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newbie · Posted - Tue Jan 01, 2002 3:21 pm

I am looking to put together a very basic studio. The mixer i will be using is a Mackie CR-1604, and I am planning on buying an Athlon 1.4 ghz system for dedicated audio recording. The mixer has capabilities to have two submixes out, and i would like to utilize this to be able to split down the guitar bass and drums to tracks for hopefully better mixing quality ( vocals are going to be dubbed on another track). I plan on using Cool Edit Pro to do this, and was thinking of buying a Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum to go with the computer because it seemed that it would allow me easy access and the ability to have two seperate tracks recoring simultaneously. I have next to non-existent understanding of bitrates etc, and when i saw the many negative feedbacks on the Audigy i realized that i need some advice. I basically just need the ability to have simultaneous two track recording with 1/8 inch stereo inputs for each track, and i am on a low budget ( I could probably handle up to $300 for the sound card if neccessary). Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

If you are going to get a reasonably well-specfied computer together and use it just as a DAW, then it's hardly worth spoiling it with an Audigy, as you have obviously realised! There are actually several soundcards within your price range that will do a much more competent job.

A few examples would include M-audio's Audiophile 2496, Terratec's EWX 24/96, several offerings by Midiman, the basic Hoontech card, an Echo Mia... and probably several more that others will add to the list. Any of these will serve you better than Creative's pile of poo!

Are you going to try and record instruments one at a time, or played together? Normally, you wouldn't use submixes quite like this if you were recording one instrument at a time, because you wouldn't need to. What would be more important would be to have a good monitoring system set up so that you could hear previously recorded tracks from the PC whilst adding a new one.

One of the things that it's quite easy to overlook when setting up like this is a halfway-decent pair of speakers, NOT computer monitor speakers! Even using your Hifi system will be better than this.

But tell us a bit more about what you've got, or can get, and how you are going to configure the computer, and I'm sure that we can answer most of your questions between us!

Steve

Jim Smitherman · Posted - Tue Jan 01, 2002 8:43 pm

Aside from others problems, I believe the Audigy won't do two stereo inputs at once anyway.

As Steve said, for 300 bucks you really can do a lot better than the audigy. If you just HAVE to have two stereo ins simultaneously, then the Echo Mia won't do that (unless you can use the digital as well as the analog in, then you can do two stereo ins with the Mia). This is unfortunate, for you, since you can get the Mia for circa 200 bucks, and you'd be amazed at the things you can do with it and a good mixer, and the high quality of the sound.

as an aside, I bought a mia about a month ago, and originally while I was researching my upgrade (from an sblive) I was thinking I just HAD to have at least two simultaneous ins, but that has turned out to be not the case, after realizing the kind of flexibility I had between the mixer and the card itself. which reminds me, you didn't mention the OS you plan to run.

Perhaps consider doing multitracking and monitoring rather than simultaneous? Are these simultaneous tracks you want to lay down to be done by 'live' (that is, out loud) players? Then you will need some very good acoustic baffling, or putting them into different rooms, or something. Anyway, that's a consideration. You mention guitar, bass and drums. The bass can go into the mixer, so the best advice around here I've heard says anyway, but the drums can't (unless they're midi trigger drums) and it's best to mic the guitar (again, from reading many comments on it). So, there are your two live players there. Already you need isolation booths for them. We're quickly getting away from a basic studio design here.

Musically, I realize it's rather tough to lay down a single track without interaction. There are various strategies for dealing with that, though.

Whatever sound card you go with, check the compatibility issues. Check especially the chip set. Echo has a good discussion of the athlon and the chip sets that will work with their products (I'm fairly big on Echo, as you can tell). their site is

http://www.echoaudio.com/

Jim

newbie · Posted - Tue Jan 01, 2002 9:07 pm

Thanks for the info.
To explain a little better, I was planning on using one room, with a isolation box for the guitar ( something my guitarist told me he is planning to build), while micing drums and using a line out from a bass amp (or possibly a direct box), i figured this would give me relative good seperation. But on the subject of acoustic baffling, i could use some input. I have looked into egg cartons as at least a simple solution ( we're talking low budget, lol) as sound insulation looks like it would cost me more than the cost of my mixer.

I was hoping to record all this at once, and maybe get it through dual inputs (possibly dual sound cards?), so that i could get, say, drums and bass on track one and guitar alone on track two. I'm pretty sketchy on how i should go about this, but when i was looking at the audigy it seemed like it would serve like two seperate cards so that i could select a different input for tracks one and two (from your opinions I've already given up on that card, just explaining what I'm going for). The only thing after that would possibly be layering in vox and guitar solos etc. Are dual sound cards a reasonable possiblity?

I think a have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to use speakers for playback and monitoring ( home stereo and good headphones until i can afford some good stuidio monitors). I plan on using windows 2000 for my operating system (XP seems too complicated and with Linux i'm worried about compatability and my lack of experience with it).

Jim Smitherman · Posted - Tue Jan 01, 2002 10:25 pm

Two soundcards are a definite possiblity, it's my plan to add another Mia to my setup, as soon as money permits, and synch them through their common spdif connections.

It's not so much for simultaneous recording though, for me, as it is that I do a lot of multitracking.

You may really need to look at a 4x in card, and a beakout box, and all that. I don't know if that sort of setup can be had for 300, though. I would think you'd be happier with drums and bass on separate tracks.

With win2k, be sure there are good drivers. I've had fine experience with 2k and the Mia. I think milage has varied for people, though, as usual, for various of these cards. Be aware that many applications aren't yet ready to do 24 bit recording under 2k (this includes the current version cep and cool2k), even if the card and driver for the card support it . . . . I would expect CEP 2 will, but that's just an assumption.

Jim

Edited by - Jim Smitherman on 01/01/2002 10:30:10 PM

newbie · Posted - Wed Jan 02, 2002 3:13 pm

Okay, after checking out Echo's page I'm pretty well hooked on buying one of their cards. After looling at prices and figuring where to cut corners, I'm thinking I'll go ahead and possibly spring for the Gina24, save myself from upgrading later. So here's where the questions roll in. 1) You mentioned that CEP won't handle 24 bit recording with Win 2k. Echo's site promises that the card comes bundled with drivers for 2k, so that part wouldn't be an issue. Would i be wasting money on this setup, or would a simple substitution of Win ME or some other version fix the problem and allow me to utilize the 24 bit quality of the card with CEP. Everything seems to fit as far as compatability with the card and the chipset that I'm looking at, so is this issue solvable by software? Also, that's the first i've heard of CEP 2, is there a date attached to that?
Okay just to sum it all up for a quick runover, here's what I need to know if it would work:
1)Athlon XP processor
2)CEP as recording app
3) Echo Gina as card (using dual inputs)
4) Mackie CR1604 mixer, using alt 3/4 and main output
5) Windows OS (whichever version will give me the quality to match the card).

thanx

Jim Smitherman · Posted - Wed Jan 02, 2002 3:26 pm

You woudn't be wasting money on the setup. The inablitity of cep to do 24 bit currently is fixable in software, but it has to be cep that's fixed (along with a number of other audio applications). There has been no date set for the release of cep2, nor have the features been discussed, at least, not definitively. It's only my assumption that it will support xp and 2k.

I _think_ Me will work with cep as it is in 24 bit. Whether you want to run Me is the question.

Probably rather than that, a dual boot setup with 98se would work better. I don't know. I'm hanging in with 2k until everything is fixed. I do use ntracks for a lot of recording, lately, though it will save in 32 bit float, and that will read into cool, and can work in that bit depth, even though it won't play back but at 16 bit . . . you can still have the advantages of higher resolution for transforms, and the ease and capabilities of coolwhichever to edit. It's a bit of a pain to move from app to app, but for me, the stability of 2k makes it worthwhile.

Jim