Building a New PC...

Bainzy · Post by **Bainzy** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 7:56 am

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!

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 N72 preamp (currently saving up for that right now).

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 11:47 am

I really like my E-MU 1212M. It will do everything you want and is within your price range. One good thing about it is that you can also use it as a regular sound card. One thing that does suck about it is that you have to use a decent set of powered monitors to hear anything. I have a pair of KRK RP6 Rockit monitors that I absolutely love. They set me back about $300 for the pair in USD.

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 11:55 am

Bainzy check out http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family

under firewire( mobile) and pci cards as well for the money.

Bainzy · Post by **Bainzy** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:56 pm

How about something like this:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/A ... -main.html

any good? (that's definately in my price range)

apart from a soundcard and external preamp, is there any other hardware I'd need to get a professional sound?

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:07 pm

Bainzy wrote:How about something like this:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/A ... -main.html

any good? (that's definately in my price range)

apart from a soundcard and external preamp, is there any other hardware I'd need to get a professional sound?

killer if the ins and outs are what ya need.

Bainzy · Post by **Bainzy** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:08 pm

cool - so will it have a built in A/D converter then?

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:11 pm

thats what it is. ad/da converter card = sound in and out of your comp.

Bainzy · Post by **Bainzy** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:13 pm

I see...

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:17 pm

kewlness

Bainzy · Post by **Bainzy** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:24 pm

So then if I get this sound card, and a Neve mic preamp, what will the remaining limiting factors be that stop me getting a professional sound?

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:27 pm

Bainzy wrote:So then if I get this sound card, and a Neve mic preamp, what will the remaining limiting factors be that stop me getting a professional sound?

from there unless im not quite awake yet - is the amount of ins and outs and the actual ad/da conversion - the more you pay the better the ad/da converters u get.

Bainzy · Post by **Bainzy** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:28 pm

gotcha. I was just wondering why you guys talk a lot about A/D converters on here, now I know why.

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:35 pm

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 6:20 pm

Bainzy wrote:So then if I get this sound card, and a Neve mic preamp, what will the remaining limiting factors be that stop me getting a professional sound?

Ones and zeros. Also as Mark said get the highest converter value that you can afford. The higher the value the more times the signal is sampled per cycle, means the closer you are to true analog sound.