# Best sound card for music creation/capture.



## BlackOmega (Mar 4, 2012)

So I'm going to be building a rig that it's sole purpose is to record live audio through a mixer and what not. 
 What is the best sound card for this purpose? 

 Money is of no concern.


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## theJesus (Mar 4, 2012)

PreSonus StudioLive looks nice.  What sort of live audio?  How many channels, etc.?  Take a look at this chart too.


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 4, 2012)

Yeah, gotta go with a multi channel firewire setup obviously.


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## Completely Bonkers (Mar 5, 2012)

There are probably better forums than TPU for this specialist question! Any how, nice chart tJ. I would also recommend reading pro magazines/sites covering theses sorts of products. Here are a couple from Sound on Sound to get you going:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may11/articles/hd-native.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun11/articles/nimbus-project-studio-plus.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/apogee-symphony.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep10/articles/rme-fireface-uc.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan11/articles/rme-fireface-ufx.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/news?NewsID=11318


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## BlackOmega (Mar 5, 2012)

theJesus said:


> PreSonus StudioLive looks nice.  What sort of live audio?  How many channels, etc.?  Take a look at this chart too.



Hey thanks for the links. 

 The live audio that I'm going to be recording is basically a band. 1 drummer, 1 bassist, 1 lead guitar, 1 rhythm guitar, and at least 1 singer. 

 As for channels, 7 at the moment, however, we have room to add more. 

 We already have a decent mixer, firewire audio interface, mics, and so on. 

 What I'm mainly interested in is the sound card to use for this. I have an X-Fi Xtreme music which actually has a really nice interface. Now this sound card actually has some nice specs:

24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analog inputs at 96kHz sample rate
24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 7.1 speaker output
24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of stereo digital sources at 192kHz to stereo output
16-bit to 24-bit recording sampling rates: 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz
ASIO 2.0 support with direct monitoring at 16 and 24-bit at sample rates of 44.1/48/88.22 and 96kHz
Enhanced SoundFont support at up to 24-bit resolution

 Now on this card, I have record .wav's at some really high bit rates. For instance I ripped a song at 4608kbps. Ironically enough, it sounds clearer than it did from the CD.

 So which sound cards are the best for recording?


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## radrok (Mar 5, 2012)

Have you thought about Lynx audio? They do manufacture very good studio solutions.

http://www.lynxstudio.com/index.asp


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## theJesus (Mar 5, 2012)

BlackOmega said:


> We already have a decent mixer, firewire audio interface, mics, and so on.


Why can't you use this existing setup?


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## BlackOmega (Mar 5, 2012)

theJesus said:


> Why can't you use this existing setup?



We are using all of that stuff, however, that just gets the sound to where we need it to go. Now we're actually trying to record it to a computer. 
 So my question is, what is the best sound card to record with to get the best results?

 So basically, what's the best _professional_ sound card?


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## cadaveca (Mar 5, 2012)

BlackOmega said:


> So which sound cards are the best for recording?



What OS, what software, and for audio recording only, or multi-use?

For multi-use, the ASUS Xonar cards, at least the higher-end ones, have pretty good recording abilities, better than the X-Fi. However, the ASIO performance of the X-fi card is much much better, so if you're gonna be using MIDI or something, this might be something to consider.

If for audio recoring only, as most are suggest, get a "Professional Grade" audio card. There are multitudes of options here, and if you compare "Pro" cards vs "gaming" add-in cards, you find that the specifications as features sets are quite different, so there is definitely a real reason why you're being "guided" in this direction.

Because audio recording, for the most part, tends to want to be as "loss-less" as possible, you'll find that there aren't really alot of difference in cards other than the bit-rate and sampling rate, as well as input options. I gues the bundled software palys a role too.

M-Audio is a pretty common brand, and in this instance, i think going with most users have, that is going to ahve a larger support base, might be hte best option. You don't need to spend alot.


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## BlackOmega (Mar 5, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> What OS, what software, and for audio recording only, or multi-use?


Hey Dave,
 The OS is most likely going to be Windows 7 64bit (not sure which version yet, media center edition perhaps?) Software, most likely pro-tools. 
 This is basically going to record nothing but audio. Although, I would want an all around good card, that if I wanted to record something else, I could do so.


cadaveca said:


> For multi-use, the ASUS Xonar cards, at least the higher-end ones, have pretty good recording abilities, better than the X-Fi. However, the ASIO performance of the X-fi card is much much better, so if you're gonna be using MIDI or something, this might be something to consider.


So which one is actually better for MIDI? And what makes the Xonar better than the X-Fi in terms of recording? 


cadaveca said:


> If for audio recoring only, as most are suggest, get a "Professional Grade" audio card. There are multitudes of options here, and if you compare "Pro" cards vs "gaming" add-in cards, you find that the specifications as features sets are quite different, so there is definitely a real reason why you're being "guided" in this direction.
> 
> Because audio recording, for the most part, tends to want to be as "loss-less" as possible, you'll find that there aren't really alot of difference in cards other than the bit-rate and sampling rate, as well as input options. I gues the bundled software palys a role too.
> 
> M-Audio is a pretty common brand, and in this instance, i think going with most users have, that is going to ahve a larger support base, might be hte best option. You don't need to spend alot.


 So what are the best professional grade sound cards out there? I've found M-audio, but are there any other good choices out there? (The ones preferred by professionals.)

 Also, what specs should I be looking for in a professional sound card? I know bit rate and sample rates are important, but what else?

 Thanks for all of the information so far.


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## theJesus (Mar 6, 2012)

BlackOmega said:


> We are using all of that stuff, however, that just gets the sound to where we need it to go. Now we're actually trying to record it to a computer.
> So my question is, what is the best sound card to record with to get the best results?
> 
> So basically, what's the best _professional_ sound card?


I still don't get it.  You said you have a firewire interface, so you should be able to use that.  Or are you not satisfied with it?


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## BlackOmega (Mar 6, 2012)

theJesus said:


> I still don't get it.  You said you have a firewire interface, so you should be able to use that.  Or are you not satisfied with it?



I was under the impression that you needed to plug your source to the actual card. I've seen a lot of the professional cards seem to have bundles of wires connecting to their "game ports".


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 6, 2012)

BlackOmega said:


> We already have a decent mixer, firewire audio interface, mics, and so on.





BlackOmega said:


> I was under the impression that you needed to plug your source to the actual card. I've seen a lot of the professional cards seem to have bundles of wires connecting to their "game ports".



A firewire audio interface *IS *a sound card, just get a IEEE1394 port for your computer or if your motherboard doesnt support it get a PCI->Firewire card. (plug into a spare PCI-e 1x slot and gives you a Firewire port) ($5-$10) Example.

My setup goes: guitars, drums, bass, vocals, wataver -> firewire audio interface -> computer -> audio recording software. 

And  the output goes: all computer's audio -> firewire audio interface -> studio monitors.

Pretty simple, hope this helps.

Also, if you have enough inputs on your firewire interface, dont use the mixer, you want each track separate from one another, not all instruments into 2 tracks, for mixing purposes. (Hence it being called the mixing process)


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