What soundcard to buy?

by LavOd • 11 Jul 2011, 15:00 • Journals
When using fl studio my sound (onboard) starts to crack when I fill up more than 3 tracks, I assume it's because onboard sound is rather shit.

What do I have to look for when buying a soundcard?

Should be able to record music with it from my guitar and fiddle around with flstudo.
Comments
13
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fanatic 11 Jul 2011, 16:01
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 7.1, cheap & good
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AlienWare 11 Jul 2011, 16:02
SoundBlaster HD is way better
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RazZaH 11 Jul 2011, 16:04
you better register on a more professional "Music-"forum and ask there...

takes like 10 minutes and you get a muuuch better answer than here i suppose.
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unblind 11 Jul 2011, 16:07
more recent onboard cards are fine actually

what do you mean by crack up?

check your cpu /ram usages before buying a new sound card :p
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squalli 11 Jul 2011, 16:18
"Should be able to record music with it from my guitar and fiddle around with flstudo. "

should get soundcard for that still :p
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unblind 11 Jul 2011, 16:57
better off getting a proper i/o than using line in on a soundcard
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jnz 11 Jul 2011, 16:34
Don't get a gamer/PC soundcard like creative / Audigy / X-FI etc etc get a real fidelity one. Especially since a lot of these noob cards are PCI and not mobile, and can't even play through headphones and speakers at the same time which is essential for DJing! (And you should have a professional (preferably balanced) XLR mic input if you want to record directly to pc).

best budget sound card: TASCAM 122 MkII

http://tascam.com/product/us-122mkii/

Pros: Best sound for price, and excellent latency even on motherboards that don't deliver above normal USB latency (i.e it will handle many tracks without crackle etc)

Cons: No optical out, nobs feel a little cheap

Overall I'd say its the best budget one, there are many for a bit more (or a lot more :p) that are good though. If you see anything reply here and I will tell you if its good.

Budget/Mid range makes: Native Instruments(mid), M-Audio(mid), Tascam(budget), ... ?
Pro: Apogee, Moto, EMU, DCS , Wadia (you need a morgage for some of these)

recommend you check ebay you can find them half the price and its the kind of thing that doesnt matter so much if its 2nd hand

-----

this is mine (Audio Kontrol 1 by Native Instruments), note: you need better usb latency than tascam although new driver fixes this mostly:
image: audio_kontrol_mainjpg[
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im a tree 11 Jul 2011, 19:05
external soundcard with midi ports would be the best idea imo

roland ua25 sometimes go pretty cheap on ebay (like £50-£60) and are pretty amazing or you could get a creative e-mu 0202 for <£30 as a bit more of a budget option

you'll want to use ASIO drivers with whatever card you end up getting, those external ones will typically give better recording quality than pci cards and have the upside of being portable and still produce nice audio quality for listening to music/gaming too (onboard audio quality is dogshit)

eg: something like

image: rolandUA25EX
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ant1y 11 Jul 2011, 21:17
I have Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series SICK BRO.
image: platinumfatal1tychampionseries
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schNee 11 Jul 2011, 21:18
creative and happy :)
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v1ech 11 Jul 2011, 21:53
best choice:
Saffire 6 USB

its a solid card for around 160€, perfect sound, never starts cracking..
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MerlinatoR 11 Jul 2011, 23:42
I bought the Asus Xonar DX but Ive heard good things also about the DS version which is about 60% of the price (€34)

not had any problems so far, easy to setup install etc
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