PC SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum EX

[Maverick]

Hi all

Don't know if this is the right forum...I know someone will correct me if it's not

But has anyone any experience using the above card (the SB Audigy with the black external input box) for use with DIGITAL RECORDING / Multi Tracks etc...

I've got quite a few different instruments in my 'studio' and I'd like to have a go at 'laying down' a track or two.

Cor, get me sounding all hip!

LOL

Any advice or thoughts much appreciated as this PC cards darn expensive.

PS Has anyone compared the Yamaha DSP Factory to the above and how does that work out?

TY

Maverick

[BOOM]

Yes that AUDIGY PLATINUM is a great tool for your PC-I would recomend this highly-good quality sound-I use the 5.1 version from 2000 myself it runs really smooth.Creatives web page has a bunch of information for technical music aplications-There is tech support and other users on the site also-Go there for some good ideas.

[@oM]

No! There are much better soundcards for that price! For example the Terratec's. (see http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/0...15/index.html)
It depends on what you want, but if you want to record just some tracks, you really don't need an audigy or another expensive soundcard. If you want to play games and watch dvd's, the audigy is something to consider.
Audiotrak makes cheap soundcards of good quality. They only have 20 bit AD converters, but do you really need 24/96? I don't think so. The audiotrak's are better quality than Soundblasters.
Everyone is always *****ing about the bad quality of soundblaster and probably not without reasons.

Tom

[MPCman]

Originally posted by @oM:
Everyone is always *****ing about the bad quality of soundblaster and probably not without reasons.

Yes sir!



------------------
My Personal homepage
MPCman's E-drum Picsite!

[rpg]

Hi,

I don't know much, and I've been struggling with the sound card thing too. People (who supposedly are experts) have explained to me that ultimately, you want a sound card with the highest SNR (signal to noise ratio)and frequency response as possible. For example, the "Turtle Beach's Santa Cruz" seems to be a great buy (about the same cost as the bulk audigy).

Here's some of what I've been told (feel free to correct what I have misconceived):

The whole thing involves the fact that you are representing each of a set of continuous (analog) signals with only two points in digital. This is why you have to sample at twice the frequency of your highest sound. By convention, CD quality is 16 bit at 44 KHz, but I'm told to keep in mind that this is just an adequate audio format for playback. In other words, pros will format the output of their recordings with this size and speed of signal (because CD players, etc. recognize this format), but most often, the recording itself, was done at a much larger size and faster rate (eg., 24 bit/96 KHz.) Thus, in the sound card Audigy's case, the playback (digital to analog converter-DAC) can play back a CD format at 24 bit 96 KHz with about a 96 db SNR. They spread your CD quality signal over a lot of band width and I think that it sounds much better. But the audigy only records at 16 bit 48 KHz format, and so you recording will not sound as professional as it could. The point being that a poorly recorded sound upon playback, can sound fatter, thicker, with more dynamic range, but still sounds like crap!

Apparently, the reason is that if you digitize (record) your analog signal (the output from V-drums) with a 24 bit/96 KHz rate, this gives you a very large band width at 4 times the sampling frequency of the human auditory spectrum (20-22 KHz). This supposedly prevents the aliasing of sound (incorrectly digitizing fast frequencies that subsequently become misrepresented as low frequencies). These incorrect frequencies color the sound with distortion (sound frequencies out of phase, or not part of the original timbre of the instrument). So even your bass drum sound, that has overtones that are sometimes as high as 15 KHz, now have extra junk waves that distort the natural sound of the drum that we strive to reproduce.

Faster frequencies naturally have a lower amplitude, and therefore more vulerable to being colored by noise if your SNR is too low.

Of course, at the end of the day, there is a lot more to it than this. I recommend and have found the following site to be very instructive about choosing a sound card:
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm

One more thing, one engineer told me that a lot of this is just learning how to tweak what components you have and that it is very possible to get a pretty good sound even out of some crappy cards).

Good luck with your purchase (I finally settled on the digigram VX pocket V2 sound card for recording in audio).

[cgrieves]

[rpg]

I agree. Creative's trick is to put all of their quality components that playback professionally recorded sound.

Then they spend next to nothing on the recording components of the card.

[Snills]

Hi all,
There has been GREAT independent developements in soundblaster Live compatible drivers at: http://www.nix-lab.spb.ru/ These drivers will give you features that Creative never bothered to develope for musicians.

If you want Low latency, onboard DSP effects, ASIO, for Cubase, Reason, Logic etc... and soundfont(sampling) capability, you cannot presently beat the SBLive card... $20 and up at www.pricewatch.com . Do the research and feel free to ask more questions. This card is full of features that you just cannot find for the price. Especially when you use the independent "KX" drivers.

My setup:
AthlonXP 1700, Windows XP
SBlive with KX drivers (5ms latency)
Cubase VST 5
Reason
Other Software synths and DX effects
V Session

Very happy with it..
Bill