Hi Guys Please help me to know about some Good but mid grade sound cards info....
That will be help full for me...
I am new to composition world...




I know some of them like M-audio-610


Or Tascam-Us-800

I don't know they are good or bad
Just let me know about them and some others

One Thing I wanna know about sound cards
Should I use Fireware or USB
Please Let Me know?

 

Firewire for sure... check the Pro24 DSP by Focusrite....imo.

 

Tnx one for your reply....

It seems to me that Pro24 DSP is a nice Card

But some one told me that Usb-3 is Similar To Fireware...!!!!

what you think??

 

It's completely irrelevant if the interface has USB or Firewire.
The only thing that really matters is, if the manufacturer has programmed a good driver for it, or not.

In the past it seemed have to be easier to programme them for Firewire, but by now most companies have checked it out how to make proper drivers for USB, like the last USB interfaces from RME, MOTU and Focusrite prove.

 

i like presonus... i've had motu products before and to be honest the only thing i kept was the midi interface. got rid of the fire wire interface.
presonus has rarely gave me issues. but thats just me!!

 

Even Apple leaves the firewire protocol. The crucial point of firewire is his controller. The best one (and always recommended for audio) is the Texas Instrument - which was integrated in MacBooks in the past but not anymore...

Performances on a MacBook Pro (transfert of a 3,53 Gb file) :

- Firewire 800 (read ~ write) = 456 Mbps ~ 400 Mbps
- USB 2 (read ~ write) = 296 Mbps ~ 240 Mbps

(In comparison USB 3 goes up to 5 Gbps and Thunderbolt to 10 Gbps.)

As you can see, firewire 800 is faster than USB 2. But the future are Thunderbolt and USB 3. So if you need a soundcard today, and unless you have to record 48 tracks simultaneously, go for USB 2.

 

Gulliver wrote:
> It's completely irrevelant if the interface has USB or Firewire.
> The only thing that really matters is, if the
> manufacturer has programmed a good driver for it, or not.

This is so very, very true!

Lord Gaga wrote:
> ...
> - Firewire 800 (read ~ write) = 456 Mbps ~ 400 Mbps
> - USB 2 (read ~ write) = 296 Mbps ~ 240 Mbps

Sorry, but these numbers are completely irrelevant. Really.
The maximum obtainable data rate has nothing to do with latency.
What we want as Audio users is *Low Latency*, isn't it?

Let's take the above Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 as an example.
Even if you used the highest-possible setup with 16 inputs, 8 outputs, 24 bits and 96kHz sampling rate, you'll end up with a data rate of:
24 channels x 96k Samples x 4 data words (24->32bit) = about 9MB/second (or 73Mbit/second).

Well, USB1.1 would not suffice here, but USB2.0 easily would.
Anyway, for recording more than 8 channels simultaneously I would prefer a PCI/PCIe card anyway.

I've done a little comparison of various (older) USB interfaces under Ableton Live, checking for the smallest-possible playback buffer (->Latency) at 80% CPU load, playing a "real-life" arrangement.
A) With the manufacturer's driver and
B) with the free ASIO4all driver that wraps ASIO around a std Windows WDM driver.

My conclusion: ASIO4all can do magic if you're lucky, especially if there's no good ASIO driver from the manufacturer.
An extreme example was the Alesis io/2, which has a plain unusable ASIO driver and Alesis never updated this buggy cr*p, but with ASIO4all, it was the interface with the lowest playback latency of all tested USB interfaces!
A similar example is the E-MU 0404USB. Great hardware, but totally inefficient driver.

Believe me, fantastic hardware is nothing without an excellent driver.
If you could see the grey hair I have from nights of evaluations and fixing problems, you'd understand immediately ;-)

 

It depends also on how much inputs/outputs you need. If you just use a DAW with VSTi's a 2In/2Out-interface would probably be enough. If you have a couple of hardware-synths or you want to record a band you need more inputs.

To integrate my old hardware gear into Cubase I will soon buy this one:
FirefaceUFX
It looks like a nice interface with many analog-Ins and Outs. It has Firewire400 AND USB2.0 so one is free to choose. But if you just need a Stereo In/Out you could probably buy an interface with better A/D-D/A coverters for the same price.

Moreover if you want to record a Mic (or many Mics) the quality of the Mic-Preamps would be of some importance.

just my 2cts.
Chris

 

I think there is a little misunderstanding here...
I gave those numbers to demonstrate that in a "reasonable" recording configuration USB 2 can not be a "bottleneck" in audio interfaces' data transfers as some people believes - or pretends - to justify the purchase of a firewire interface.
Of course, when we talk about latency, good drivers are essentials. We all agree with that *yes*
On the other hand, it's well known that some people have encountered issues because of a bad firewire integrated controller and were forced to buy a Texas Instruments controller (PCIe or PCMCIA). This isn't a real problem when you have a free slot, but try this on a laptop without any PCMCIA slot...

 

+1 on the Focusrite 24 Pro DSP....

I haven't had any problems with it, the drivers are rock solid, the preamps are decent enough and it is expandable, (i.e. you can add another unit (a Saffire Pro 40, for example) and run in dual unit mode and control both from the MixControl software as a Master / Slave setup.

Oh....and the VRM function in it is an interesting concept, as well...

 

All of you..Tnx For your great reply....
I am very glad to say we care for each other..
But guys please post some name of the audio-interfaces and pictures too..

Thank you very much..again.

 

does it have to be external

I have rme hammerfall 9632 and its really good

you can change the buffer setting for asio on the fly and it works on its own CPU

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdsp_9632.php

 

TNX for the rme hammerfall 9632 info

 

Hy guys please help me to know about some good sound cards.....

please post some pics too....

 

imo rme is the way to go at present ... low latency n well done asio drivers ... why usb3, wait till thunderbird will get popular next year. usb3 imo is like windows vista ... we waited for win7 ... so as for thunderbird interfaces

 

at present i am on emu 1616 pcie, but with the half priced emu 0404 usb you'll have lot of fun at low latency. try it out, unless you wanna hand out your bucks

 

for the pics you'd like to see, just join google search

 

LynxOne are discontinued ang go for about 120 on ebay.
Its internal but a no brainer jus look at the high end stuff this manufactuer is pulling out the sleeves.

RME is dope, look into Echo Audio if u'd want RME'ish for cheap.

Fuczsrite liquid Mix interfaces come sheap off ebay too. These will add analouge hardware emulations to your weapons aresenal.

Of coule the entry level apogees are good as well.

RME and Echo have great reputations for there drivers...

...while I think the real mid range champs under 1000$ are RME Fire/Multifaces
Maybe Fokusrite MKIII interface with lots of software in the leafue too