Have a pc I7, use the card of sound of the motherboard, wanted to know if there is some difference between a professional card and with which have, use all instrument of for kontakt, but does not like me as it remains the sound, use EZdrummer, ilya efimov, prominy, but the sound that remains final does not like me a lot,

It has to be because have a plate of common sound(card sound of the card mother).... Somebody that can say me if it exists a lot of difference or is equal
:dancing:

 

On-board sound cards are never going to give great results using the windows driver. Suggest you get hold of asio4all and select that driver in your DAW or Kontakt standalone.

You really need to invest in a dedicated sound card for best results. Just ensure it has ASIO drivers.

 

No, there's almost no difference for mixing. An audio interface might give you slight better DACs, but nothing that will make "the sound like you" (if it doesn't like you with the onboard codec).

Br,
Olaf

 

Speaking of good audio interfaces (RME, Apogee, Metric Halo, Prism Sound, MOTU, etc). Great converters are great converters. And don't forget the low latency.

 

You can buy a decent sound card (around 100-150€) like a fast track pro (I have one). The mic preamps are really good for the price you pay. The headphone output isn't that good but it is decent.

 

thank god this days you can have basic technology,with basic amount of euro,so you can spend few of them,and feel like a pro..does it worth it ?? yes!!!you will be way better with a 150e sound cart and a 300e for a pair of monitors than the on board sound and pc speakers..but you don't need to spent like thousands! *yes*

 

A dedicated sound card it was created/optimized with music production / sound recording in mind.
Computer's motherboard on-board soundcard was created/optimized just for playback purposes and maybe some of multi-media communications through Skype and nothing more.

With a dedicated soundcard, not only that you get better converters and a better sound (for monitoring) but you also get a greater low-latency performance which is crucial for your midi recording and not only.

A professional soundcard it was not made to enhance the sound quality of your tracks particulary, but it actually helps you get a better representation (coupled with a pair of monitors) of your mix, in order to get your whole song to a better quality standard. You'll never be able to use studio monitors (and also on their peak performance) with a simple onboard soundcard.

 

you should pend at lest 500+ for a decent Audio interface

 

What the other guys said is all true, but I didn't see noise mentioned.

The main problem with motherboard or PCI card converters ("sound card") isn't necessarily latency. It's noise. Within a computer's case are lots of noise sources, many of which are broadband and within the audio range. The noise is perhaps only annoying at the output, but will render useless recordings at the input. For this reason, a PCI card with "on-card" analog inputs is not an upgrade. This includes some of the inexpensive M-Audio cards with the so-called "breakout box", which for some units is just an extension sending analog to the on-card converters.

But the best-of-the-best professional (MOTU, Apogee, etc) sound cards all have PCI (PCIe) cards. PCI is far superior to Firewire and especially USB for sheer data throughput, track count, etc. capability. You could liken this to external hard drives: USB drives vs. Firewire drives vs. eSATA drives. What MOTU, Apogee, etc do is combine the throughput capability of a PCI card being fed a digital signal from the best A/D-D/A converters in a breakout box. At this professional level, you will also find the best construction quality, shielding, and converters, as they don't compete for price at the consumer USB and Firewire end of the market.

Bottom line is:
Firewire and USB at the consumer end will both provide an upgrade if noise is a concern, and provide at least two channels of input/output. They're also convenient to hook up.
PCI/PCIe (with digital going between card and box) at the professional end is more expensive, but provides higher track In/Out.

 

That's not true!
You must be a great producer and that's all.
Just give a 150-200$ interface to an actual famous DJ like Afrojack, Deadmau5 or whatever you might think off, i swear they can come up with a hit as good as the other songs they already released and that's because they already know how to achieve a great song regardless the tools they use.

People who haven't made it in the music industry yet, they will always gonna blame the lack of their tools instead of their skills.
Skills are like a "hardware/toos" proof. The better your skills, the less hardware/tools requirements you need.

 

Biggest issue with most integrated sound will be latency and noise. Ideally it would be best to get your interface out of the computer where the noise is highest. The skill of the producer however is paramount, like Evo said the talented producer will always be able to do more with less.

 

I respectfully disagree with this generalization when it comes to something like an interface. It's the foundation of the audio chain in a modern studio and every signal passes through it. No amount of experience or skill can make a noisy or inaccurate converter sound like a clean, accurate one. Also, if a converter's output isn't flat, the engineer will naturally compensate for it and the master/product will suffer the consequences of it. This is a device to spend a little more on, or a lot more on depending on the importance (either perceived or real) of your projects.

Does he need to spend $500 minimum? I wouldn't say either way as I don't know all of his needs. For what it's worth, both Afrojack and Deadmau5 use the $1499.99 Apogee Ensemble interface (as per Equipboard).

 

I believe what krameri said is true, you need to invest a lot of money in a soundcard in order to hear a difference. And if your monitors are cheap pc speakers, forget it. The room acoustics are more important than the soundcard, especially if you don't record anything.

I think you're saying that you have latency...then you need to buy a soundcard with integrated Asio driver, but read reviews about how it works with your system OS, to be sure its drivers won't cause problems.

 

Yes, it's the foundation of the audio chain ONLY if you record vocals or other instruments which needs tons of details to be picked up from the microphone and preamp. A soundcard with bad converters will not be able to pick some extra sonic details which the microphone&preamp can deliver, because you know, you can't pick up what you can't see.
I haven't heard in my entire life a soundcard(USB ones) around 150-200$ to sound noisy. Never!

Those guys have the Apogee ones because they also have better monitoring enviroment, and they actually upgraded to it later because they've got to a point where they're financiary capable to afford the upgrade, but if you think about the initiation of their success when they already signed with a label and stuff, they did it with cheap tools.

Converters are importent when you try to pick up the sound and when you try to play it back through your monitoring speakers as much as detailed as possible, but that doesn't matter that its frequency ballance is EXTREMELY different.

You was very wrong about "output not being flat on cheap USB soundcard". The frequency response doesn't have to do that much with the frequency response, but actually with the studio monitors and the monitoring enviroment. Do you think that, if you buy the best soundcard money can buy and crappy studio monitors into an untreated room, the soundcard is going to still sound "flat" as you might think?
An expensive soundcard offers great converters which plays a role in delivering extra details trough both your recordings and playback, but it doesn't positively influence the bad frequency response of a crappy monitoring speakers pair.

What i actually tried to point out about "expensive soundcard" is that it can't produce the music for you even if you can afford it.
Look at Garrix, look at Dyro, look at Laidback Luke these ones started extremely minimal in terms of equippment and they still work like that (at least Dyro).
Tell me, does monitors like KRK ROKIT 8 G2 (which Garrix and Dyro used) can be turned out magically by a soundcard? No!
And yes, they upgraded later(when they already made tons of money) but in the initiation of their success, they used the cheap tools.

 

I didn't make that statement and I wish you had not quoted me as if I did. I don't want to be part of any discussion at that level.