[Earl Kiosterud]

"pg" wrote in message
...
Hello to everyone !

I am here to seek advise from all the gurus here.

I am in the process of building my own intel core-4 machine, and I am
thinking of getting a brand new sound card for it. My current
soundcard, the one in my old machine, is Creative Soundblaster X-Fi
Elite Pro.

My budget for the new sound card is $750, while I can get anther X-Fi
Elite Pro, I do not see the point. What I am looking for is a sound
card that is at least as good as X-Fi Elite Pro, can do input and
output at 48-bits / 384 KHz.

I compose music, and that is a very taxing stuff for sound card. I
need the best sound card that I can afford so I won't have to worry
about anything when I do music composing. I need your advise as to
which sound card I should purchase.

Please help !

Thank you !

pg,

Composing music isn't taxing for a sound card. And contrary to the opinions of many, even
an inexpensive sound card will have very good sound quality. Throwing money at an expensive
one is aiming at the wrong target when trying to improve your music. If you'll need low
latency, then you'll need a soundcard that has WDM or ASIO drivers -- the regular EMM
interface typically used by consumer soundcards, I think, doesn't provide for low latency.
But you still don't have to spend a lot for a high-spec card. You don't need low latency
unless you're using software synths, or doing audio monitoring from the input to the
computer. If you're just recording audio along with your MIDI, latency isn't an issue.

If you'll be doing MIDI, the CPU overhead is relatively low. If it will include
record/playback of audio or software synths, then the CPU overhead can grow, particularly
when you add effects to your audio tracks (reverb, compressors, equalizers, etc), though you
still don't need the latest CPU to do all this stuff, unless you'll be working on quite
large projects (lots of audio tracks with lots of effects plugged into tracks, and/or lots
of software synths). And I mean lots.

If you're doing MIDI, the sound quality of your synths will be the first thing that'll
likely make you cringe.

It's awfully easy to geek out on high specs stuff in this area, and it won't provide one
with the quality seeked (unless one is already convinced it will).

Hope this helps.

--
Regards from Virginia Beach,

Earl Kiosterud
www.smokeylake.com

[Laurence Payne]

I think it's established that you're asking in the wrong place. The
guys here are into live recording, PA etc. and know little of (or
choose to look down on) the sort of computer-based music construction
which I think you're talking about.

Try alt.music.home-studio, alt.steinberg.cubase (or user groups for
any of the other high-end sequencer programs.)