Soundcard Advice

[MarioD]

Hi all,

I’m looking for a little advice.  I’m planing on building Intel i7, 6-8 gig, 64 bit Win 7, two 1 TB 7200 RPM HD music computer; note that this computer will not be on line.  I’m looking for suggestions on a PCI sound card with a break out box.  I need a minimum of 3 mic inputs/outputs and SPDI/F input/output.  I’m looking at some EMU and Delta cards but I’m confused on what to get.  Currently I’m using a 7 year old Creative Elite Pro X-Fi card with my 32 bit Win XP music computer but I’m sure there are better cards out there. I’m on a limited budget so I have to stay under $500 USD.  Any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated!

Thanx in advance for your time - MarioD

[Marc JX8P]

My old E-MU card and breakout box has served me well over the years (it was a 1212m with the 1820m breakbout box). Will you be needing 3 mic inputs with phantom power? Most breakout boxes I know tend to offer two mic inputs with pre-amps and phantom power and for the rest line inputs. Having said that, M-Audio now have the Fast Track Pro Ultra which has four mic inputs (and a stereo line and s/pdif). I have the Fast Track Pro version myself for live gigs and I really like it. It's USB 2.0 but that only makes it more flexible than a PCI card. It's also about 300 euros, which should place it around 430 USD.

[MarioD]

Thanx Marc JX8P.

Actually I can use an interface with a 2 mic pre-amp input but I will check out the Fast Track Pro Ultra.

How is the latency with USB2?  I’m going to assume that you use it live that it is less the 20 ms.  I have read that USB2 interfaces are slower than PCI(e) cards but I don’t know for sure.

Thanx again.

[Fred S]

I've had limited experience with all three. Best latency and stability has been with cards with break out boxes (as needed).  I've also used an EMU USB2 live and worked ok. Tried using a PreSonis firebox (FireWire) but never got it to work well. Latency was always an issue. Have to be careful with the type of FW card you use. The EMU USB2 ran reliably with latency >10. If I remember correctly, the EMU card runs ok around 3.   

[Marc JX8P]

Thanx Marc JX8P.

Actually I can use an interface with a 2 mic pre-amp input but I will check out the Fast Track Pro Ultra.

How is the latency with USB2?  I’m going to assume that you use it live that it is less the 20 ms.  I have read that USB2 interfaces are slower than PCI(e) cards but I don’t know for sure.

Thanx again.

The Ultra is basically a bigger Fast Track Pro, so if you want just two mic inputs (aside from the S/PDIF) then you can go for that even cheaper option. I'm using the Fast Track Pro with my Macbook, and according to the control panel it gives me about 9-10 ms latency on 48 kHz. It's also bus-powered which is really nice.

USB2.0 is plenty fast enough; my new RME Fireface UC interface is USB2.0 and it manages 18 channels in and 18 out under 44.1/48 kHz. The issue is always the quality of the drivers and sometimes other processes can screw up the communication with your audio interface. For example, for my old laptop I had to deactivate the network interface as that produced occasional spikes in the CPU load which resulted in pops and clicks in the audio.

[Fred S]

One other little laptop trick that comes up from time to time, especially with Dell units, If your having weird trouble sound and latency, and nothing you do to the settings helps it, don't use the battery. In fact, take the battery out and use the electrical cord.

[MarioD]

That is good information Fred, however my current system is and my next system will be a desktop.

[Fred S]

Yeah same here. That bit of information came the hard way when I was using a laptop live .