drumnbass.be forum » Production » Hardware » Soundcards - M-Audio? Soundcards - M-Audio? Author Post Digital Cause Player Registration Date: 06-07-2006 Posts: 447 Helpfulness rating:  Hey All. Im gonna get myself a soundcard. But what i really wanna know is will it improve the actual sound of my stuff? i.e. at the moment in reason when i mess with a lot of samples and stuff i cant get it to sound right, and im not just simply f-ing around with it. Theres things that i cant eq out etc, will a soundcard help with that, or is the effect that it has in-audible? i really want it for reducing latency in cubase etc, but will the sound improve drasticly, or not so much that Ill be able to notice? cheerz Someone reccommended an m-audio model, good or bad advice? __ www.myspace.com/digitalcause www.myspace.com/mysterious1000 14-07-2006 20:16 Surya The Robot Registration Date: 04-11-2002 Posts: 11,238 Helpfulness rating:  M-Audio is pretty decent and good value for price. Go for the Delta-44. Or the 66 if you have more money. Or the 1010LT if you have even more money Better soundcards will give you a more accurate and detailed sound, but also lower latency, which is great if you use a midi-controller. I'm guessing the sound problems you have are EQ problems. And if you can't EQ them out, you're doing something wrong... __ "In dnb you should make people jump not swim" - Pieter Frenssen 2004 14-07-2006 22:15 Digital Cause Player Registration Date: 06-07-2006 Posts: 447 Helpfulness rating:  cool, thanks a lot for the advice i really appreciate it. I am running two computers at the mo, and one has got cubase and reason on it as i cant run both of em (especially cubse) on the old one. On the new one Im gonna attach the new soundcard im getting, but will it matter if I make tunes in the computer without the new soundcard, then transfer them (via USB) to the computer with the new soundcard, as in will the audio quality then improve, or will it stay the same as I made the tune initially in the older computer? Cheers __ www.myspace.com/digitalcause www.myspace.com/mysterious1000 17-07-2006 12:38 BattleDrone 2161... the future. Registration Date: 30-12-2005 Posts: 6,413 Helpfulness rating:  The better soundcard will play a "better" version of your existing tune, but your EQ troubles will still be there. It´s the same as improving your DJ equipement, records will still be records, but you´ll hear them better. The biggest advantage might be the lower latency time (if you want to continue working on the track that is). I personally have maximum latency in FL studio as I´m using a laptop and that´s a real pain because you can´t play anything live. M-Audio is good stuff. Go for it. __ Check my soundcloud (exclusive tracks on there) 17-07-2006 13:40 Digital Cause Player Registration Date: 06-07-2006 Posts: 447 Helpfulness rating:  cool, so it doesnt matter if I make tunes on the old computer without the new soundcard, because when I transfer via USB the quality will be improved? (forgetting about the EQ ting, just saying if it sounds good without a soundcard, I can then export to audio file in a computer with a soundcard and it will be improved, i.e. I shouldnt worry bout producing without a soundcard in terms of final result? __ www.myspace.com/digitalcause www.myspace.com/mysterious1000 17-07-2006 20:26 BattleDrone 2161... the future. Registration Date: 30-12-2005 Posts: 6,413 Helpfulness rating:  You got it. But what´s keeping you from producing on a pc in which you put an expensive audio card? I think your EQíng will improve on such a PC too. __ Check my soundcloud (exclusive tracks on there) 17-07-2006 23:59 Digital Cause Player Registration Date: 06-07-2006 Posts: 447 Helpfulness rating:  no i will do that, just that cos the computer which imma put the soundcard in is not transportable, so cant take it around, but im obsessed with reason, so ill be taking the other one, but I was just worried that it wont be up to full potential cos its produced without the expensive soundcard. but im happy now, it dont matter? does the soundcard have any effect on when you export a tune to audio file? __ www.myspace.com/digitalcause www.myspace.com/mysterious1000 18-07-2006 18:01 BattleDrone 2161... the future. Registration Date: 30-12-2005 Posts: 6,413 Helpfulness rating:  quote: Originally posted by Digital Cause does the soundcard have any effect on when you export a tune to audio file? No it doesn´t, the program does the export purely through software. If it was done through the soundcard your sound would become analog and then digital again and thus lose quality. __ Check my soundcloud (exclusive tracks on there) 18-07-2006 19:56 Digital Cause Player Registration Date: 06-07-2006 Posts: 447 Helpfulness rating:  SWEEEEEET __ www.myspace.com/digitalcause www.myspace.com/mysterious1000 20-07-2006 00:25 cynik Cp6uja Registration Date: 15-03-2005 Posts: 5,646 Helpfulness rating:  quote: Originally posted by BattleDrone quote: Originally posted by Digital Cause does the soundcard have any effect on when you export a tune to audio file? No it doesn´t, the program does the export purely through software. If it was done through the soundcard your sound would become analog and then digital again and thus lose quality. exactly. it's down to the quality of the ad/da converter in the soundcard to accurately reproduce the audio to the speakers. the export itself is done by the CPU alone but the important bit is that you want the audio from your card to sound as much accurate to the export so you know what you're doing while you're doing it and don't need to bounce all the time to hear the result. you need a decent audio card and the m-audio is most people's logical choice for it's decent quality for a modest price possibly the best example of why is when I used a 16-bit soundblaster and made this incredible sick distorting effect on the vocoder in Reason. in truth the effect were artifacts caused by the crap ad/da converter on the card so when I bounced it came totally different and clean. there was no way of capturing that effect other than recording it live, but then it was useless due to the AGAIN crappy ad/da converter making this awfull hiss and noise all over the frequency spectrum __ https://soundcloud.com/tsai-vidro-voves 20-07-2006 00:41 Digital Cause Player Registration Date: 06-07-2006 Posts: 447 Helpfulness rating:  hey its been a while since I got my soundcard and just thought id share some thoughts about it. It looks cool, but the ONLY difference I notice with a soundcard is that it reduces noise out of the speaker that is produced by the computer. This is a good thing, but the noise level the computer produces is pretty low anyway, so why did I spend 150 pounds on the thing, when I could have put that towards something else ! their only offering as far as I can see is that there is less noise out of the speaker, therefore you can hear exactly whats coming out of any sound your making, but other than that and offering the use of mics / instruments to plug in etc, what do these things do? in other words, proffessional quality tunes are perfectly producable without a soundcard, as far as I can see.... correct me if I am wrong.. __ www.myspace.com/digitalcause www.myspace.com/mysterious1000 14-09-2006 20:02 Abnormalbrain Cool Producer Registration Date: 24-03-2005 Posts: 207 Helpfulness rating:  If I had read this before I could have told you that this was the risk. There are differences between soundcards in terms of sound quality. But its not like "wow what a sound!", more like changing speakers, but less audible. If I listen to a really bad soundcard I can hear a lot difference, like an old soundblaster. The big difference is latency and the biggest is the preamps. More money means better preamps. What speakers do you use? If you have to bad speakers and a fine soundcard maybe you aren't able to hear it. this is how mine looks I have got problems with it. But I don't know if it is the soundcard or the software pro tools m-powered or simply the computer Mac G5. Digidesign have never heard of it. __ -------------------------------------------------- da rollaz, da steppaz da true playaz 17-09-2006 12:03 Digital Cause Player Registration Date: 06-07-2006 Posts: 447 Helpfulness rating:  Roland DM 2100's. If you wanna tell me the quality of those id appreciate it, I bought them a while ago not for production purposes but i sill use em. 2.1ch SPEAKER SYSTEM 50 W Sub Woofer 15W+15W satelite units __ www.myspace.com/digitalcause www.myspace.com/mysterious1000 17-09-2006 17:31 Abnormalbrain Cool Producer Registration Date: 24-03-2005 Posts: 207 Helpfulness rating:  quote: Originally posted by Digital Cause Roland DM 2100's. If you wanna tell me the quality of those id appreciate it, I bought them a while ago not for production purposes but i sill use em. 2.1ch SPEAKER SYSTEM 50 W Sub Woofer 15W+15W satelite units I'm not very good at speakers. I know what price a good speaker have to have to be good enough. There are peaple that think they can get a way with very cheap moniters, but that's not how it works. I don't want to tell you a price becouse I'm not very good at recounting Swedish kroners to Dollar/Euro. __ -------------------------------------------------- da rollaz, da steppaz da true playaz 18-09-2006 21:53 drumnbass.be forum » Production » Hardware » Soundcards - M-Audio?