Gear?

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Mu_
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Gear?

Post by Mu_ »

Hi guys. Nowadays I plan to buy a new interface, have no money for an expensive cards, but Roland UA 55 Quad Capture interface audio USB is in my range.
For now I have SoundBlaster Live! and SoundMax integrated with my ASUS FORMULA mainboard - which is separate dedicated slot's card SB X-Fi MB version and I have a cheap cable - midi2usb. I use W764Pro, also I have WXP Pro and WXP64 and SUSE 11.4 64 bit as well. What do you think about interface based on USB2 instead of firewire idea?
Cheers.
Mu.

Ps. Does anybody works with USB with no probs?
Last edited by Mu_ on Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
mes
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Re: Gear?

Post by mes »

I'm using an M-Audio USB card and it's working fine for me on Windows XP and Vista....firewire probably would be better though.
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nikmis
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Re: Gear?

Post by nikmis »

do you use other hardware, like synths or microphones or anything like that?
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szaszhareen
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Re: Gear?

Post by szaszhareen »

im going to pick up one of these in the near future:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/US122mk2/#

i'll let u know how it turns out. its got everything i'm going to need, and if i need more inputs i can always get a little mixer.
Mu_
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Re: Gear?

Post by Mu_ »

nikmis wrote:do you use other hardware, like synths or microphones or anything like that?
Roland A-30 which is a dynamic midi keyboard and Yamaha-PSS 590 which is a synth, no mikes so far..., yet.
But I had experienced cracks while using coupple vst synths at the same time. Increasing buffer also increases latency which makes playing on live impossible.
ekral
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Re: Gear?

Post by ekral »

What do you want to do with that soundcard ?

- play live and needs monitoring
- record mic/bass/guitar
- record drums
- record gramophone
- do portable recordings on battery
- etc.
Mu_
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Re: Gear?

Post by Mu_ »

Well, first of all, what I will do it will be making some background in buzz with vsti's, buzz machines, drums - all of them cointaining FM synthesis as well wave samples. During this playing back I want to record - in buzz - what I play on live from Roland or Yamaha or both (they are in midi chain). My problem is - when I hear even a little latency my left and right hand looses each other. I tryied to train such way of playing with latency but I couldn't helped on this. I think my stronger hand tries to compensate those latencies and result becomes worst. I need to hear a tone exactly in the moment I press a key.
Another thing is recording environmental sounds with mike and laptop - which is field work, and I don't want take two buses and four trains of equipement for complete this task.
Recording from gramophone and take sounds from tape recordings are also concerned.
For now I don't plan to record drums which usually needs 6 inputs or more with preamps.
My 2 main goals are rendering sound to a wave file without crackles and playing on live using my midi during playing back my bmx files - with possibility to record those performance.
BTW on Buzzchurch there was an interesting discussion about hardware, drivers and so on - ediroll vs maudio, echoaudio etc. but it was gone with the... forum.
And my last question - which part of computer's hardware is responsible for generating and rendering sound (FM and wave) to a wave file? CPU, soundcard processor, AD/DA converters, opamps? Will do soundcard/interface elements any jobs during rendering and are they essential for this process or are they irrelevant? Can I render music to a file on computer without a soundcard/interface at all? /Yeah - this seems to be an essential question./ If I can - do connecting mentioned card/interface will improve anything with a content of the file? What I need to concern to choose right choice? And what is real difference between FireWire and USB2 cards for musician (I red the specs and it told me nothing)? Did anyone succesfully done a good quality recordings using USB2 interface or only FireWire/internal cards can help with this? If you have to choose between Echo AudioFire2 and this Roland UA 55 Quad Capture on USB wich one would you recommended?

Cheers.
Mu.
ekral
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Re: Gear?

Post by ekral »

which part of computer's hardware is responsible for generating and rendering sound (FM and wave) to a wave file
CPU

Code: Select all

rendering sound to a wave file without crackles and playing on live using my midi during playing back my bmx files - with possibility to record those performance
You need fast and modern CPU (sandy bridge i5, i7 etc.) and fast HDD, preferable two dedicated physical disks, one for system and another for recording.

Code: Select all

Did anyone succesfully done a good quality recordings using USB2 interface or only FireWire/internal cards can help with this?
USB2 is definitely ok, just use little bit more CPU then firewire, but USB2 is the most common nowdays. The quality of recordings depends more on the quality of preamps and AD converters.
My problem is - when I hear even a little latency my left and right hand looses each other
a) Yamaha-PSS 590 audio out => soundcard audio in => wave recorder: You need a soundcard with hardware (direct) monitoring.
b) Roland A-30 midi out => soundcard midi in => Jeskola buzz generator controled by midi => soundcard audio out : You need good soundcard with low latency driver (ASIO, WASAPI).
If you have to choose between Echo AudioFire2 and this Roland UA 55 Quad Capture on USB wich one would you recommended?
I would prefer Roland UA 55 Quad Capture because it has direct monitor knob and ground-lift switch (which is very useful if your notebook power adapter causing groud loop). Personaly I would choose focusrite, because they have great preamps.
Mu_
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Re: Gear?

Post by Mu_ »

ekral wrote:
[...]The quality of recordings depends more on the quality of preamps and AD converters.
a) Yamaha-PSS 590 audio out => soundcard audio in => wave recorder: You need a soundcard with hardware (direct) monitoring.
b) Roland A-30 midi out => soundcard midi in => Jeskola buzz generator controled by midi => soundcard audio out : You need good soundcard with low latency driver (ASIO, WASAPI).
I would prefer Roland UA 55 Quad Capture because it has direct monitor knob and ground-lift switch (which is very useful if your notebook power adapter causing groud loop). Personaly I would choose focusrite, because they have great preamps.

Thank you for your response. So now it seems the first thing before buying interface is for me buying a good sound card... Which one would you recommend to me - ESI Julia@ or ESI maya44 with MI/ODI/O or maybe some other stuff? /http://www.esi-audio.com/products/?m=23/
Cheers.
Mu.
ekral
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Re: Gear?

Post by ekral »

Thank you for your response. So now it seems the first thing before buying interface is for me buying a good sound card... Which one would you recommend to me - ESI Julia@ or ESI maya44
What do you mean by interface ?

ESI Julia@ or ESI maya44 are internal soundcards (PCI, PCIe).
Echo AudioFire2 and Roland UA 55 Quad Capture and others are external soundcards (USB, Firewire). Just plug USB or firewire cable and thats all what you need. If you want a good quality soundcard for your notebook, there are not many other choices then USB or firewire soundcard.

Soundcard is also called audio interface. Let's see what Wikipedia say about audio interfaces:

"Professional soundcards are usually described as "audio interfaces", and sometimes have the form of external rack-mountable units using USB, FireWire, or an optical interface, to offer sufficient data rates."
Mu_
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Re: Gear?

Post by Mu_ »

I thought interface is an external device with many inputs/outputs which you use for connecting instruments with sound card with hardware converters for different kind signals. Well - your answer makes me happy because I can just take out my 2 internal SB devices and replace them portable, external good one. :) Which I can use with other computer which is cool, because I thought i need both devices - interface and sound card as well. After all those concerns I think I will buy a FOCUSRITE SAFFIRE PRO 14 interfece. Would you recommend this one?
ekral
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Re: Gear?

Post by ekral »

I will buy a FOCUSRITE SAFFIRE PRO 14 interfece.
I think that it is a good choice. But not so many notebooks have firewire port.
domtron
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Re: Gear?

Post by domtron »

depending on the motherboard some firewire interfaces need a pci(e) firewire card with a ti chip to work properly without crackles.

if i choose a audio interface i take a look for the driver support.some manufacturers just stop the support and leave you in the dust.

pci will be slowly outdated (although it is working again on many new motherboards after huge complains regarding the sandy bridge systems)

firewire is so lala,imo you never know how long they keep it up if you spend a lot of money you need to consider it.

usb 2,reliable with future proof and stable drivers, i would choose,roland (edirol),native instruments or rme.
beside this,pcie-all the way.
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