Can I use an older (2004) sound card w/X1 Studio?

I sincerely hope I'm in the proper forum for my topic and questions. I've already contacted Cakewalk DAW Labs with two questions, one of which they answered and the other found them guiding me here.

My question is primarily about an older audio card. But to give you an idea of where I'm coming from my equipment list is as follows:

This weekend I'm ordering hardware for the DAW I'm building:

• Windows XP Pro (32-bit)

• AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor

• ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 AMD Motherboard

• CORSAIR XMS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 1600)

• ASUS EN210 SILENT/DI/512MD2(LP) GeForce 210 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

• 2ea 80GB Maxtor/Diamond, 7200 RPM hard drives (I already have these as well as a solid case to cram everything into).

• 450w - 500w power supply. Still shopping for this. Could use input on good brand names. I'd hate to go cheap or buy a piece of junk for this all important unit.

I have contacted Cakewalk DAW labs and their answer to the compatibility of these hardware components being compatible with SONAR X1 Studio is this:

"The system specs you have listed here are quite good and should run SONAR without any significant issue. Please keep in mind that some setup is always required for recording software to run optimally."

My most important question I asked them was about my sound card that I want to use. It is a TerraTec EWS88MT that was purchased in 2004. It has a breakout box with 8 inputs and MIDI I/O among others I'll likely never use. The lastest XP driver I could get for it was made in 2006. I had this in a DAW running under Win98SE and a Pentium III back then.

After a fatal crash of that system it's time to upgrade. My concern is the compatibility of that sound card with SONAR X1 Studio and my other new hardware. When I asked the Cakewalk DAW Labs their answer was:

"We do not know if this card will work well with SONAR X1 as it has not been tested. It should in theory but, since it is an older card there may be compatibility issues with newer computer hardware.

We would recommend you to post a question in our user forums and see if anyone else is using this specific hardware successfully: http://forum.cakewalk.com"

...So that is what I'm doing now.

Does anyone have any experience with this particular audio card or qualified opinions on whether or not it would be compatible with X1 and/or the hardware line-up I've described above?

I'm not inclined to buy a one or two input interface if I don't have to spend that money. This card was the bomb when it came out at around $269 if I remember correctly, (I didn't make that purchase). So it's not a piece of junk. However, if it won't work with my new build it may as well be.

I'd appreciate any comments especially on that audio card but also on any of the components I've mentioned. As I said, I'm pulling the trigger on all of it including X1 this weekend after an exhausting search for several weeks on good components within my price budget.

It's been a learning experience to say the least!

Thanks in advance for any knowledgeable input. I don't have a lot of money for this but have a great need to get back into recording.

Beagle

I would not trust it to work well since the drivers you have for it are 5 years old.

He'll be running Windows XP though, so 2006 drivers should be ok.

Kev999

Beagle

I would not trust it to work well since the drivers you have for it are 5 years old.

He'll be running Windows XP though, so 2006 drivers should be ok.

yes, it should be OK for XP.
 
try it and see if it works - you're not losing anything by doing that!  if it doesn't work then look at other soundcards. 

I have no doubt that the drivers with the sound card will work fine with XP, but that's not the entire story here. The big question is, how good are the drivers for this card? WDM will likely work fine, but is the ASIO support any good?

I do have to question why you would be building a "new" XP 32 bit machine these days. Seems like you are starting with a machine that already has an End Of Life stamp printed on it. Don't take that the wrong way - I still use XP myself and it works great, but the next system I build (which should be this year) will most certainly be Windows 7, 64 bit! The reason is simple - "it has a future"

Just my 2 cents.

codamedia


I have no doubt that the drivers with the sound card will work fine with XP, but that's not the entire story here. The big question is, how good are the drivers for this card? WDM will likely work fine, but is the ASIO support any good?

The following is what the audio card manual says about ASIO-drivers:

"The ASIO-drivers of the AudioSystem EWS88, which implement Steinberg's ASIO 2.0 are capable of achieving comparatively low latency. Cubase VST has an average latency of 7-20ms. Fast and clean systems are even capable of 3ms with a 96kHz sampling-rate!"

Within the card's Control Panel is the ability to adjust the Sample/Buffer size to achieve a low latency using ASIO. As you change the buffer size it displays the latency in ms that you should expect.

The Control Panel in general allows setting routing options.


I do have to question why you would be building a "new" XP 32 bit machine these days. Seems like you are starting with a machine that already has an End Of Life stamp printed on it. Don't take that the wrong way - I still use XP myself and it works great, but the next system I build (which should be this year) will most certainly be Windows 7, 64 bit! The reason is simple - "it has a future"

Good question. One I struggled with myself. The main reason is money. On my budget it was what I could afford. A dear friend sold me a new copy of XP Pro which he bought a couple of years ago intending to use it and then never did. It's still sealed. So the OS cost me $40. Can't beat that with a stick.

In addition, the AMD Athlon Quad Core at 3.0 GHz is $99.99 and I believe is plenty enough CPU to put me in the stratosphere compared to what I was using. It was a Pentuim III < 1GHz with a 440BX MB and about 768MB of RAM (Maxed out!).

The ASUS MB I'm buying is also $99.99. Of course with these upgrades I"ll need a newer, bigger PSU, 4GB of RAM a better graphics card than was in the old DAW and, of course, a more modern version of audio recording software then the "Samplitude Project" that came free with the audio card back then. I'm also holding on for a new LCD monitor (or two used ones) but that will have to wait.

After careful consideration, reading this board along with boards representing other software and what ever else I could learn about it on the web I decided on SONAR X1 Studio.

For me that's a butt load of cash when it's all added up. I'm coming in at under $600 including the OS and a cheapo external DVD player so I can load X1 :D.

I'd love to be using Intel all the way and Win7 and a lot more RAM, but when added up I just can't afford it. My next planned step is Win7 and additional RAM.

But for now I'm going to be so dang excited with this setup that I may just quit my job, go to eating dog food, do nothing for a living and spend all my time in my friend's basement where this will be located. I might even be able to talk him into letting me sleep in the studio rent free. (I'll mow his yard, shovel snow and take out the garbage for the privilege of taking an occasional shower). :)

Thank all of you for your input. I'm feeling a bit better now in the trying of the audio card. At least it looks like I might not be as crazy as I was beginning to think of myself.

All this hardware should arrive by next weekend and my journey will begin. I've never worked with XP for audio recording. Anyone know how much tweaking one has to do to get a decent track count out of Win98SE? It took me forever. I'm hearing XP is a lot easier in that regard.

Hacker, that win/win sounds good to me. But if that card don't work I'm going to have to use some bill money to buy an interface. :) I won't be able to wait until I've saved enough.

Kev, great idea partitioning the drive in preparation. And you bring up another good point, I've read a lot about plug-ins that don't work well in Win7. At this point I've not used many at all so I guess I don't know what I'm missing. But once I do then I'll be disappointed it seems.

For me, for now, I'll be like a kid in a candy shop tasting everything X1 has to offer. It should keep me pretty busy for the foreseeable future.