My weakest link?

Your Soundblaster Live IS the weak link.

You ideally need something with jack inputs/outputs.

You could easily get something far superior to the SB for less than £50 on ebay.

Soundblaser ... weakest link!

Yes, buy a set of good monitors and some quality headphones. They will help you a great deal when mixing. There's a lot of discussion regarding soundcards. Check out this: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=864522

Monitors first (because you didn't mention any), and a better soundcard second. I thought my SB Live was okay, until I replaced it with a M-Audio 2496. Huge difference!

Or if Santa has deep pockets, I'm loving Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2, if you're recording guitar-based stuff...

Thanks all for the feedback, I’m a Newbie/Novice and this is exactly what I was looking for.

Sorry, that I didn’t mention that I have Infinity Reference 1 monitor speakers and
Sony MDR-600 headphones.

OffanAirplane, Thanks for the info regarding cables, I didn’t know that and I won’t be so concerned about thinking I need beefy cables and inputs.

Beatrack wrote:

Actually...your request seems a tad mystifying.

You don't mention any particular displeasure with your setup.

If it sounds good, then keep using it.

Good point. I was simple trying to identify weak links on the theory that there might be something in my chain that I could easily change and be happy with the results. My knowledge and ears probably aren’t sophisticated enough for me to articulate any particular displeasure.

Here’s an analogy; I wasn’t displeased with the sound of my guitar but I recently put new strings on it and the change in the sound was dramatic to me. Can’t describe it too well, I’ll just call it more sparkle. I didn’t know what I was missing.

I’m going to consider a soundcard 1st and then a condenser mic. I thought I had bought a decent soundcard (SB Live) when I bought my computer a couple years ago. After this thread I googled it and was surprised to see it only costs about $25, lol. Perhaps my weakest leak, definitely my least expensive link (and for $25 dollars it’s amazing though jeez some people pay that for a glass of wine).

Slugbaby, I think I’ll get the M-Audio 2496, I see it only costs $99 and your computer/software setup is similar to mine which gives me confidence that it should work for me.

Thanks again to everyone,

ORIGINAL: xackley

I'm not sure what the Maudio unit offers, but the Emu line will probably sound better.
The emu 1212m can be had for $150-

I'll second that....good point.

.....but recording a guitar with a '57 still isn't going to see a dramatic difference.

Slugbaby, I think I’ll get the M-Audio 2496, I see it only costs $99 and your computer/software setup is similar to mine which gives me confidence that it should work for me.

And don't forget the Absolut. It's an integral part of any project!

Thats good to know. I'm on the semi hunt for an improved interface from the 24/96.

I'm gonna have to take a better look.

How has the driver stability been? My 24/96 has never had so much as a hiccup.

I have a follow up question.

When I'm playing midi tracks they sound much better when I direct the tracks to my ensoniq TS-12 as opposed to the SB live soundcard.

This discussion has been on the audio recording quality, what about the midi and the effects of upgrading to the Emu or the Eaudio, will there be an improvement in the quality of those sounds also?

Thanks

Thanks for the education xackley, I completely misunderstood where the midi sounds where generated from as I thought it came from my soundcard.

I'm still confused as it's hard for me to understand how software alone could generate the sound waves. I'm having a hard time getting my mind to get away from thinking that the software is instructing the hardware to create the sounds. I'll just go with accepting what you wrote.

I'm using Cakewalk Home Studio XL, when I select an output for a midi track I either select "soundfont device" or "Out A USB Midisport 2x2" (which is attached to the ensoniq keyboard). There is a screen that gives me instrument choices that looks like this:

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/6896/instrumentsmh3.jpg

I'm using the default but am wondering if I should select one of the others here to get different sound synths/samplers.

There is another method where you select a sound synth in an audio track and then direct a midi tracks output to the audio track, I learned this in tutorial 8. Here are the soft synths that displayed:

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8946/softsynthiv3.jpg

The sound was good from the VSC DXi soft synth. Is using soft synths like this the general practice?

I know I'm asking a lot and hijacking my own thread.

Your help is really appreciated.

ORIGINAL: fep
Soundcard - Soundblaster Live 24

get a real recording card. echo mia midi, maudio audiophile 192...