Question for any software studio producers

I'm running reason 2.5 and fruity loops 5 on my PC.
Just wonderning if it's worth upgrading my sound card. I have an onboard soundcard, Realtek AC97. I keep hearing about ASIO cards and don't realy know what difference it would make if I got one.
My Latency is acceptable, there isn't any noticable lag when i press keys or twist knobs, so apart from getting a better latency is there any other reason to upgrade?
Any advice would be apreciated..

onboard sound is average at best. you will notice more clarity in your sound when you upgrade.

i run a creative audigy 2 with amd comp....

have no probs with lagging or sound quallity.....

creative sounds cards seem to be good for my money

yeah what the last two guys have said... im doing everything digitally and dont have much of a budget for big name soudncards anyway.. so im just thikning audigy2 cos im a bit of a gamer too

Im also just about to purchase a notebook and will need to purchase an external sound card, so any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Wicked!
Thanks for the reply's
Phorte, what sound card do you currently use coz your tracks sound fine.
And how much would you pay for one of these audigy cards.

This post has been edited by ralpheeee on Jul 14 2005, 02:51 PM

External Audigy 2 cards retail at about $240 mark.

m-audio audiophile 24/96 card

try something along those lines, im pretty sure you can get them online for the same price as the creatives and their better!

:D

also if you check ebay there is 2
M-Audio Delta s for sale, one retails for 450 andone for 1000 and they r dirt cheap atm!

this is the card i was going to buy when i was in the US, but I forgot.

audigys r crap, mine blew up on me hehe

QUOTE (Lucas @ Jul 14 2005, 02:59 PM)

audigys r crap, mine blew up on me hehe

No Shit!!!
U must be makin some pretty intense beats!

QUOTE (ProfessaB @ Jul 14 2005, 02:38 PM)

Im also just about to purchase a notebook and will need to purchase an external sound card

just got a new ACER TravelMate 4152 LMI yesterday

sweet laptop

Im looking at Pentium IV 3.6Ghz, 1024Mb RAM 17" monitor and the works.

After speaking with the guys at Derringers, it appears that Toshiba have the best to offer, and also the Quietest systems on the market, 0 noise pollution. Some brands can actually give off a hum, and this can be picked up in recording.

QUOTE (Lucas @ Jul 14 2005, 02:59 PM)

m-audio audiophile 24/96 card

that's what i have. Does the job very well.

Retails for around $400 i think - I paid $550 for mine 2 years ago



Attached Image (Click thumbnail to expand)

m-audio are streets ahead of creative....the sound quality is quite noticeable, should get better latency, and they wont die on you......also if you have enough spare usb or firewire ports, get an external sound card, cos internal ones can quite often be effected in performance by the general radioactivity of the inside of your computer...you can insulate against this, and with good enough sound cards it wont be too noticeable anyways, but just to be sure

m-audio all the way, the quality control there is perfect

Cool. Thanks again for the advice.
Looks like M-audio will be the go.
This hobby of mine keeps getting more and more expensive..........

i went through this exact situation a few months ago, you definately want to go the audiophile 2496. I bought an audigy on creatives claims that it offerred low latency for music production, but in reality all the card did when I lowered the latency buffer was shift the extra processing load onto the CPU, the hardware didn't appear to function any better than the SBLive i was using before.

If i set the latency to what i had with the SBLive it worked the same, if i lowered the latency to 20ms or below the CPU load went through the roof and it clipped and choked and was completely useless.

So i sold it for a considerable loss and bought an audiophile, which runs at 6ms latency on the same system with no extra CPU load or clipping. It's a clear choice.

Ed: I actually wish i'd bought the external version, so i could plug my guitar straight into the 3/4 jacks... if u want u can buy my internal one and i'll upgrade

This post has been edited by Lasermad on Jul 15 2005, 12:57 PM

everyones got an audiophile these days they're great from what everyone has said

i still do a lot of gaming though and make the most of eax and direct3dsound hence why i might just go for audigy..

ralpheeee: right now im using a piece of shit hercules gametheater xp soundcard (has a big breakout box with shitloads of connections on it)..

Chipset audio, like realtek and the like are quite crap for making music.. they give a very inaccurate representation of the sounds because they are poor quality (cheap) converters... their frequency response is usually far from flat.. :/

If you want a part gamer card and part music production card at a decent price consider an M-Audio Revolution 5.1 (3 stereo outs) or Revolution 7.1 (4 stereo outs). They are not going to be as good as a 2496 but come with EAX drivers AND ASIO2 drivers.

The SBLive and audigy cards are first and foremost gaming cards, they have poor drivers for serious audio as some people have outlined.. (lets also mention that some of them have locked sample rates) furthermore, their analog converters arent particularly good (they used better ones on the rear outputs for gods sakes).. their 24bit implementation is substandard.. and if you want to use them via ASIO you pretty much need to sacrifice the gaming counterpart by installing the KX Drivers for them.

If you can give up the eax effects in games, go an Audiophile 2496.. and if you can afford it.. get an external interface, like a Firewire Audiophile.. Reasoning behind this, as someone kind of outlined below is an internal PCI card can get interference from power supplies, hard drives and various power cables and fluctuations in your pc, creating general noise and/or buzzing... the external box is regulated from a wall outlet, or firewire.. and has less things zooming past its circuits to interfere (fuck i'm technical!.. zoom zoom! [ugh.. long day]).. it can also sit nicely on your desk for controlling the headphones and plugging your ins/outs :P

To add to that.. again... if you are using or planning to use studio monitors you might want to invest in an interface that has balanced outs.. using balanced outputs gives you even less noise from the source to the speakers.

and finally, i'm using a firewire audiophile.. cant recommend it enough for the price you pay ... tho if i had the extra cash at the time i woulda got one with a mic input and balanced outs... (and maybe a few more outs for good measure)