Professional Recording Soundcards

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Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Acsii » 29 Aug 2013 19:00

So I've been looking at getting a sound card to use in my computer...
Currently I've been looking at the Avid HDX, the RME HDSPe MADI (fx), possibly MOTU, and I've even considered doing a RED setup from Focusrite.
Any other suggestions... Also this can be general discussion anyway.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 29 Aug 2013 21:18

I'm sorta on the edge about soundcards like those. I'm sure that having all those obscure connections would be great for using hardware that requires the obscure connections, but otherwise an audio interface does the job for me. Would you mind explaining what the advantage of having a non-consumer grade soundcard would be?
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Acsii » 29 Aug 2013 22:11

you do know these are pcie audio interface pretty much...
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Facade » 29 Aug 2013 22:22

^ what acsii said pcie = most common thing on desktop computers

i was thinking about getting some studio monitors sometime between now and next year what kind of interface would i need to get the most out of them that also does recording(i'd like to record electric / acoustic guitar at some point)?

as for what you are looking for damn those look pricey o.o hope you have deep pockets...
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Acsii » 29 Aug 2013 22:24

I'm probably going to go with the Focusrite Rednet... although the RME is looking good... probably won't go the AVID though
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 30 Aug 2013 08:16

So they're just audio interfaces with more connection ports, essentially?
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Facade » 30 Aug 2013 08:44

higher quality too like this is recording studio quality shit right here
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 30 Aug 2013 22:14

Well hot damn, I guess imma get one for my $15000 studio I'm building when I move instead of an audio interface, haha.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Acsii » 31 Aug 2013 04:54

stop saying instead...
they are both audio interfaces ffs
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 31 Aug 2013 08:32

:^| Sometimes I hate terminology. One's a soundcard and the other is an audio interface in the world I live in.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Mr. Bigglesworth » 09 Oct 2013 20:57

I record a bit with a Digidesign Mbox and a C2 condensor.

If my room were a little better acoustically speaking I'd be able to record profesional quality things.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 09 Oct 2013 21:27

Just the thread I've been waiting for to return.

Every time I go looking at audio interfaces and soundcard options for a home studio, the only soundcards I can find only have obscure connections and midi connections. Stuff like this. So right now I really don't see the point in getting a $1000 PCIe audio interface when I can get a $300 regular audio interface that does everything I need it to and has a convenient volume control knob for both the monitors and headphones, as well as XLR connections for microphones and even gain knobs for the microphones. The only thing I seem to think about the soundcards is that they can be used for surround sound studio monitor setups. Which I can't even determine where you would hook up the monitors, unless the card comes with a cord that has multiple quarter inch connections and/or xlr connections. So can somebody really explain the point of them? Like, what type of equipment would be hooked up and how would it be used and what about this usage would make it a better choice for me to purchase than an audio interface?
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby the4thImpulse » 09 Oct 2013 21:40

itroitnyah wrote:Just the thread I've been waiting for to return.

Those don't run off of USB, they are 'hardwired' into the computer which will provide the potential to handle many more tracks at lower latencies and with higher sample rates. USB is much easier to operate, especially when you don't need all the I/Os, you can get great sound from them. These PCI cards are the real deal for someone who needs what they offer. They will hook up directly to various preamp's and I/Os which is where you will find the typical plug in points for microphones and other gear. (I know my computer lingo is somewhat wrong, forgive me).
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby simonli2575 » 10 Oct 2013 00:07

the4thImpulse wrote:
itroitnyah wrote:Just the thread I've been waiting for to return.

Those don't run off of USB, they are 'hardwired' into the computer which will provide the potential to handle many more tracks at lower latencies and with higher sample rates. USB is much easier to operate, especially when you don't need all the I/Os, you can get great sound from them. These PCI cards are the real deal for someone who needs what they offer. They will hook up directly to various preamp's and I/Os which is where you will find the typical plug in points for microphones and other gear. (I know my computer lingo is somewhat wrong, forgive me).

I thought ultimately soundcards were just a scam.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Acsii » 10 Oct 2013 00:49

For studios they are the essence as they need to have 0 latency on the inputs. Also if they use a digital card it allows for at max (currently) about 400 tracks. Sound cards are not designed for consumers or amateurs, but for professionals.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 10 Oct 2013 05:55

...So essentially it just gives 0 or almost zero latency on recordings and can handle more tracks...

In comparison, an audio interface will get more latency and still run plenty of tracks. I'm not even sure why you would need 400 tracks. I'm not even sure what that means, really. Like, is it the number of tracks on the virtual mixer that the soundcard can handle? That type of thing?

So in reality, since I don't plan on recording much more than vocals, and I don't think that having a bit of latency will make vocal recordings sound much less quality than zero, so I guess it'd just be a better use of money for me to get a $300 audio interface
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby Acsii » 10 Oct 2013 06:08

itroitnyah wrote:...So essentially it just gives 0 or almost zero latency on recordings and can handle more tracks...

In comparison, an audio interface will get more latency and still run plenty of tracks. I'm not even sure why you would need 400 tracks. I'm not even sure what that means, really. Like, is it the number of tracks on the virtual mixer that the soundcard can handle? That type of thing?

So in reality, since I don't plan on recording much more than vocals, and I don't think that having a bit of latency will make vocal recordings sound much less quality than zero, so I guess it'd just be a better use of money for me to get a $300 audio interface

You missed the last seneptence where I said about these are for professional use
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby CitricAcid » 10 Oct 2013 07:20

itroitnyah wrote:...So essentially it just gives 0 or almost zero latency on recordings and can handle more tracks...

In comparison, an audio interface will get more latency and still run plenty of tracks. I'm not even sure why you would need 400 tracks. I'm not even sure what that means, really. Like, is it the number of tracks on the virtual mixer that the soundcard can handle? That type of thing?

So in reality, since I don't plan on recording much more than vocals, and I don't think that having a bit of latency will make vocal recordings sound much less quality than zero, so I guess it'd just be a better use of money for me to get a $300 audio interface

It all depends on what you plan on doing with the interface. My orchestra template in Cubase has upwards of 300 tracks; I've never used them all at once, but I need to be prepared to. I have already had to increase the ASIO buffer size on my ($300) interface to prevent ASIO time overloads, which increases latency. And those obscure connections on professional sound cards come in more useful if you're working with multiple PCs. You need the BNC word clock connections to keep all your PCs in sync and all of the audio I/O to route everything to whichever PC (or other device) you're going to be ultimately printing everything to. I know that big time film composers have these sorts of setups, and there's probably other similarly large studios that have them too.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby the4thImpulse » 10 Oct 2013 10:03

itroitnyah wrote:...So essentially it just gives 0 or almost zero latency on recordings and can handle more tracks...

In comparison, an audio interface will get more latency and still run plenty of tracks. I'm not even sure why you would need 400 tracks. I'm not even sure what that means, really. Like, is it the number of tracks on the virtual mixer that the soundcard can handle? That type of thing?

So in reality, since I don't plan on recording much more than vocals, and I don't think that having a bit of latency will make vocal recordings sound much less quality than zero, so I guess it'd just be a better use of money for me to get a $300 audio interface

It offers more analog inputs and outputs, higher sample rates (192 Kbps) and lower latency.

If you want to record a vocal for a song, you do not need it, if you want to record an entire band's bed tracking you could desire 20+ tracks for microphones and all direct inputs from instruments and amplifiers and room microphones. If out out want to record a full sized orchestra you would want 100+ inputs so you can record each instrument, each instrument section, and the whole room in various positions all at once.

It's the most professional option out there but it's unnecessary for someone like you or me, interfaces can provide the same quality in sound, just less tracks.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 10 Oct 2013 15:09

Whoa three responses at once. Wonderful.

You missed the last seneptence where I said about these are for professional use
Well that depends on the type of "Professional". A professional mixing and mastering engineer probably doesn't need a soundcard that can connect a dozen microphones. Since I won't be recording with dozens of microphones at once a regular audio interface will be fine for me. 4th's post goes into better detail on this.

inb4 you talk about them having better quality. You can buy audio interfaces that reach 24bit/192kHz for less then and sometimes half the price of soundcards. Moreover, the human ear can usually only notice changes in quality up to around ~100kHz or something, so 24bit/96kHz is still great, and 192kHz seems to be mostly for bragging rights. Unless audio interfaces have this major problem that causes them to have noticeably lower quality than a soundcard in terms of sound quality.

That citric fruit guy wrote:some orchestral stuff
Well I guess that if I ever decide to go into orchestral (which I may, it's an interesting genre that I may decide to try at one point in time) I may have to consider getting an internal soundcard depending on how many tracks I find myself using. That still doesn't answer my question about tracks though.

What exactly is a "track"? There are so many meanings for the word, I don't know which one you guys are referring to. Do you mean track as in the tracks on the sequencer? The virtual mixer? The playlist?

4th wrote:It offers more analog inputs and outputs, higher sample rates (192 Kbps) and lower latency.

If you want to record a vocal for a song, you do not need it, if you want to record an entire band's bed tracking you could desire 20+ tracks for microphones and all direct inputs from instruments and amplifiers and room microphones. If out out want to record a full sized orchestra you would want 100+ inputs so you can record each instrument, each instrument section, and the whole room in various positions all at once.

It's the most professional option out there but it's unnecessary for someone like you or me, interfaces can provide the same quality in sound, just less tracks.
Yeah, I'm just going to be sticking with an audio interface instead of a soundcard, then.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby CitricAcid » 10 Oct 2013 17:14

itroitnyah wrote:What exactly is a "track"? There are so many meanings for the word, I don't know which one you guys are referring to. Do you mean track as in the tracks on the sequencer? The virtual mixer? The playlist?

Good question. It sounds like everyone else was talking about the number of audio inputs being recorded at once. While these sorts of tracks are probably most taxing on an audio card/interface, virtual instrument tracks can have an impact as well.
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 10 Oct 2013 19:31

CitricAcid wrote:virtual instrument tracks can have an impact as well.
This is exactly what I want defined. This tells me nothing. The tracks on the sequencer? Virtual mixer? the virtual tracks where???
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby the4thImpulse » 10 Oct 2013 19:47

itroitnyah wrote:
CitricAcid wrote:virtual instrument tracks can have an impact as well.
This is exactly what I want defined. This tells me nothing. The tracks on the sequencer? Virtual mixer? the virtual tracks where???

There are a few meanings one might use with the word "tracks"

1. Inputs and outputs; stereo would be two tracks, two mono tracks. These would be for microphones, hardware machines, external processing gear ect..

2. Amount of tracks used in a project. Stuff like audio samples, VSTs, and such all use 'virtual' tracks. Again stereo is two tracks. A soundcard can only handle so many tracks at a time *before you get latency issues) and that number is often blurred depending on many factors.

I hope this helps clear the picture, I don't know everything about how the computer handles all of it so all I can give are the basics (which are often good enough).
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby itroitnyah » 10 Oct 2013 20:39

the4thImpulse wrote:I hope this helps clear the picture, I don't know everything about how the computer handles all of it so all I can give are the basics (which are often good enough).
So in this case that we're talking about, it's the audio samples and vsts and such. Well, I don't think I've used anywhere near 64 tracks (which is half of what most audio interfaces are said to handle, I think), so I don't see why I would ever run into this problem. Of course, people doing live orchestral performance recording would, obviously. But that's not me. So I have nothing to worry about *Sits back in chair and lets out a satisfying sigh*
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Re: Professional Recording Soundcards

Postby the4thImpulse » 10 Oct 2013 20:58

itroitnyah wrote:
the4thImpulse wrote:I hope this helps clear the picture, I don't know everything about how the computer handles all of it so all I can give are the basics (which are often good enough).
So in this case that we're talking about, it's the audio samples and vsts and such. Well, I don't think I've used anywhere near 64 tracks (which is half of what most audio interfaces are said to handle, I think), so I don't see why I would ever run into this problem. Of course, people doing live orchestral performance recording would, obviously. But that's not me. So I have nothing to worry about *Sits back in chair and lets out a satisfying sigh*

Unlike physical inputs connections the 'software channels' are very blurred as to what a computer can handle. VSTs and audio all use different amounts of resources from various parts of the computer, its not as easy as saying a soundcard can handle 50 internal tracks..

Again those soundards are most important for physical inputs and outputs (channels/tracks). RAM is most important for audio samples, having more and faster RAM will allow you to handle more audio samples at once. CPU is most important for VSTs; both effects and synths.
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