best sound card for music creation, recording, sampling

[JayP]

I'm interested in pc music production with my amd system and was wondering which sound card is best for this type of tasks. I know there are a lot of sound cards which target the hardcore pc gamers out there, but which cards are best suitable for pc music production?

[-Exi|e-]

I'd go with what i have myself, the SB Live platinum 5.1 with the live drive or the newer Audigy platinum. You can hookup anything to that live drive, its great!

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/audigyplatinumex/

[flaming gerbil]

try cards like sonorus, m-audio, motu, digidesign, lexicon, and sek'd. i use the motu mysel, it's pretty expensive. good mid-range cards are sonorus, some of the m-audio cards and sek'd. lexicon is not bad, but does not support direct-x.

[DeepScience]

After I finish one or two cd's and I can prove to myself that I'll actually use it, I'll upgrade from the Audigy to something like this...

http://www.motu.com/english/motuaudio/2408/index.html

:cool:

[Pinky]

I'm a producer. For pure, no line noise recording from external microphones/sources I have been very pleased with the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (http://www.voyetra-turtle-beach.com/site/products/santacru/). The SB Live I had was the worse ever for line-in (hiss, noise, hum etc) and very low input levels. No provlems with any of this with the Sanat Cruz and no driver issues (even with XP upon its release).

They may have fixed the line issues with the 5.1 and Audigy lines, but I see no reason to spend more to take the risk of getting less.

[DeepScience]

Originally posted by Pinky
I'm a producer.

They may have fixed the line issues with the 5.1 and Audigy lines, but I see no reason to spend more to take the risk of getting less.

Well, the Audigy is higher spec than the card you mention but the OEM version is the same cost.

I don't know about the noise and hum you mention with the Live. I've recorded about 6 full songs and bunches of other effects and sound tracks with an older version of the Live! and, using a nice external mixer, have never had anything but a rather remarkable good clean recording.

At the end of the day the thing you end up noticing is the poor musicians work more than poor audio recording quality. :D

[Pinky]

Originally posted by DeepScience
... :D ...

I'm not going to get into a Coke/Pepsi debate over audio cards. I was simply stating my experience with each card. I'm sure the Audigy is a great card, has some nifty features too (seen them in action on my friend's setup). I also don't know about the claim that the Audigy has "higher specs"; both are 24bit cards with much the same features minus a couple bells and whistles few people will ever use (I know I wouldn't).

IMHO most of the real work is done on the software side, the sound card just needs to handle multiple channels of wave data and be crackle/interference free... problem is, most of the test sites use to benchmark sound cards pay little attention to line-noise which is critical when trying to produce 99.98% pure/clean CD quality recordings.

I also happen to have first hand experience (and some second hand) with Creative, and their idea of customer support is laughable at best. Not to say Turtle Beach is much better, but if I'm gonna pay more for basically the same thing or their name I expect something extra in the way of support or warranty service. Creative has repeatedly demonstrated their inability to handle either of these tasks with any level of proficiency.

OK, so maybe this will be a coke/pepsi debate :p

[DeepScience]

I've heard the Turtle is a good card.

I only said higher spec because the link you posted said the Turtle only had 18bit AD converters.

I still want a motu board:)

[Pinky]

Originally posted by DeepScience
I've heard the Turtle is a good card.

I only said higher spec because the link you posted said the Turtle only had 18bit DA converters.

I still want a motu board:)

Actually, I think we were both wrong :)

Audio Converters: Dual AC-97 2.1 audio codecs with full-duplex capability, for simultaneous recording and playback at sampling rates up to 48kHz. Three stereo 18 bit A/D converters for high-resolution recording (provides 4x better resolution than 16 bit converters). Three stereo 20 bit D/A converters for high-resolution playback of up to 6 independent streams.

I can atest to the fact I've never heard better/stronger line in signal. The rest of the features are on-par with any soundblaster card... now to find where I read the 24bit thingie! :p

[flaming gerbil]

love you guys! i got both the motu 2408 and the turtle beach card installed in my computer. i never used the turtle beach input considering i've already have 24 inputs/outputs with the motu. but the motu has no internal cd attachments, so i use the turtle beach. another draw back is the motu is 24-bit/48 khz and the audio dvd spec is 24/bit 96khz so you can't take advantage of the full spec. but the sound is good, inputs are balanced which is very important. it also has asio drivers along with standard wave drivers and when a audio sequencing program (such as cubase/protools and logic audio) that requires asio drivers along with an external word clock generator hooked up to the motu gives you sample accurate transfers which is much tighter than standard wave drivers. also the motu has a chip which controls all inputs and ouputs so no load is put on the cpu. also the pci card itself has three fire-wire ports which can allow up to three motu breakout boxes to be connected simultaneously for a total of 72 inputs and outputs. check out the mid-priced pro cards. especially if you have an external mixer so you can run more than a few outputs. they usually range from about 200-400. the motu is around 900. look for 24-bit/ 96 khz with 128x oversampling on the convertors, balanced inputs and outputs and asio driver supports. also word clock input/output is nice, or light-pipe conectors and midi inputs/ouputs are also nice. good luck!

[DeepScience]

How about this one for your next sound card?

http://www.digidesign.com/products/prd_overview.cfm?product_id=1013

:D

[TruckChase!]

http://www.pcavtech.com/

BAM! Theres all the info you need to know.

Oh, and my 2 cents- stay as far away from any creative labs product as you possibly can for pro audio. I've tried several cards for electronic production/recording my drums(open mics) and guitar (straight in from output) and I can say without a doubt the Live was the worst card and the Audigy was the second worse. The noise and distortion from the clabs cards were truely in a class by themselves.... kindergarden. Besides, those cards are just meant for gaming.

[BigRed]

How about this one for your next sound card?

http://www.digidesign.com/products/...product_id=1013

!*#$^&($!!!
$3,600!!!!! *gags*
if anyone here spends that much on a sound card im going to beat you down with a large stick :p

[DeepScience]

These guys use one on their mac to make music from home

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2001/12/jarsofclay/

[trey_w]

i like my audigy platinum with external drive

[DeepScience]

With the external drive can you record 4 analog channels at once?
Can I do that just by attaching a line input directly to the aux in on the card?