Soundcards ?

erm...i've got a terratec dmx6fire soundcard in my pooter...dunno if its any good.....apparently its ok.

the reason i mention this is that i've just started making choons (this week!!) ( i had the pooter built by a mate 18 months ago with this in it) but would like to know if there's anything i should know about these (like are they really shit??) or bugs etc.......

cheers
B
 
yeah am awaiting a list ov bad fings (hopefully it won't be too big). mind you its what i've got at the mo and thats how it'll be for a while so i won't change much.

have to say that it was supposded to be a bitch to install but didn't have any probs really, the only problems i've had have come about through problems with the windows 2000 os.

that aside....this morning i've been messing with cubase and have already become addicted.......i forsee a fiurther lessening of the hours that i spend outdoors
 
Biggins2012 said:
erm...i've got a terratec dmx6fire soundcard in my pooter...dunno if its any good.....apparently its ok.

the reason i mention this is that i've just started making choons (this week!!) ( i had the pooter built by a mate 18 months ago with this in it) but would like to know if there's anything i should know about these (like are they really shit??) or bugs etc.......

cheers
B
Click to expand...

I have one too. They can be a bit tricky to silence (earthing problems with the drivebay thingy), but apart from that they're ace. You may like to disconnect the internal audio cable from your CD-ROM drive to the PCI card, 'cos that seemed to cause me (and others) a load of unwanted noise too.

And the really neat thing is they can take a DB50XG wavetable card, which is a bit old now, but still very useful.
 
Biggins2012 said:
yeah i read that in the review that tweaka sent the link to....i'm sure the meaning of that will become clear at some point

*feels a bit dense*
Click to expand...

Well, see.... the very first Creative Labs Soundblaster 16 (as in 16-bit) was launched back in '92. (And I still have mine!) It had a special connector thingummy on it, intended for their Waveblaster add-on card. Up 'til then, Soundblasters could only playback 8-bit samples, and the only onboard synth capability for doing your own tunes, was via a feeble FM chip. And that was bobbins.

The Waveblaster gave you a proper wavetable synth with proper, but short, samples of proper instruments, so you could get more realistic sounds out of it. But in about '95, Yamaha launched their own version, the DB50XG, which cost next to nothing, sounded absolutely stunning in its day, and is far from obsolete now that you can plug it into something more modern like the DMX6FIRE.

You certainly wouldn't throw away all your soft synths for it, but it is worth having if you can find a cheap one. Mine's definitely not for sale.
 
Hmm... I feel very important issues have been left unaddressed here!

Something that audiophiles have been aware of for a long time now is that not all speakers suit all amps. I reckon the same could be said for soundcards and monitors. Anyone know of any particularly accurate combinations???

And as none of us have ever really heard our music without monitor/card colouring, what exactly does accurate entail, and how do we know what it is? Personally, I don't trust EQ curves, as invariably, they are not of the speakers sat in front of me, but hand made prototypes which represent the ideal of the situation.
 
Well, if you were *really* interested in finding out, you'd need a mic with a flat response hooked straight into the soundcard in and run white noise through your speakers (At least that's how I think Plank sets his systems up), record it, then run the recording you just made through spectrum analysis.

Usually with pro audio monitors in the manual you get an EQ curve showing the response through it, which you have to trust to be accurate. Compare it to the signal you've just recorded and the difference will give you the amp colouring. Of course with powered monitors that's less of a problem.

What made the NS10s as useful as they were (despite sounding pretty awful subjectively) was that they had a slight emphasis on the complete mid-range (including low and hi mid), which is usually the most gnarly area to mix, while still giving you enough low and top end defninition to work with.

Personally I'm contemplating getting a set of MSP5's when I get my act together financially.

J.
 
there is no such thing as a mike with a flat response :) even if there was, does the soundcard in have flat response?

The point i'm making is that quality of sound in soundcards is somewhat subjective.

For example, if you were to take a monitor that is known to be innacurate by -1.5db at say 2.2Khz, and another that is known to be innacurate by -1.5db at 22Khz, then both are equally inaccurate, but most people will be able to say that one sounds clearer. I'm aware of the perception of intensity problem, ie Fletcher Munson curves, but this varies from person to person. what sounds flat to one person may sound coloured to another, just as some people can hear cat deterent motion tracker things, and other people can't.
 
Speakafreaka said:
there is no such thing as a mike with a flat response even if there was, does the soundcard in have flat response?
Click to expand...

I suppose I should have qualified it with '-ish' ;)

All I meant was don't use an SM57/8, which are both engineered with very pronounced EQ curves (the in-house engineer at the Rex was using an SM58, which was why there was f**k all mid-range definition for so many nights there)... At the end of the day though, we're all in search of a happy medium - the best compromise possible rather than perfection. :)

J.
 
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