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Softsynth with Soundcard quality
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| The Designer |
| I read somewhere that a softsynth generate sounds using the soundcard from the PC. ( I guess a hardware doesn't use the soundcard to generate sounds ). If you use a softsynth, will the sounds be better if you would use a better soundcard? :conf: If so, what kind of soundcard would you guys advise for producing music? |
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| Low Profile |
Actually the soundcard doesn't do anything else than produce the audio output from your computer. All the processing of softsynths is done on the CPU and memory.
There ara also PCI cards (like the Power Core for example) that are special audio processing cards, similar to the audio processor of a hardware synth.
Just a couple of days ago Access announced VSTi version of the Access Virus C that runs on the power core card. It's computer program, but everything is procecced with the Power core instead of the CPU as normal softsynths do... |
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| DJDIRTY |
Hi. The better the quality of your soundcard the better the soft synth will sound.. Cause in the end you have to render or record the soft synth and convert it to whatever format you wont. .wave... being the most popular and mp3.. So it does matter what sort of soundcard you record with.. And about power core.. It's mainly for effects, since there is only one software synth for it so far,a nd Access anounced the virus for the card as well. but it's not virus C.. It's
based on the Virus Indigo ... At list that's what they are saying... |
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| hey cheggy |
Latecny is also determined by the sound card, so you want something of decent quality to make sure you don't get something with any recognisable latency.
The powercore thing is just a DSP card isn't it? They've been around for donkeys years. The virus actually came out a fair while ago on software format (indigo TDM) but being in TDM you needed pro-tools to run it and a mighty DSP card. Polyphony was (and still is for the VST version) limited to the amount of DSP (digital Signal Processors) you have running in your system. If you buy the VST version and get the powercore just for it (as i saw someone mention), it seems like a bit of a waste when for a similar amount of money, you can buy a second hand Virus C Desktop. |
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| Dj Thy |
The soundcard doesn't have ANY effect on the sound quality of a softsynth.
As long as your card supports high bit rates/samplerates (it doesn't mean that your soundcard has not got 24/96 convertors, that it can't support programs that run internally at that quality. Some cards refuse to play higher than their convertors accept, true).
If you keep everything internal, nothing of your soundcard will affect the sound, not even the mixdown/export (as that is internal too).
So there are only two options where the quality can decrease :
- your soundcard doesn't support high quality modes in internal calculations. Even then, if the instrument/effect is not optimized for that high quality, it won't make much difference
- you need to export your mix an analog way. For most of us this isn't the case (cd burning stays internal).
But what cheggy says is true. Latency is the biggest factor to consider. If you want to play stuff in with a MIDI keyboard for example, and you have a 500 ms latency, it's not fun (imagine pressing the key, and the sound plays/records half a second later, very unpleasant).
So for producing music, you are best to take a soundcard with ASIO drivers (and if possible, drivers with proven reliability, listen to other users for that). ASIO drivers provide low latency, so you can do your work in a decent way.
As long as you stay fully internal (softsynths and soft effects) don't worry about convertors, as you don't have to worry about background noise and such problems. Only if you want to record from outside (mics, instrument outs, ...) convertors become a big concern. |
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| The Designer |
| quote: | Originally posted by Dj Thy
The soundcard doesn't have ANY effect on the sound quality of a softsynth.
As long as your card supports high bit rates/samplerates (it doesn't mean that your soundcard has not got 24/96 convertors, that it can't support programs that run internally at that quality. Some cards refuse to play higher than their convertors accept, true).
If you keep everything internal, nothing of your soundcard will affect the sound, not even the mixdown/export (as that is internal too).
So there are only two options where the quality can decrease :
- your soundcard doesn't support high quality modes in internal calculations. Even then, if the instrument/effect is not optimized for that high quality, it won't make much difference
- you need to export your mix an analog way. For most of us this isn't the case (cd burning stays internal).
But what cheggy says is true. Latency is the biggest factor to consider. If you want to play stuff in with a MIDI keyboard for example, and you have a 500 ms latency, it's not fun (imagine pressing the key, and the sound plays/records half a second later, very unpleasant).
So for producing music, you are best to take a soundcard with ASIO drivers (and if possible, drivers with proven reliability, listen to other users for that). ASIO drivers provide low latency, so you can do your work in a decent way.
As long as you stay fully internal (softsynths and soft effects) don't worry about convertors, as you don't have to worry about background noise and such problems. Only if you want to record from outside (mics, instrument outs, ...) convertors become a big concern. |
Thanks everybody for answering my question ;) |
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