your a better man than me, Sp3ctre - it messes me up to know end hearing the sound after I press the key. I have enough useful mistakes as it is.

later,

@

lol, well I try to find good things in anything bad i run into, or just how to deal with it. No i'm the same way I think, it bothers me and would mes up my rhythm if I hear the note after playing, so if I don't want it, I mute that instrument. Sometimes I can tolerate it by keeping it at low volume. That allows me to ignore it for the most part, but still be able to catch anything interesting. I've gotten more staisfying rhythms beause of that. Or simple, I'm playing a melody and I forgot the lag and...wait...that actually sounded better than what I had planned.

There's lots of wyas I get ideas. Accidentally messing up stuff, playing back at low very low volume....

ORIGINAL: Sp3ctre18

no accurate way.

Mainly i just know that at 120 bpm, if I hit the note on the beat, I'll hear it / it'll register in sonar a beat later (roughly).

I've actually used that to my advantage a few times, and it has caused audible mistakes and rythm irregularities that gave me ideas for a better part.

then my advice is to get the better soundcard. if you're measuring it by sound then the only way to solve that is to get a better soundcard with better drivers.

lol, ok....so now with my clarification there....you're saying what I want is afterall, just a regular good soiundcard?

X-fi Titanium at reg price is $100. Titanium Fatality Pro is $150. Could I go for the $100 one or would there be some significant audio benefit that I should care about in getting the Pro ?

i see there are topics on this though...so i'm reading through them. :)

I'm thinking Creative's X-Fi Titanium ($100) or Asus Xonar DX ($90).

Any of these are going to be better then my onboard audio. Most important thing is simply being more reliable and allowing my synths to work! good drivers, dependable, good ASIO drivers for sonar. And removing the latency between htting a key on the keyboard, and it registering and being recorded in Sonar. I don't think I see any important difference between the two. Since they're better than one i have, and my main reason is for my sif synths and sonar to work again, I'm not going for anything more expensive. This also gvies me some financial breathing room and I cold get some good speakers too. I'm just using stereo, speakers from a 6yeard old sony.

All really care about is the midi latency and something stable that works, cause I've got a game and a movie waiting for my music and i'll keep scoring for them.

some people seem to criticize Creative's drivers (unless i'm confused..I've been seeing and reading so much over these past 2 days), but others seem to say, no, they're rock solid, they're the big company and they have to be good with drivers. I've seen more negative stuff about drivers for the Xonar I think, probably because Asus is new to the sound card stuff.

I read reviews on techreport.com (dang were those in depth... even talking about sound card componenet which idon't have a clue about), and they gave both cards very good ratings, for their price range and purposes of course. Generally both seem to be considered decent cards.

Try as you may, you will butt heads with the creative cards...yes, I have used them too; and they work. You can track with them, but the deeper you get into it, you will quickly outgrow it before you realize. I kept mine in my new rig, and added a M-audio 1010lt. I'd like to ****can both of them for a decent RME or lynx card to get high quality audio; and that's only after 5 months on this rig.

I think the problem is that many musicians such as myself have grown used to the crappy 4 and 8 track tape units we all started on, and even the simplest of DAW's blow them out of the water in SQ. However, with a few choice pieces you can have some really amazing results over the consumer stuff for a little bit more money. If you are in the boat to get the flagship creative card, you can easily afford the next step into one of the entry level professional units...trust me, you'll be glad you did.

ORIGINAL: Ron Vogel

4 and 8 track tape units we all started on,

no idea what those are. :P

I know it'd be nice to be more open to the future and have input and all this stuff, but it's not important. I work with soft sythns, i write orchestral stuff, EWQL SO Gold, all recording is midi, and i've been perfectly happy with integrated audio. Been using integrated audio for 2 1/2 years, and perfectly fine. Somethig went wrong on this new computer, and things arent working with soar and soft sythns, so i see no alternative than to get a sound card.

I haven't yet "outgrown" even integrated audio and PC speakers, but right now is my change to do a a teeny bit better, so a good set of speakers is the main way. Even my integreated audio probably isn't sounding it's best due to my speakers.

Those are my reasons. I'm sitl lthe noob here, so DO please sitll correct me if I'm wrong, but from i've read, from the discussions through this whole topic, looks like I'll be just fine with a reg sound card - and i'll finally get some better sound for the ocassional game. Even beagle seemed to agree with that now that I clearly explained my latency issue is a midi issue, not an audio processing thing or whatever. I just want to get back to work, low midi latency, and get some speakers.

My 1010LT cost me $78 shipped on Ebay, I have seen the 2496 go for $50-75 on a regular basis...yet you want to spend $150 on an inferior card? The logic seems misplaced. When you get your better "speakers" you may not notice the difference. You can take your work to another level just from moving to an entry-level pair of $200 powered monitors, and a $100 entry-level pro sound card.

I bucked the advice on here at first, but before you do anything else it would be prudent to look at the many threads on this subject before you make rash hardware descions!

no, i wanna spend $100 on an inferior card now. :P I mean, above everything, i'd prefer to go back to my integrated sound. but it's not working, so that's not going to happen, unless cakewalk support pulls through for me in a few days...which is doubtful, after 2 - 3 weeks of emails and constantly asking me stuff I already answered. >.<

and this is a new computer. It's all PCIe. One PCIe 1x free.

any USB or firewire stuff just gets too expensive. A small few may fit in budget, but then i stay with my crappy speakers. (and honestly, i had forgotten, but i think my speakers are failing too... my back up speakers are... uh... from an old compaq that ran Windows 98 (original edition)).

I really wasn't considering ebay as a choice because I don't like the idea of getting it used. These are sensitive, delicate parts, those PCI and PCIe connections. Maybe I could save a ltitle bit on brand new ones, but not enough to try to look for something typically much more expensive.

and now I decided to factor in the cost of new speakers.... which, could easily be $100+.

lol, ok....so now with my clarification there....you're saying what I want is afterall, just a regular good soiundcard?

again....NO!!! I'm really not sure why you think I keep telling you to get a "regular" soundcard. I do NOT recommend anything by Soundblaster, nor do I recommend anything "regular" that you might find at best buy or walmart.

if your primary goal is to get low latency, then get a RECORDING SOUNDCARD. (NOTE: there are no Soundblaster cards in that category - some would argue that, but for your price range that's absolutely true).

did you look at the link I gave you earlier? the m-audio fasttrack is $100. it connects by USB. that will give you low latency.

if you are already decided that you want to buy a "regular" soundcard then do so, but DON'T say that's what I told you to get when you can't get low latency out of it!