Express Card Sound Card

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billguitarvin
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2014/12/07 22:58:20 (permalink)

Express Card Sound Card

Hi all and hope things are well. I have an older laptop - Fujitsu Lifebook A Series 3130 and am using Sonar 7. I can't play back or for that matter record anything without using my MOTU 828 MK 3 audio interface, when I open Sonar without the MOTU attached, Inget a window that pops up saying "There are no audio devices for your current driver..." My question is would a sound card that goes in the express card slot capable of converting the audio to 48 K/24 bit enable me to use my laptop for playback without needing the MOTU? I don't care so much about recording, but I find myself sometimes being away from home and having to kill some time, and it would be nice to do some editing or rough mixes without having to drag the MOTU along.

Also, is it possible using an express sound card would take a lot of CPU power to convert to 48/24? When I have the MOTU hooked up I occasionally get dropouts due to high CPU demand. I've posted a link below to what I'm thinking of getting. Thanks!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321605243879
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    johnnyV
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    Re: Express Card Sound Card 2014/12/07 23:31:17 (permalink)
    All the express slot sound cards made are no better than your on board card. Some might even be worse. Nobody makes a pro model with good drivers. I guess the market is just not there. Everything is USB and laptops no longer have the slot anyways.
     Unless there's something I missed. I too wanted this and fell short. So I just use my on board sound. It works fine. 
    There's a temptation to install asio4all, but be warned, don't do this if you don't want issues with your Motu. asio4all can solve the on board sound blues, but then it takes over your "good" asio drivers when you need them. 

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    billguitarvin
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    Re: Express Card Sound Card 2014/12/08 13:49:20 (permalink)
    Thanks so much for the quick reply! You saved me many hours of researching this. After fooling around in Sonar with the driver modes in the advanced tab of Audio Options, my sound card was able to work using the MME (32-bit) driver. I could get the midi tracks to play back over my laptop speakers but could not hear my audio tracks. The meters were moving on the audio tracks and master, but no sound. When I right clicked on the speaker icon in the start up tray, selected Playback Devices, I had two choices - Speakers or SPDIF Interface. It was on Speakers, so I switched it to SPDIF Interface. Now I could hear my audio tracks. So if I may, a couple of more questions...

    What am I actually doing when I'm selecting the Speakers vs selecting the SPDIF Interface? Also when I'm in the Playback Devices Pllayback tab and I click on Properties and click on the Advanced Tab, I notice the Speakers drop down list goes up to 192K/24 bit, but the SPDIF Interface maxes out at 192K/16 bit. I set the SPDIF Interface to 48K/16 bit, but does this present a conflict when I play back my Sonar Project in 48K/24 bit? It seems to sound fine. Thanks so much!
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