Best USB souncar for Sonar proucer x2 plz?

There are many. The Roland Capture series, I use the Octa-Capture, are very good and have very low latency. There are RME interfaces as well with just as good if not better performance. It all depends on what you want to spend.

If you've got firewire with your laptop there are other alternatives (check my footer), plus it can be more portable with different OS's. I'm not a big fan of USB for an external audio interface as there are too many USB standards to get in the way, and not all of them are implemented correctly by PC manufacturers. With firewire you're more than likely to have a more dedicated interface for the card (one device and one interface)... with USB you're plugging everything and the kitchen sink into it.

People will be posting next disagreeing with me, but that is my opinion.

Cheers

Glyn - I just watched a video clip with some Roger Dean comments on the artwork you have posted as your profile pic.

Good stuff.

I would suggest doing some compatibility homework,should you choose to consider a Firewire interface, particularly using a laptop.

Firewire works great, and many have good Win 7 drivers, BUT there are potential hardware issues with SOME (not all) chip sets used for the Firewire on motherboards.  Because of the fact that this posted is going to use a laptop, I recommend either being careful to check the chip set compatibility FIRST (Saffire has a downloadable chip set compatibility checker) OR shop for a USB interface.

I have never had any issues with any USB-connected interface, EXCEPT where I accidentally used a USB 3.0 port and they had told me not to.

At the same time, I have nothing against using Firewire - just be careful as I indicated, due to potential chip set problems on the motherboard and the interface.

Bob Bone

I am going to Try a Line 6 UX2 since I have one here.  Has anyone used one before?  I just need some quarter to eighth adapters.  Or get a mixing board to use the other monitors and cabinets in here.   Thanks.  I havent done this sequencing stuff on PC since voyetra came out so I do appreciate any advise, thanks again.

Thanks WDI.  Mine is set to WDM/KS by default,  Triangular as well.  For the hell of it i tried rectangular and no luck.  Its weird because everything else works fine with sound, i just fired up something called Notation Composer dowloaded earlier that transcribes midi to sheet music and played the sound perfect.  I have read other posts where onboard just doesnt work but i believe its some thing i am missing.  I just tried something and get list of what is possible.  example of a line being "48000 Hz Chanels 1/2 Bits 16,24 [4 bytes] 32--OK",  i am wondering if that 32 means 32 bit os?  this is win 7 64.  I doubt it and its reffering to sound but.....   I havent used sound cards for years and yea onboard should work.  Im missing something.  thanks again.  Still no sound and first thing i did was check out Cakewalks faq but their solution is get a sound card they support.  

Yea I agree, im wonering if they work with the most common being Dells or other prepackaged and since the Motherboard manufactures got crazy exotic they couldnt keep up?  who knows.  I have been doing the import and play midi files that every other cheap program plays fine on same system.  I try it after to make sure its real .mid.  Thanks much for youre info.  I will try it tommorrow and reinstall drivers, if not the ux2 run through and amp just to see if it will work.  Thanks again

Actually its a midi file downloaded from a sheet music site, Notation.com has a link to it.  For what they charge they should handle what ever range is possible haha.   I tried a few midi files that the other programs play fine, even windows media.  Probably a driver.  Could even be a driver/firmware that I downloaded for motherboard since purchase and Cakewalk didnt get around to or who knows if they are on the list of mb manufacturers like nvidea, etc.  to edit their code if needed.  I have upated the mb on this thing every time there is update.  Sonar picks up the usb camera it doesn't work with and splashes message, so  maybe they didnt get caught up with this mb's ver.  or I better check mine haha.  Maybe I lagged on firmware update.   Again thanks.  Ill try this ux2.  Ill try different system too.

Shreddi


Apparently Sonar doesnt work with onboard sound.  For a laptop usb is the answer it seems.  Then I can use on other systems as well.  Any suggestions?  The onboard sound for playback now a days is as good as a lot of add ons so I dont understand why Sonar doesnt support.  Thanks very much.

Actually Sonar will of course work with an onboard card.. but why would you?... No onboard sound card is remotely capable of matching a quality external usb soundcard.. you can read the specs and think they are equivalent..but the results will be night as day... :)
 
For an external usb sound module you should state your budget first and foremost.. but expect $15o'ish as a ggod baseline for a 2in 2out external usb2.0 with decent pre-amps, xlr input jacks and balanced 1/4 outputs

Mystic38

Shreddi


Apparently Sonar doesnt work with onboard sound.  For a laptop usb is the answer it seems.  Then I can use on other systems as well.  Any suggestions?  The onboard sound for playback now a days is as good as a lot of add ons so I dont understand why Sonar doesnt support.  Thanks very much.

Actually Sonar will of course work with an onboard card.. but why would you?... No onboard sound card is remotely capable of matching a quality external usb soundcard.. you can read the specs and think they are equivalent..but the results will be night as day... :)

If you are just composing using the mouse with soft synths and using loops an onboard sound card should be fine. Your sound card will have no bearing on the sound of the mix down. 

Mystic38

your sound card has every bearing on what you hear when you are mixing. 

I think you know what I mean. It doesn't matter if you have an Apogee or Realtek, it has no bearing on what Sonar does when exporting the audio. 

Seems like everyone is like dude just get a real sound card. The problems he is describing may have nothing to do with the sound card and that Shreddi may be perfectly happy with the onboard sound card. Shreddi should try and get things working before running out and buying a sound card. 


To me it sounds like Shreddi might no be inserting a synth but just pasting midi to a midi track.