Confussing - Soundcards and audio interfaces - help

here..  http://www.m-audio.com/pr..._us/Audiophile192.html

>jon< 200.00 real good..

Loptec


Do you have a separate mic preamp?

If not, you may want to have an audio interface with built in mic preamps and then this may be something for you:
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_babyface.php

It costs a bit more, but RME's awesome.

nice option  whats that selling for now >?? 749.00
there are many options !!

The terms ARE mostly interchangeable, or rather a sound card is an audio interface, but usually people who use the term "interface" are speaking of an external unit, connected via USB, Firewire, or...uh...something else I guess.

Either way, upgrade from your motherboard sound. It's not built for pro-audio work and will cause you gobs of grief. If you're doing audio, get a dedicated piece of hardware (internal, external, whatevz) that can do some of the heavy lifting. You can get a reallllllly good cheap sound card for $150

ok guys thanks for getting me thinking.

The terms ARE mostly interchangeable, or rather a sound card is an audio interface, but usually people who use the term "interface" are speaking of an external unit, connected via USB, Firewire, or...uh...something else I guess.
ok then I don't need both (internal and external.

ok I think I understand now - if I go the external route the play back from the DAW will not go through my computer speakers but through the external interface and then to a set of connect speakers.

My i7 920 set up has an (one firewire ieee something) and usb - so the external interface be one or the other. Should I go firewire or save that one for video work? or just go usb?

Then record raw through the external interface and tweek and add effects etc in the DAW or get a mixer and plug the external interface into it and then plug the external interface into the computer (firewire or usb)

Not planning on using live gigs so I think I need-
1 midi in and out (mostly for inputing midi info)
1 plug in for Lead guitar
1 plug in for Rhythm Guitar
1 plug in for Bass Guitar
2 plug ins for vocals
and possibley 1 plug in for synthesizer keyboard to record the sound from the keyboard onto an audio track.
The symphony orchestra constructs would all be DAW and vst's with sound samples.
So how many inputs of the different types would I need?

LOL John kinda like that name too or Johnny:)

I would spend my money on a good audio interface at first.

It's better to buy one or a few things with good quality rather than many things (external mixer, preamp etc) and have to lower the specs. just to afford it.

If you want to have an audio interface that can grow with your demands you should get one with ADAT-interface (also called lightpipe) I don't know how much you know about this, but with this you get 8 digital ins and outs with each ADAT-connection on your audio card. Since this is all digital ins and outs it doesn't make the audio interface very expensive since it's much the AD/DA conversion that rises the cost of an audio card.

So.. If you buy a card that have...

1 midi in and out (mostly for inputing midi info) 
1 plug in for Lead guitar 
1 plug in for Rhythm Guitar 
1 plug in for Bass Guitar 
2 plug ins for vocals
+ at least 1 ADAT interface


..you can later buy an external AD/DA converter and get at least (depending on how many ADAT-interfaces your audio card have) 8 more analog ins and outs on your setup. One more good thing with this is that you later can upgrade your AD/DA conversion without having to buy a new audio interface. There are converters from around $250 up to like $6000 and more.. :)


When you say that you want to have 1 plug for lead guitar one for rhythm guitar and one for lead vocals, you mean that you want seperate inputs for all of them? In other words 5 inputs? Since in and outs always come in pairs on audio interfaces you're almost up in 8ins already.


My suggestion is that you buy an audio interface with 2in with mic preamps and at least one ADAT interface. Then you buy a cheep AD/DA converter ..like Behringer's ADA8000 Pro-8 Digital for around $250.. 


Then you'll end up with: 2 ins with mic preamps  for vocals (the audio card's own inputs) and 8 more ins for all the instruments. There are mic preamps on the ADA8000 as well. They don't sound very good though. However if you just use the line-ins on it, it's alright.


Good luck finding something that'll suit you! :)
It really is a jungle out there..

sgotr:

Look at the audio interfaces by M-Audio, Echo Audio, MOTU, or RME, and Cakewalk's new USB audio interfaces are starting to get good reports. Find one that has at least 6 inputs because if you want to connect all the things you said at the same time, it amounts to 6 mono inputs.

If you want to hear a recommendation, I recommend the MOTU UltraLite-MK3 Hybird. If you can afford $549, not including taxes, this will be a great first time audio interface. It can be connected via Firewire or USB, it has 10 audio inputs and 14 outputs and 1 MIDI In/Out, is also a mixer, can operate stand alone as a mixer, and the drivers are very good for stable performance at ultra low latency settings.

The features of the mixer and software CueMix FX are very good and the preamps and A/D D/A coverters on it are decent. I'm sure you will be glad you made the purchase!

This little audio interface and CuMix FX software is a very powerful combination. It will be all you need for a while.

When you connect it to your computer all sounds from anything you connect to it will get into the computer via the firewire or USB conection.

The best 1394 IEEE controllers (firewire ports), have a TI (Texas Instruments) chipset. Research your motherboard to see if the firewire port on it has a TI chipest. If not, and you have an open PCI slot on your mobo, you can buy a PCI firewire card with a TI chipset (like this one for example: http://www.guitarcenter.com/ADS-Tech-Pyro-PCI-64R2-703159-i1600344.gc ) But what's great is that you can use the USB connectivity of the UltraLite-MK3 Hybird, instead of connecting via firewire. :)

Read about the UltraLite-MK3 Hybird here: http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/ultralite-mk3

Maybe purchase it from here: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UltraLite3Hy 

Goodluck, whatever you decide to go with. The firewire info I gave is universal, so if you get a firewire unit, remember this info?

If I use an interface like this MOTU can I use midi cables and hook a keyboard controller up to it and have the controller work using the interface drivers

 
Yes.
 
If you connect a MIDI keyboard controller's out to the MIDI in on the UltraLite, it will be the UltraLite drivers that will be used.

Thanks guys for the help:)

BTW does anyone know what firewire chipset the Dell XLS 9000 has or how do I look to find out google but being helpful?

Under device manager it just says 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller.