SoundCard advice

[sergiobR1]

Hi guys, im going to buy a brand new CPU, i5, 8gb ram first (m8 be good reach the 16gb?), so, the thing is that i dont know what soundcard should I buy.
Been analizing the AKAI EIE PRO, but, being honest, i dont know why should i buy it, seems like it would give me a fat sound, and thats what im looking for.

So, could you guys give me some advice ?
i can spend max the value of the AKAI EIE PRO. should I spend more ? I can't get a RME, its too expensive...

thanks.

[Hades]

Been analizing the AKAI EIE PRO, but, being honest, i dont know why should i buy it, seems like it would give me a fat sound, and thats what im looking for.
.

a fat sound ?
in order to make fat beats ?
what is that even, a "fat" sound ?

pardon my skepticism,
but if you don't know why you should buy it, then why are you looking at this model specifically ?
you should ask yourself a few questions and afterwards by knowing the answers to those questions you can narrow down your options, and then have a look around and afterwards perhaps ask us again.
questions are easy :

how many ins and outs do you need ?
do you want USB, firewire,... ?
does it need to have MIDI ?
do you need mic pre-amps ?
...

I have a slight feeling you're a bit puzzled, and you're probably just starting out with this whole production thing. Maybe you ought to read tweakz guide about soundcards.
He explains a lot of basic stuff really well.

http://tweakheadz.com/soundcards-for-the-home-studio/

I had/have firsthand experience with Echo Audio soundcards and Apogee.
I had a small Echo Audio for portable stuff and a big one for my studio, they both served me fine. I only upgraded to 2 Apogee soundcards (small + big) when I had more cash, not because I had to.

I also had the chance to listen to RME soundcards and I really loved them. Never owned one myself though. Personally my choice would always be Apogee or RME. But of course, this is only brands I'm recommending, the first thing you need to know is what kind of model you need/want (ins/outs, USB or firewire,... see questions above)

If you can save up more to get a better soundcard, then please do so. Next to your monitors your soundcard is a very important part of your set-up. And if you don't need a model with lots of ins and outs, then upgrading from the cheaper models to the more expensive ones doesn't really cost an arm and a leg.

[Hades]

just had a look at that AKAI EIE PRO.
I've never heard the thing of course, but if I see so many bells & whistles for so little money (185 euro's is the price I'm seeing for this thing), I get suspicious.
No doubt they had to cut corners somewhere to make this thing profitable, and I'm betting the sound quality will probably be average at best.

[msl]

Yeah mate "fat" has nothing to do with with your interface. The best interfaces offer the cleanest signal path and convertors so what you record is the closest to the original. Then it comes down to the features you want. You get what you pay for, the Akai is probably fine to start with, even the low end interfaces these days have decent quality.

Things like an RME Babyface are in a better league of course. Look at the Dynamic Range values, the higher they are the better the quality (usually). The Akai has only 96db which is not great, my Duet has 123db, the Babygface is 112db...

If you have firewire on our computer have a look at the TC Electronic Konnekt6 and Impact Twin, they sound great.

The only "fat" interface I'm aware of...
http://www.burlaudio.com/products/b80-mothership

[LuigiTozzii]

I'm using RME babyface and I would 100% recomment it to you man,give it a look.

http://www.rme-audio.de/images/products ... ace_1b.jpg

[sergiobR1]

i think firewire is for mac isnt it ?

im going to use windows, and that's why im so confused.
with a mac i dont think this issue were real problem, cos mac has a cool interface for renders.
im from southamerica and a mac is real hard to get this days for a few problems with importation at our customs.
So, soundcards.

im reading the guide right now hades, thanks, im newbie at this, you hit on the right spot hahahah.

I want something good to start with, i going to use a midi controller, I am not going to use MIC.
All soundcards has headphones output for monitoring ? cos im going to use beyerdynamics headphones, monitors are a problem at my house right now.
there are soundcards specifically for monitoring headphones like beyerdynamics ? I want to get the best clarity and flat response for that headphones.
really thanks for reply guys, everything serve !

[saminedia]

i like the idea of a fat sounding interface

[saminedia]

one with anal logs?

[Lost to the Void]

There was a very good video in youtube explaining soundcards and converters and so on , it was posted up here a while back a few times.
These days even consumer level soundcards have amazing sound and converters, so you really dont have to worry too much, keeping down latency is what you want for making music.
Most pro level stuff is fine, go search out a good deal.

[Mattias]

There was a very good video in youtube explaining soundcards and converters and so on , it was posted up here a while back a few times.
These days even consumer level soundcards have amazing sound and converters, so you really dont have to worry too much, keeping down latency is what you want for making music.
Most pro level stuff is fine, go search out a good deal.

Steve beat me to it.

However if you are on Mac and want a really really neat card with nice functions and sound, try Audient id22.

[wormcode]

Firewire is for PC as well.
I wouldn't go to Akai for anything other than drumpads and samplers. Old Akai anyway, I'n not a fan of those new MPC Renaissance things. But yeah I'm biased. Apogee is nice. I always really liked EMU cards.
I've no real experience with USB soundcards though, I don't trust USB for important stuff like audio. I never even used my virus with USB. Rather it go through some converters, mixer etc... not really a fan of pure clean digital sound.

[Mono-xID]

I suggest not to buy a super expensive soundcard when starting out with producing. See if you're still on it in 2 years, you can upgrade anytime if you're shure that's your thing.
I'm still on my first audio interface, a crappy M-Audio Fast Track Pro. I just don't see a reason for me to upgrade.

[Mattias]

I don't trust USB for important stuff like audio. I never even used my virus with USB. Rather it go through some converters, mixer etc... not really a fan of pure clean digital sound.

My Lynx Hilo begs to differ.
And to be technical, there is no "digital sound" only digital processing.

[Wiu]

If the PC you're buying is going to be Windows 8, make sure that whatever audio interface you buy is compatible. A while back when I was looking for a budget interface for a Windows 8 laptop so many either didn't support it at all or didn't officially support it (The Akai being one, but I was looking a while ago so they may have released drivers for it now).

I actually really like the look of the Akai EIE Pro. You're getting a lot for the money. Sure it won't be quite to the standard of more expensive interfaces, but it will easily get you started and well beyond. You may well not require the inputs and MIDI ports (I'm guessing the MIDI keyboard you buy will be USB) straight away, but at least you'll have the option of them being there if you ever did decide to buy a few hardware synths/drum machines etc. There's a review for it here, if you haven't already read up on it:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may12/a ... ie-pro.htm

[Hades]

I suggest not to buy a super expensive soundcard when starting out with producing. See if you're still on it in 2 years, you can upgrade anytime if you're shure that's your thing.
I'm still on my first audio interface, a crappy M-Audio Fast Track Pro. I just don't see a reason for me to upgrade.

^^he's right.
like I said in my first post.
I had a "medium" quality soundcard for years and it served me just fine.
I didn't really need to upgrade.
I guess I just wanted to upgrade cause I had the cash.

But yeah, if you're just starting out, it might be best not to spend too much. You can still upgrade later on if you know from experience you're serious enough about it all. No point in spending hundreds if maybe after a year or so you notice that whole producing thing wasn't for you anyway.
Even the mediocre stuff nowadays is still far better than it was say 5+ years ago.

[sergiobR1]

I suggest not to buy a super expensive soundcard when starting out with producing. See if you're still on it in 2 years, you can upgrade anytime if you're shure that's your thing.
I'm still on my first audio interface, a crappy M-Audio Fast Track Pro. I just don't see a reason for me to upgrade.

I suggest not to buy a super expensive soundcard when starting out with producing. See if you're still on it in 2 years, you can upgrade anytime if you're shure that's your thing.
I'm still on my first audio interface, a crappy M-Audio Fast Track Pro. I just don't see a reason for me to upgrade.

^^he's right.
like I said in my first post.
I had a "medium" quality soundcard for years and it served me just fine.
I didn't really need to upgrade.
I guess I just wanted to upgrade cause I had the cash.

But yeah, if you're just starting out, it might be best not to spend too much. You can still upgrade later on if you know from experience you're serious enough about it all. No point in spending hundreds if maybe after a year or so you notice that whole producing thing wasn't for you anyway.
Even the mediocre stuff nowadays is still far better than it was say 5+ years ago.

Yes !! im using ableton since 2012 and my ears are now more subtle, I can clearly feel that what I hear when I render, it's not what really is.
And on live, i have like 4k of buffer size and like a second of delay.
the soundcard that Im looking for must be good for newbies like me, but good at quality sound and final render.
a friend of mine has a mac, and when he renders, I realize that its render its more "fat" and has a great quality and he dont even got a soundcard, it's just hes interface.
per well, I am aware that a PC can reach that quality sound of mac users, am I correct ??

so, a PCI or a firewire soundcard will give me better results than a USB for what im looking for ?? i dont DJ, i dont like it.

and I repeat, im going to use beyerdynamics pro headphones. THANK YOU ALL GUYS, this forum is the best since ever hahahh

[wormcode]

I don't trust USB for important stuff like audio. I never even used my virus with USB. Rather it go through some converters, mixer etc... not really a fan of pure clean digital sound.

My Lynx Hilo begs to differ.
And to be technical, there is no "digital sound" only digital processing.

What I meant was 0101 on/off only sound. I'd say there is a 'digital sound', perhaps that's a misnomer. Digital audio is probably more an appropriate term. But I mean like in a track when all the instruments cut out and it's absolute silence. That's what I meant that I never liked, almost non existent noise floor.

But yeah when spending so much on a very expensive AD DA converter like the Hilo I'd expect something better than a cheap usb soundcard like the poster seemed to be asking about. He mentioned RME was way out of his budget so I'm guessing he is looking around 75-100 quid and in that price range I'd stick to just TRS over USB. That's just what I prefer though. The fact it is 'only on or off' digital should make it not even matter but I have had horrible results with cheap USB stuff. I mentioned I always liked EMU cards, but their USB ones are terrible. The 404 anyway. It's probably more cheap internals than USB itself.

[Hades]

Yes !! im using ableton since 2012 and my ears are now more subtle, I can clearly feel that what I hear when I render, it's not what really is.

that's only a year, so still plenty of time to develop in all this stuff.

what do you mean : "you can feel that what you render it's not what really is" ?
What you hear depends on so many things :
maybe your ears are one moment tired, and the other moment still fresh.
maybe one time you hear it on a good sound system, the other moment on a crappy sound system or in someone's car.
maybe one moment you hear it in a room that just has better acoustics, and the other moment you hear it in a room with terrible acoustics. (or even in the same room with the door open and the next time with the door closed.)
and so on...

but seriously, if you mean that for example :
first you make something with Live, and you listen to it on your headphones directly connected to your computer.
Then afterwards you listen to the rendered result, AGAIN on the same computer and with the same headphones directly connected, I don't see any reason why it would sound different, unless the volume level isn't the same.

the soundcard that Im looking for must be good for newbies like me, but good at quality sound and final render.
a friend of mine has a mac, and when he renders, I realize that its render its more "fat" and has a great quality and he dont even got a soundcard, it's just hes interface.
per well, I am aware that a PC can reach that quality sound of mac users, am I correct ??

so, a PCI or a firewire soundcard will give me better results than a USB for what im looking for ?? i dont DJ, i dont like it.

and I repeat, im going to use beyerdynamics pro headphones. THANK YOU ALL GUYS, this forum is the best since ever hahahh

soundcard = audio interface.
What you mean is your friend just uses his built-in soundcard, not an external one.
It's pretty safe to say in most cases macs will have better built-in soundcards than PC's, but that really doesn't mean PC's are no good. You'll be wanting an external soundcard anyway, so then it really doesn' matter if you work on mac or PC but just that you get a decent quality soundcard.

Will PCI or firewire give you better results than USB ?
In theory they should all give you the same result, if you take the same type of soundcard.
PCI/firewire/USB is just the type of "connection" to your computer you use.
One type of "connector" might be more stable or give better performance than the other.
I would personally always prefer firewire to USB cause firewire has its own bus, it's own "direct plug" if you want, while USB just gets connected with everything else. But technically speaking, USB 3.0 has won over firewire speed-wise, so Mac is already dumping firewire (which I hate, but there's nothing I can do about it), and I presume PC's are slowly going to do the same.
So you might want to take that into consideration when choosing a soundcard : if you choose one on firewire now, remember that they are slowly stopping firewire connections/support/products/...
I have no experience with PCI and don't know if this type is still enough supported/sold to be safe for a few years, so I'm not gonna say anything about that.

take in mind, I am no expert at all on this, I'm just trying to explain in "common" language what I think all these different options can/will do.
I am one of those dumb asses who preferred to get a mac cause they are no brainer stable pieces of equipment, as I always tend to say : mac is the PC for dumb-asses, usually it's just plug-n-play.
There are sure others on here who are far more knowledgable on these matters.

[wormcode]

a friend of mine has a mac, and when he renders, I realize that its render its more "fat" and has a great quality and he dont even got a soundcard, it's just hes interface.
per well, I am aware that a PC can reach that quality sound of mac users, am I correct ??

I think you are thinking that the soundcard/interface somehow is processing the sound and makes it 'fat', but it doesn't. Unless he is using external gear plugged into his card/interface or is using DSP plugins/effects then it isn't doing anything to his renders. Maybe he is just more experienced at mixing or using different plugins than you like compressors on his master bus that make his tracks sound 'fatter'.

[ashley BORG]

I had the recent experience last year of comparing a Mac's internal core audio against my Focusrite pro14.

Basically what I would do is start a track at work using only Ableton instruments and Fx, other than Aalto and the Satson Channel Bus. I might then do some slight bits at home the next morning, then aim to get a basic sketch going at work.

I found that the work Mac Pro which was better spec than my home computer . an external soundcard spiked quite a bit on CPU usage, and suffered from latency. It basically meant I could only get so far on a project using the work Mac.

So I think a good soundcard enhances a machines capacity in dealing with audio intensive applications. I've noticed it probs buys a few % CPU power on bigger project.

As mentioned what I've got for my money on my focusrite has been well worth it.
If when I have to upgrade I think ins and out are something I'd look at more.
Also I've noticed a bit of noise with my korg monotribe and monitors. However its difficult to know if its that or the cables.

Next time I'd go USB. My iMac only has 1 firewire slot and its 800 not 400. Which meant I had to get a firewire to USB adapter.
As great as firewire has been to me the last 13 years or so, its just supported anymore. And the speeds between the 2 are barely noticeable.