rather than actually done or used yourself.........

I have installed MANY (over a hundred) motu units and I really connot recollect any issues apart from early 2408 mk1 with crappy converters, but even then the drivers for both mac and PC were never an issue.

You always had to wait about 6 months for the correct driver when apple or MS brought out new operating system but you can't really blame hardware manufacturers as new Vista users will testify

SOS: "This is the first time I've had the chance to try out some MOTU audio interfaces, but I was keen to do so, partly because as Mike points out in the main text they have attracted a reputation of being problematic when used with PCs."

I see statements like that everywhere.
I DON'T see statements like that everywhere for Echo, infact I see the complete opposite. Same with RME. Hence, I made a logical assumption.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm MOTU have notoriously bad Windows drivers man.

Web definitions for notorious
ill-famed: having an exceedingly bad reputation; "a notorious gangster"; "the tenderloin district was notorious for vice".

Key word: reputation.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN I think you talk about a lot of things on this forum that you've read somewhere rather than actually done or used yourself.........

Such as a Firewire audiophile? Asus P5B-E motherboards? KRK monitors? (last 3 things I talked about).

I've used them all and I'm pretty sure I only talk in ABSOLUTES when I have personal experience. Nothing I have said here was absolute, I was commenting on their reputation.

In 99% of all posts pepole complain about their problems with certain gear. All those who don't have problems don't post anything at all.

And I rally can't take someone serious who takes CM and SOS as his "reference". Reading monitor-tests on SOS gives me the creeps (does this guy actually have ears).

To that MOTU discussion: I installed a 40 channel MOTU-PC-system at my mates pro-studio, guess what, works like a charm even on lowest latencies (which aren't even necessary).

Now the ball's in your court.

quote:

Originally posted by John Doe Reading monitor-tests on SOS gives me the creeps (does this guy actually have ears).

Agree x10000000000

But... I figured, with soundcards, it either works or it doesn't. Since there isn't really any subjectivity I assumed reviews are pretty safe to believe? Anyway, don't reply to that.

OP: you can choose to ignore what I say, it's up to you! Bar my experiences with M-Audio stuff and crappy firewire controllers, the rest is just bad press.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm SOS: "This is the first time I've had the chance to try out some MOTU audio interfaces, but I was keen to do so, partly because as Mike points out in the main text they have attracted a reputation of being problematic when used with PCs." I see statements like that everywhere. I DON'T see statements like that everywhere for Echo, infact I see the complete opposite. Same with RME. Hence, I made a logical assumption. Web definitions for notorious ill-famed: having an exceedingly bad reputation; "a notorious gangster"; "the tenderloin district was notorious for vice". Key word: reputation.

Shit, you make me laugh - echosystem you walked straight in to that one.

I so very nearly put examples of magazines in the previous post when i wrote: .......you talk about a lot of things on this forum that you've read somewhere(SOS, FM etc) rather than actually done.......

I have experience with SOS dramtically changing their review before publication, from crappy to glowing, based on the fact that manufacturer has decided to take out a two page spread rather than a quarter page ad. It's just oc-incidence that when you see an mazing review for a new product

SOS (and many of the like) are nothing more than advertorials with small amount of useful genric engineering advice thrown in. Don't get me wrong, some advice is good but don't beleive a word they write about products - it's all paid for. Quoting them just makes you you a real noob, cos anyone can read that and try to sound like they know what they're talking about.

And dude there's not point trying to quote the dictionary to back up points that you read in SOS.

Having said that I do really, really enjoy your posts to rubez.

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