to buy a high end audio interface (RME, UAD, Digidesign...) if you are not planning to record anything?

To be more specific:

I only use virtual instruments (VSTi) and sample libraries (Kontakt) but I'm not planning to record any voice or real instruments anytime soon.

Will I gain anything by buying an external audio interface in this scenario or is it just a waste of money?

 

well with a pci-express RME AiO (the new rme hdsp9632) you get yourself top quality ASIO drivers , best output quality for your studio monitors or headphones and a cool volume/mixer window with tons of settings and meters

believe me you will notice the difference when running the same 32 track project with your onboard RealTek asio4all soundcard Vs any of these top soundcards (rme,motu etc etc)


however if you dont mind all that your DAW exported project will be the same whether you are using a 10k soundcard or your motherboards one

 

it's the same answer I always make myself.

why spending money for preamps if I don't use it? what I need is good as fuck drivers and USB, phones and TRS (or XRL) outputs. so I think it would be fine a simple D/A converter, since I wouldn't use the A/D stage... but I don't exactly know what I'm talkin about, I'm just wondering.

 

It make only sense to buy more expensive brands/hardware if you want lower latency and better audio quality.
Remember that the most companies build in the same chips, circuits and drivers within different products!
More Inputs, Outputs, Features and so forth and the price is more expensive. You´ll also pay for lower latency.
Keep in mind that UAD, RME, Digidesign and other companies want to make money, money and money.
As pro i tried over years different brands and audio interfaces and there isn´t any related difference.
I disassembled different hardware and saw that some brands uses the same chips^^ lol

In my view it makes only sense if you want special features, more in-/ouputs or low latencies.

For ultra low latencies i can always recommend AVID. It is nearly realtime.
But who wants and really need a dsp or some avid cards for 8.000-15.000 € or more?

I started making music with a fast machine and an standard usb interface with lower latency.
Also i used ASIO and so forth. I used many synths (plugins), fx (plugins) and kontakt libraries.
Everything works fine.

I would never jump the naive hivemind and buy expensive things. It is only marketing!
Only if you need more features, in-/outputs and really low latencies.

 

If you need up to date and stable drivers and you can afford it, why not.Go for the UAD or RME.
If you dont have a lot of money and work only ITB and you can work with windows 7, go with 1616M or 1212M(same converters).
They are dirt cheap yet offer the same pro sound quality,amazing SNR and converters as sound cards costing 1k or more.

 

Thanks guys,

You answered my question and I think that I will stick with the soundchip of my motherboard for the time being.

Once again, thanks to all of you for the answers!

 

You caught my interest. I used this card more than 10 years ago. It was an amazing piece of a kit at the time. Unfortunately I don't have it anymore but after checking on ebay, it looks really cheap as you just said.

My only concern would be regarding the driver since of course Windows 10 didn't exist at this time. I suppose it wouldn't run well on a 64 bit Win 10?

 

you never know until you check the vendors site... in this case for the E-MU 1212M PCIe
it is supported up to Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit

 

Don't forget about clocks and jitter, etc.

 

The illusion about sound cards is that newer doesnt necessarily mean better.Sound card specs didnt really change that much since 2005.OS`s and drivers did.
Its more about the drivers, if they support your system.
Like Herr Durr said, but i think they support win 7 and 8 64bit.Dont know about Win 10.
You can build a system around the sound card and not vice versa.You can have Win 10 in a laptop and a 2nd offline pc with emu.
Many work like that.

 

It only make sense if you need huge processing power, top quality drivers and so on. Like a couple of posts already said. The better driver branding have direct impact on CPU usage and how your DAW will use it. For example with a cheap M-Audio, XY DAW will use only 40/50% of your CPU, but will still show you 100% usage peaks etc, because of how the driver (and how bad it is in that case) communicate between your DAW and your System.

I literally experienced this myself. Have a top notch custom built PC case with i7 4790K 6GHZ etc. At the beginning I had an old M-Audio Firewire 410. And I had serious (or even "project breaking") CPU usage issue in FL Studio or Pro Tools, showing 100% CPU Usage but only 30/40% in Windows task manager. As soon as I got a nice cute little MOTU Ultralite mk3, the CPU working usage in my DAWs jumped to 70/80% in Windows, finally I had full (or close to) access to my processing power, using multiple samplers instances, no latency issue even in the biggest projects, low to no PDC needs when building huge fx chain etc etc.

So yeah, it make sense. You should still consider having some In/Out in your Home Studio, you never know what kind of project you might get in 6 months, just to be safe I'd say 2 outs and 2 ins would be good, or combine high quality soundcard with no I/Os with some patcher/converter

 

If you listen to the music on your computer or play VST instruments than yes an interface will be worth the money.
The interface will allow you to hear the music properly for mixing and improve your latency.
I suggest you look hard at one of the cheaper RME or Audient interfaces. RME (Babyface) makes the best drivers in the biz while the Audient (iD22) are amazing sounding for the money, with a built in monitor controller. Both will be worth researching and testing if possible, while providing a noticeable sound and workflow improvement..

 

You cant really suppose until you tried, sadly. Drivers arent exact science, there is Drivers supposed to work on a system but wont, and vice versa. Still when its clearly said by the brand, I wouldn't trust my luck. I'd suggest to downgrade to Win 7 x64 which is basically the new XP for still some years. You won't have much driver compatibility issues on this platform. Too early for Win 10 in the sound domain.

 

I'd like to learn advanced stuff like clock, jitter and PDC, etc... but all the MIDI tutorials, manuals, guides only cover the very basical info.

do you know a very advanced and in-deep guide to MIDI and USB and all about vst?

 

If you play your VSTis with an external controller (vs. just using the editor) latency can be an issue.
But if your current setup works for you there's no reason to change it. Even cheap converters work very well today, and don't forget most people will listen to your music from mp3s on their phones with cheap headphones anyway.

Though I'm using a RME for the number of I/O and latency, I can mix equally well on my laptop's soundcard.