Building a New PC!

shredaholic

shredaholic

New member
Since I spend so much time on here, and since I'm off to Uni soon, my old man's offered to help fund me to build myself a PC! :banana:

So I'm thinking with this PC I should get a nice soundcard with it instead of what most people do and spend loads of £££ on a graphics card (I don't play games on PC's anyway). As some of you might know I've already got a Boss BR1200CD DAW, but having multitrack recording on the PC would be pretty cool as it'd give me more options.

So what should I go for? I'd want a quality card that would cost around £100 (maybe a bit more if it was worth it), preferably to record at least 2 tracks of simultaneous audio. It'd be used with the SCA Neve 1272 preamp (currently saving up for that right now). I don't really care about any added software, as I've got plenty of that now (Cubase, Audacity, Reason 2.5 etc)
 
Re: Building a New PC!

The Echo Mia Midi is one great soundcard, and cheap too! I recommend it! :)
 
Re: Building a New PC!

I've never tried it, but it looks great!

The Echo card is about $70 less, though :)
 
Re: Building a New PC!

i'll send a friend this way.. he's in the uk too and just got a squid of a sound card
 
Re: Building a New PC!

Yeah, that Audiophile is good, so is the Delta series, but you won't be able to record into 2 seperate tracks, just like 2 mics at a time or with a mixer however many you want. It'll just be on one stereo track, however.
 
Re: Building a New PC!

Ok, i'd certainly go with this octopus of mine! Have nothing to say but good!

Delta-1010LT-large.jpg



I dont know exactly what music you like, so i recorded a quick thing from metallica to hendrix in the hope haha. Note, this is the worst you'll get the card to sound. One track of audio recorded in nuendo with nothing done to it. aka completly useless. So basically, out of the box tone is as follows with a sm57 lol....

www.omission.fireway.co.uk/testthingforduncans.mp3

as im well into the metal, ive got some scorching metal tones from it below:


Heavy Rectifier Sound - www.omission.fireway.co.uk/KevStuff/1010ltclip1.mp3

Brucey D - www.omission.fireway.co.uk/KevStuff/1010ltclip2.mp3

Michael Angelo type lead tone in a mix - www.omission.fireway.co.uk/KevStuff/Proggy.mp3

Rammstein 234 - www.omission.fireway.co.uk/KevStuff/1010lt-rammsteining.mp3

My first mix with the card a little tune of my own... wihich sounds pretty cool, and is my best sound yet imo www.omission.fireway.co.uk/KevStuff/IdesOfFebruaryPanteraSnare.mp3

spent ages deliberating on sound cards, but decided this one was the best bang for the buck 2nd hand for £100 (brand new price is £159)


DeadSkinSlayer3 said:
Yeah, that Audiophile is good, so is the Delta series, but you won't be able to record into 2 seperate tracks, just like 2 mics at a time or with a mixer however many you want. It'll just be on one stereo track, however.
Click to expand...

It can be done Jeffo ;) Just set your program to recieve track 1 from mic 1 and track 2 for mic 2, simple as that ;)

I kid you not anyway dude, buy this fukr and all will be well until you become tracking full on bands. And when that happens, you buy another one and run two in tandem haha.
 
Last edited:
Re: Building a New PC!

Kev said:
It can be done Jeffo ;) Just set your program to recieve track 1 from mic 1 and track 2 for mic 2, simple as that ;)

I kid you not anyway dude, buy this fukr and all will be well until you become tracking full on bands. And when that happens, you buy another one and run two in tandem haha.
Click to expand...


I didn't know the Delta was capable of that! I need to look into that.
 
Re: Building a New PC!

Thanks Kev!!!

I really liked that MAB clip the most. I'm going for a hard rock style mainly, and I think a midi input is a must for synth work with a midi controller. To be fair I don't think I'll actually be recording 2 simultaneous tracks much anyway, it's just to give me more options with microphones (using more than 1 per track). The more tracks I get the more Neve preamps I'll need, which would get pretty damn expensive after a while!
 
Re: Building a New PC!

shredaholic said:
Thanks Kev!!!

I really liked that MAB clip the most. I'm going for a hard rock style mainly, and I think a midi input is a must for synth work with a midi controller. To be fair I don't think I'll actually be recording 2 simultaneous tracks much anyway, it's just to give me more options with microphones (using more than 1 per track). The more tracks I get the more Neve preamps I'll need, which would get pretty damn expensive after a while!
Click to expand...

No probs man, just make sure you nail one asap :banana:
 
Re: Building a New PC!

I hate to offer advice on this since I have no recording gear yet! Needless to say that means I'm not in any position to evaluate any of the cards I would think of using. So I'll ask a question instead.

What do you guys think of the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy stuff? Thats really the best card that I'm aware of with my limited knowledge. How do others stack up against it?
 
Re: Building a New PC!

Osensei said:
I hate to offer advice on this since I have no recording gear yet! Needless to say that means I'm not in any position to evaluate any of the cards I would think of using. So I'll ask a question instead.

What do you guys think of the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy stuff? Thats really the best card that I'm aware of with my limited knowledge. How do others stack up against it?
Click to expand...

Meh, at best. Soundblaster/Audigy/X-Fi pretty much rule the roost when it comes to gaming, especially surround, but for music playback, and even more so recording, they're nothing great (and that's being pretty kind).

As for what is good, I'm not knowledgeable enough to offer advice there, so I'll let the other forumites give opinions. But if you want to record seriously at all, stay away from Creative. To be fair, I have heard some decent stuff done on them, but if you have a choice, you really should find something else.
 
Last edited:
Re: Building a New PC!

+1, stay away from Creative... it's really just consumer audio stuff, nowhere near recording grade.
 
Re: Building a New PC!

The Audiophile 192 or the Echo are both good choices. Now if your primary thought concerning this PC is home recording, here's some recommendations. First, as far as recording goes, you don't need a monster powerful CPU. You can go cheap with an Intel Celeron or AMD equiv. About a Gig of Ram, (and this is a big one). One hard drive that primarily holds your Operating system and anything else that isn't that important and one hard drive (as big as you can get) to hold your DAW software. And a 128 MB video card will do fine. That my friend is a decent recording PC that you'll never outgrow unless your goal is a major recording studio.

As far as DAW software. So many are "Pro Tools" (or as I call it, "Slow Tools") fans. If you're new to it, I recommend Steinberg Cubase SX3 if you're looking for a comprehensive program with ease of use. If you don't mind taking a bit of time to learn it though, check out Saw Studio. Even the Basic version of it will blow your mind. Download the Demo version of it just to check it out.

As far as speakers go, don't go overboard. The average music listener doesn't listen to his/her music in 5.1 surround sound. A simple 3 way speaker system is fine.

Anyway, good luck man. Cheers.

Karl
 
Last edited:
Re: Building a New PC!

Hey, I have just finished building my own pc and I was looking for a soundcard.

I hear this "stay away from Creative" a lot, but I haven't heard much evidence to back it up.

For example, what's wrong with the Creative Xi Fi Pro soundcard for recording?

The reason why I ask is because Creative has some cool features for entertainment and I don't want to buy 2 soundcards (one for recording, one for fun).

Please note that Creative has a cool semi-pro line of products:

http://www.emu.com/


M.
 
Re: Building a New PC!

I've used a creative card before with recording. My particular headaches with it concerned latency issues up the azz. Useing programs like Native Intruments for example was particularly trying and I just couldn't do it. I found that I could still make quality recordings but I would have to record useing all outside intruments (drum machine, guitar, bass, keyboards). But if I wanted to use a program like Absynth or FM7 for example with a midi controller, it was useless. I haven't tried the new X-Fi but i'm not convinced I wouldn't have the same problem.

I always recommend that people who do home recording have a SEPARATE computer for it that is built especially for recording. Use a separate one for surfing porn, messaging and playing World Of Warcraft. LOL

Karl
 
Re: Building a New PC!

Creative Soundblaster cards are made for gaming . . . The big problem with using them is not the sample rate conversion (which is pretty good) but the crappy on board preamps . . . they're also very limited (input wise) if you're trying to say mic a whole drumset. Creative bought another line of audio cards called E-MU which they market for people who are doing semi-pro recording. I like my M-Audio Delta 1010 for recording.
 
Re: Building a New PC!

Porn sprayz in Counter-Strike Source gives U both porn and gaming in 1 fell swoop! LOL! WOOT!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Erlend_G
Recording on PC, or (Tascam) hardware recorder?
Replies
11
Views
549
Erlend_G
Erlend_G
S
New practice amp day! (Yamaha THR10)
Replies
8
Views
2K
stupendous silly
S
Nostalgic Distortion
N.G.D. Sold My P-90 Special & Got Something A Lil Different.....
Replies
14
Views
2K
Nostalgic Distortion
Nostalgic Distortion
BriGuy1968
NGS (New Gear Season)
Replies
8
Views
2K
BriGuy1968
BriGuy1968
El Dunco
What goes into producing a song?
Replies
7
Views
2K
El Dunco
El Dunco
Back
Top