Influence of a soundcard - TranceAddict Forums

TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Production Studio
-- Influence of a soundcard

Posted by Takkra on Mar-25-2009 15:52:

Influence of a soundcard

As of today, I've seen absolutely no reason to get any hardware whatsoever to produce my tracks.
I've produced all of my tracks on a laptop with just monitor headphones and simple VST's and still most of them get pretty good response from the forum, dj's and fellow producers.

Got me wondering though, those soundcards etc HAVE to be good for something right? Do they improve the soundquality of the tunes you render? Or what influence do they have on the audio you produce?

Thanks in advance!

Posted by G-Con on Mar-25-2009 16:45:

As far as I'm aware mate, a soundcard has little to no influence on the render quality of your finished production.

I'm pretty all you're paying for is low latency, various ins and outs you might require and then converter quality for whatever hardware you have connected. If you are completely in the box and the soundcard you have does the job then save your money for somethin else!

Posted by RichieV on Mar-25-2009 18:38:

A good soundcard will have good DA/AD converters which will influence the clarity of the sound on your monitors as well as the sound coming into the soundcard. A better soundcard will allow more accurate monitoring. I doubt most amateurs will benefit from the latter so i think your decision should depend on your current situation.

Posted by Magnus on Mar-25-2009 20:41:

I asked this same question a while back because like yourself I wondered what a better soundcard might do for me. Check out the thread HERE.

In particular, read dannib's explanation.

Posted by DJ RANN on Mar-25-2009 20:58:

Read that thread magnus posted in full - probably one of the better discussions there's ever been on here about the pro/cons of soundcard ugrading.

It's really boils down to this:
A better soundcard will be able provide a higher degree of clarity, better stereo immaging and separation of sounds/frequencies.

These factors allow you monitor better, and therefore produce/engineer a better result.

However, the effectiveness of those potential benefits are directly linked to other factors: the quality of your monitor speakers, your listening environment and some other smaller considerations in detailed cases (whether you have power conditioners, speaker stands/de-couplers, balanced cables for long runs etc). The bottom line is that if you have crap monitors sitting on your desk, in an untreated and pokey bedroom then a good soundcard is going to be a waste of money. It's all relative.

Posted by Nemesis44 on Apr-03-2009 17:08:

I found that there is a massive difference between listening/mixing with an external soundcard compared to onboard or regular soundcards for gaming.
Makes a world of difference in terms of clarity in my ears.

External soundcards are also useful if you use an analogue mixing desk as some of them have multiple outs.

That said, I never thought clarity, stereo image or mixing quality was a problem with your productions, so go with what you know.

And as stated before, your setup is only as good as your weakest link in terms of sound so you would need monitors that match the card in quality to get any real benefit.

Cheers
Nem

Posted by Storyteller on Apr-03-2009 18:51:

I had the audigy 1 platinum. It was terrible. lousy quality and too expensive. It cost me 250E at the time. Afterwards I bought a 100E card and there was a significant improvement in quality and stability.