quote:

Originally posted by alanzo ? The soundcard doesn't matter at all, it's going to sound the same on my card as it does on a built in card.. your soundcard doesn't act as a DSP.. that's why VSTis suck you your CPU!

yes having a good sound card with good A/D converters DOES affect the sound of a VSTi..and it also depends on how high KHZ your running...I'll come back with specs for you in a bit, for the exact refences..have to go ask my buddy Stefan Stenzel from former Waldorf that told me this. And yeah he does know about this stuff since he basically programmed the PPG Wave VSTi,Attack, among other things.

THANK YOU!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Limit yes having a good sound card with good A/D converters DOES affect the sound of a VSTi..and it also depends on how high KHZ your running...I'll come back with specs for you in a bit, for the exact refences..have to go ask my buddy Stefan Stenzel from former Waldorf that told me this. And yeah he does know about this stuff since he basically programmed the PPG Wave VSTi,Attack, among other things.

these factors will make only VERY subtle differences that hardly effect the timbre of the patch.. if anything the treble may be a little clearer or something of that nature..

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quote:

yes having a good sound card with good A/D converters DOES affect the sound of a VSTi

It certainly does affect what you hear.

But again, this can go back to room acoustics.

Let's say you have very good D/A conversion that better reflects the 1s and 0s of your e.g. Zeta patch, if your room acoustics aren't right, it doesn't matter how accurate conversion is, you won't hear an accurate representation of the sound. Especially on that Zeta bass patch.

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quote:

Originally posted by Etherium if your room acoustics aren't right, it doesn't matter how accurate conversion is, you won't hear an accurate representation of the sound. Especially on that Zeta bass patch.

ALRIGHT! We get it, man!


I am a post whore..

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lol alanzo

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well just for the hell of it I'll post here when i get a reply back...I'll let you know exactly what a good card does with a VSTi.

What kind of soundcard do you have Limit? Just curious.

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quote:

Originally posted by Etherium What kind of soundcard do you have Limit? Just curious.

it must be the god of all soundcards to make this huge difference he is ranting about..



chalk another one up for the post whore

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lol

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David & Carr

Alter Ego Records A&R, Producer, DJ
e :: [email protected]
w :: myspace.com/davidandcarr
w :: www.alteregorecords.com | www.davidandcarr.com

The soundcard matters when you pass the DA stage (monitoring, recording the output of the synth externally). Not for calculating the stuff, as that only depends on your CPU.

Don't forget that a VST instrument isn't actually audio until it leaves the soundcard. So if your sequencer allows it, you could run a VSTi and bounce it down to an audio file without needing a soundcard. The "quality" will then be dependent on several things : the quality of the audio engine of both the VST and the host, and the soundcard when playing back the file (if you did the internal mixdown on comp with a cheap soundblaster, say at 44.1/24 bits, and you would play it back on a comp with a good RME, it would sound the same as would you have done the internal mixdown on the expensive comp... The internal mixdown remained in the digital domain, so no DA conversion was involved.
A very easy way to test this is make a project with a VSTi. Make an internal mixdown. Make a second IDENTICAL mixdown. Now import both mixdowns and put them exactly at the same spot. Phase reverse one of them. This is an important part to see if your host makes sample accurate bounces. You should hear silence if everything goes well.
Ok, save that project you made the original bounce of and keep one bounce you made. Take the original project to a comp with another (better or worse) audio interface. Again, make an identical mixdown (so don't move any positions, or don't do any extra processing).
Now compare the bounces from both computers, one reversed in phase. If they cancel out (and if you've proven the bounces are sample accurate, at the same settings they will), you've proven that for the soundcard doesn't affect internal VSTi behaviour.

And saying that the samplerate matters isn't always true either. It just depends how the VSTi was programmed (if it has an internal engine that always runs at 44.1, you'll just end up with a bigger file when bouncing). The instruments must have an audio engine that is at least as good as the settings you use in your project if you want to hear the difference if knocking up the samplerate.

But, in the end yes, what you HEAR has passed the DA conversion, so then it matters. And then you get in the accoustics realm, like Etherium said. And it's true most amateur producers skimp on this. The spend massive amount of money on expensive monitors, but forget that the room you are monitoring in, is part of the audio chain too... How many times have I seen guys getting bigger monitors and subs because they didn't have enough bass, and it didn't solve anything, because they had standing waves problems right at their listening position.

quote:

Originally posted by Etherium What kind of soundcard do you have Limit? Just curious.

Its not the God of all cards...I only use a Delta 1010...I was simply just stating that a good card does affect the sound. you guys get pissed off to easily.
This is waht I got so far but not exactly what I wanted.

First of all, you will be aware of the hearing range of your ears - about
16HZ to 20kHz are what you can hear (some more, some less, depends on age,
hearing habits, etc.). To transmit tones of the highest audible frequency,
you need a digital transport medium with a sample rate of at least double
that frequency, i.e., around 40kHz. Since higher frequencies would still
affect/distort the transmission (see "aliasing", for example), the digital
audio stream has to be filtered so that frequencies above the range
(22.05kHz for CD, 24kHz for DAT) are not present in the original signal.

But: in our analog world, these higher frequencies, while inaudible, still
have an effect on what you hear - taking them away DOES change the sound a
bit. Some might say it makes it a bit duller.

Now contrast this with a real synth, for example the PPG Wave, or Microwave
1, or Waldorf Wave (the Microwave II and XT are a different kind of beast,
since they're DSP-based). In these devices, the oscillators are digital all
right, but they run at a much higher speed (about 200kHz IIRC). One big
reason for this is that it moves aliasing into inaudible ranges - and it
does produce overtones in the output signal that are far above the hearing
range, but that still affect the output signal. The rest of the processing
(filter, amplifier, etc.) is analog, not subject to any sampling rate. This
produces a more "lively" sound than a completely digital instrument playing
the same sound but running at a sample rate of, say, 39kHz (or a VSTi
running at 44.1kHz).

The higher the sample rate, the better the output signal of a digital
instrument. Resolution is not as important to the ear as sample rate - if
you try, you'll be surprised how good even 6 bit can sound at 44 kHz or
above if the signal is not dynamic, such as an oscillator's output - but, of
course, 24 bit carry more information than 16, so the sound has more
details. Since, however, most waveforms used in the mentioned wavetable
devices start with 8 bit samples before being processed, it's not as
important as one might believe in a VSTi. The sampling frequency, however,
IS - as you move towards a sampling frequency of 192kHz, current state of
the art, you're reaching the regions of the original - i.e., a really
faithful representation of the hardware synth in software becomes a
possibility.