Advice on buying a new soundcard
Hi everyone,
I’ve been using N-Track for several years now, but this is my first time posting to the board. I’m not in a band nor am I a professional but I have fun always looking for ways to get the best possible recordings out of my gear.
Until now I’ve just been recording with a Soundblaster 16 PCI using a line 6 pod for the guitars and bass and a zoom drum machine, and the sound seems fine. This week, however, I’m getting a new computer and since my SB16 finally quit on me I was considering buying a Soundblaster Audigy 2 Value for the new system.
If anyone has experience with this particular card or even just experience going from 16 bit 44.1khz to 24 bit 96khz I was wondering how noticeable the overall jump in quality was. Especially recording rock and roll that isn’t too demanding as far as dynamic range and noise floor, etc. are concerned, does it seem worth the little extra cash to buy the card and upgrade to N-Track 24?
Thanks in advance. I appreciate any advice anyone might have.
P.S. I’m not concerned about multiple inputs since I just record one track at a time.
The amount of audible difference between 16 and 24 bits will largely depend on your monitors and your ears, though not necessarily in that order.
The biggest difference for you, I’m guessing, will be bumping into the physical limits of your computer since 24 bit files are so much larger than 16 bit files. You’ll start running out of room fairly quickly unless you’ve got enough horsepower under your hood.
For affordable soundcards, it’s hard to beat M-Audio’s AP 2496 or EMU’s 0404. Personally, I’d lean towards the 0404 but both can be had for a bit less than $100 USD.
Best regards,
Tio Ed
Austin, Texas
Land O’ 10,000 Guitarists
if you want a audio card that does game well, that’s a good card. if you want an audio card that records music well, you’d be better off getting one of the E-MU cards-they’re designed for audio, and can offer you better converters which will be your biggest noticeable difference. depending on which model you buy, some pres would be a big help too.
I have an audigy 2 NX, and am very happy with it. If you can afford one of the better cards designed for recording, then it is a good buy. But for the price the Audigy 2 line is very good. Plus, if you don’t use the USB version like I do (I got it so I can use it with my laptop as well), you can use (HELP WITH THE NAME?) some web site that provides imporved drives so it works better with audio and stuff. Again, I have the NX, so I don’t know much about it myself, but others have on this board, so they could tell you more.
fish
This won’t help you pick a card, but might help you decide what format to use if you do get a card that supports 24/96.
With 24-bit/44.1kHz format, the files are only 50% larger, there’s no noticeable CPU difference, and there are definite benefits. For one thing, you don’t have to sweat the headroom so much – you can focus on the headroom of the analog gear in your setup, and leave plenty of extra headroom when recording tracks in case you get exhuberant, without losing any meaningful amount of fidelity. Also, the results from all plugins will sound better, and the final mixes should sound better. The difference will be fairly subtle, though.
Going to 24/96 takes over 6 times the disk space and more than double the CPU time. It doesn’t increase the dynamic range, so you don’t get additional benefit of being able to leave more headroom. It does improve the results of certain kinds of plugins, though. The difference between 24/44 and 24/96 is more subtle than the difference between 16/44 and 24/44, unless there’s a LOT of effects processing.
Going to 24 bits improves the results from all plugins, because they get more precision. Going from 44 to 96 kHz sample rate only improves results of plugins with complex interactions in the time domain. For example, it won’t help a simple delay, but it can help reverbs, and substantially helps pitch modulation (chorus, pitch shifting, etc.)
HTH 
Thanks for all the advice. Yeah I guess it makes sense to stay at 44.1 for file size and the number of tracks I’d be able to run. The E-MU 0404 was another card I was looking at as well as it and it sounds like that might be a better way to go. In a couple reviews, I read that the Patchmix DSP application required to run the card is extremely difficult to set up. Has anyone experienced this or does it set up with N-Track fairly seemlessly? I have a decent background with computers but that kind of scared me away. Also, can it be used as a default windows sound card or is it strictly for audio production? The new motherboard has onboard sound as well so I guess it’s not too much of an issue.
Thank you again.
Regarding use of your sound card for windows - I use the M-audio Delta 44, it works fine with n-track and it sounds excellent. I can use it as the default windows soundcard too, although like many audio recording soundcards it doesn’t have a physical connection for a CD rom audio output. To play a CD or DVD and hear the output you just need to check an option within Windows to allow digital output.
when i went to 24bit/44.1 the difference in dynamic range was huge. i could never go back to 16 bit.
| Quote (learjeff @ Jan. 17 2005,11:44) |
| This won't help you pick a card, but might help you decide what format to use if you do get a card that supports 24/96. With 24-bit/44.1kHz format, the files are only 50% larger, there's no noticeable CPU difference, and there are definite benefits. For one thing, you don't have to sweat the headroom so much -- you can focus on the headroom of the analog gear in your setup, and leave plenty of extra headroom when recording tracks in case you get exhuberant, without losing any meaningful amount of fidelity. Also, the results from all plugins will sound better, and the final mixes should sound better. The difference will be fairly subtle, though. Going to 24/96 takes over 6 times the disk space and more than double the CPU time. It doesn't increase the dynamic range, so you don't get additional benefit of being able to leave more headroom. It does improve the results of certain kinds of plugins, though. The difference between 24/44 and 24/96 is more subtle than the difference between 16/44 and 24/44, unless there's a LOT of effects processing. Going to 24 bits improves the results from all plugins, because they get more precision. Going from 44 to 96 kHz sample rate only improves results of plugins with complex interactions in the time domain. For example, it won't help a simple delay, but it can help reverbs, and substantially helps pitch modulation (chorus, pitch shifting, etc.) HTH
|
Good point LearJeff.
After I "burned in" my EMU, meaning I figured out how to use it!
I did some testing at different sample rates. In my opinion, the average Joe is wasting time and disk space/CPU cycles at 96K or 192K. The difference IS there. Although it is VERY subtle. I record at 24/48 myself.TG