[Richard Crowley]

"pg" wrote...
I am in the process of building my own intel core-4 machine,
......
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.

By "core-4" can we assume that you mean "Quad Core"?
(Like an Intel Kentsfield, etc.?)

A Quad-core computer to use to "compose music"?
What is your current computer? What is deficient about it that
makes you think you need a new computer?
What kind of music do you compose that requires a Quad-Core
computer?

What do you mean, *exactly*, by "compose music"?
Are you writing compositions and then printing scores (or lead-
sheets, etc.) for musicians to play with real instruments?
Are you creating MIDI files for sale?
Are you playing your music on a synth (perhaps the one built into
the soundblaster?) and then recording it into WAV or MP3 files?

None of these activities would appear to require even something
as whizzy as your current sound card, much less something that
costs $750. Also none of them would require even an infinetessimal
fraction of the horsepower of a Quad-Core (or even a Dual-Core)
computer.

It sounds like you just have a lot of money in your pocket burning
a hole and you want to buy some new shiny toys,

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.

Exactly why did you buy that sound card in the first place?
Which features did it have that you could not have found in some
ordinary sound card? It is not clear why anyone would buy such
a thing?

My budget for the new sound card is $750, while I can get anther
X-Fi Elite Pro, I do not see the point.

And likely most of us "guru"s here don't see the point in even the
Soundblaster X-Fi Elite Pro sound card. You haven't identified
any activity or requirement that would indicate that you need anything
more than a $25 generic white-box sound card.

What I am looking for is a sound card that is at least as good as
X-Fi Elite Pro,

What is it about the X-Fi Elite Pro that is "good"? Soundblaster in
general has the reputation of a high-priced, mediocre performance,
guaudy plastic toy among professional audio users.

can do input and output at 48-bits / 384 KHz.

You cannot be serious. Where did you get those specifications?
Those numbers make you look like a fool and unworthy of any
continued dialog here. If you have some valid reason for thinking
you really need 48-bits and/or 384K sample rate, you'd better
tell us quickly before we all write you off as a troll.

[Arny Krueger]

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message


A Quad-core computer to use to "compose music"?

Yep. I have a few clients like these.

What is your current computer? What is deficient about it
that makes you think you need a new computer?

I understand that if you run the latest-greatest-mega synth/sampler, they
use CPU cycles like there is no tomorrow.

What kind of music do you compose that requires a
Quad-Core computer?

Music with lots of very complex virtual instruments, with lots of EFX.

What do you mean, *exactly*, by "compose music"?

Hopefully, put notes on scores.

Are you writing compositions and then printing scores (or
lead- sheets, etc.) for musicians to play with real
instruments?

That's what my similarly afflicted clients do.

Are you creating MIDI files for sale?

The software will do that, too.

Are you playing your music on a synth (perhaps the one
built into the soundblaster?) and then recording it into WAV or MP3
files?

The software will do that, too.

None of these activities would appear to require even
something as whizzy as your current sound card, much less something
that costs $750. Also none of them would require even an
infinetessimal fraction of the horsepower of a Quad-Core
(or even a Dual-Core) computer.

There are synths and there are synths. Also, if you are writing complex
orchestrations, you can end up running lots of them in parallel.

It sounds like you just have a lot of money in your
pocket burning a hole and you want to buy some new shiny toys,

Could be, or could be that he does not want to fit his music to his
computer.

BTW my clients are pretty happy with machines on the order of 2 GB of RAM
and single or dual core Athlon 64s. But they don't try to press any
limits - they focus on the music.

[Richard Crowley]

"Arny Krueger" wrote ...
"Richard Crowley" wrote
A Quad-core computer to use to "compose music"?

Yep. I have a few clients like these.

What is your current computer? What is deficient about it
that makes you think you need a new computer?

I understand that if you run the latest-greatest-mega synth/sampler, they
use CPU cycles like there is no tomorrow.

But are the apps written to take advantage of multi-core?

What kind of music do you compose that requires a
Quad-Core computer?

Music with lots of very complex virtual instruments, with lots of EFX.

What do you mean, *exactly*, by "compose music"?

Hopefully, put notes on scores.

Are you writing compositions and then printing scores (or lead-sheets,
etc.) for musicians to play with real
instruments?

That's what my similarly afflicted clients do.

And that is the kind of "composing music" that requires the
LEAST computing horsepower. I use one of the more
sophisticated music notation apps (Sibelius) and it has
remarkably modest compting requirements. (Especially
compared to any kind of multi-track audio NLE or video
processing, etc.)

Still sounds to me like the OP doesn't know what he needs
and has a fixation with shiny toys. At least from what he
wrote here (which is all we know about him).

[Arny Krueger]

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote ...
"Richard Crowley" wrote
A Quad-core computer to use to "compose music"?

Yep. I have a few clients like these.

What is your current computer? What is deficient about
it that makes you think you need a new computer?

I understand that if you run the latest-greatest-mega
synth/sampler, they use CPU cycles like there is no
tomorrow.

But are the apps written to take advantage of multi-core?

Some say they are.

What kind of music do you compose that requires a
Quad-Core computer?

Music with lots of very complex virtual instruments,
with lots of EFX.

The horsepower gets used when they play their compositions back.

What do you mean, *exactly*, by "compose music"?

Hopefully, put notes on scores.

Are you writing compositions and then printing scores
(or lead-sheets, etc.) for musicians to play with real
instruments?

That's what my similarly afflicted clients do.

And that is the kind of "composing music" that requires
the LEAST computing horsepower. I use one of the more
sophisticated music notation apps (Sibelius) and it has
remarkably modest compting requirements.

I wouldn't expect that the actual process of putting notes on staffs would
take many resources by modern standards.

(Especially
compared to any kind of multi-track audio NLE or video
processing, etc.)

I have a system with a 6GHz dual core processor, and everything but video
editing runs pretty much I/O bound. Video editing, particularly that which
involves rendering or transcoding, can still use whatever CPU you've got and
ask for more.