Sound Card....which one for pro stuff?

Magwitch

I am currently working closely with friend of mine on an internet project. His side of things is audio. He is about to invest in a new computer but I do not know that much about sound and assume a v.good sound car will not be shipped with a computer.

We need to get an audio card (agp or pci) which can take input from key boards, sampler etc.

What is the standard connection used between midi instruments and others like samplers, and audio cards. And which audio cards give best proformance, an how much do they typically cost?

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Keep your powder dry and your pants moist

dahamsta

Audio isn't my thing, but I know that the Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Platinum can take input from pretty much anything, as it has a front panel that slots into a spare 5 1/4" drive bay. It also has analog, digital and optical outs.

If you want /really/ professional though, you need to go AGP and you need to spend a hefty whack of dosh. I don't have any recommendations, but I have a friend who's into it and I'll ask him the next time I talk to him.

satchmo

I don't know all that much about sound cards either, but I'm pretty damn sure that you can't get AGP sound cards. (Accelerated Graphics Port)
dahamsta, you're not helping!

po0k

what? I'd say there's afair chance of a AGP port sound card...
If u have to move serious amounts of audio data around it could take up an awefull lot of time. And if ur ona sound workstation I seriously doubt you would care wbout the graphics side of things.
anyways go to a Hi-Fi specialist, he/she would be able to help u out a good load I'd say, or else go for the SbLive! setup as mentione earlier and the Live!Bay, plus some good audio software, Cubase etc.
Class speakers would help too, or seperates hi-fi setup. Cabling is also paramount, ur equipment could be top-notch but if the cable's dod***, ur scr3wed

Kali

"If u have to move serious amounts of audio data around it could take up an awefull lot of time"

haha, yeah cos 132Mb/s is obviously just too damn slow for playing audio like.
A proper sound editing machine is more reliant on hard disk speeds than anything else, the PCI bus is never even flexed I'd warrant, even when playing Dolby 5.1

I have never ever heard of an AGP soundcard, as theres no reason why a soundcard should need to access RAM directly anyway (taking the basic concept behind AGP)...

_CreeD_

'Very good' or 'Pro'?

The SBLIVE platinum is a great deal but it's not a pro card. if you just want to run MIDI equipment (ie. play external instruments/use external kbds to play internal-PC sounds) it'd be fine. However if you want to use it as a sampler and output device it's not pro-standard.

Try the Digital-Audio Labs CardDeluxe. 24bit-96Khz sampling/processing. Realworld Signal-Noise ration of ~107db. It has no midi capabilities though, but you can pair it easily with an SBlive or other midi card.

For software I recommend Cakewalk Pro (the 'Suite' pack is good value) for sequencing and CoolEditPro for Sample management.