Good Soundcard for ~$100?

[phatty]

how are firewire cards compared to USB latency wise?

[Sascha Franck]

how are firewire cards compared to USB latency wise?

Probably slightly better. But the difference shouldn't be too large. As usual, it depends most on the drivers.
The best FW performances seem to be available with MotU and RME cards - both of them offering no USB cards, so there's no direct comparison.

Personally, I am mainly using an M-Audio FW410, but that's got to do with me using a Macbook as my main audio machine. There's only two USB ports which I usually need for something else, so FW was the way to go. In addition, on Macs, FW seems to perform somewhat better indeed.
On my PC laptop I can't notice much of a difference between the M-Audio and RigControl (which has really nice USB drivers by now). Latency is almost the same using the same buffer sizes, CPU useage is as well - with the M-Audio winning by a very slight margin in both aspects.

So, for a home studio setup, I would probably just go for the most convenient solution (which is exactly what I did).

[phatty]

How is the latency when using ie 256 buffer? with the firewire and usb cards on your pc laptop? I have an ancient Gina20 that is due for retirement (it's freakin 10 years old), although it's still usable. at 512 i have a latency of about 11-12ms each way.

[Sascha Franck]

How is the latency when using ie 256 buffer? with the firewire and usb cards on your pc laptop?

With 256 samples I'm getting a total I/O latency of 18ms with the FW410.
With RigKontrol it's *almost* the same.
But I can use 128 samples throughout my projects (in Logic at least, Cubase for instance won't allow for it, I need to raise buffers when mixing), which is resulting in overall latencies of around 12ms.
Fwiw, I also have an Indigo I/O (PCMCIA), which a) is suffering a lot less from the aforementioned safety buffers and b) allows for running the same projects at 64 samples. At 128 samples it's resulting in 8ms total latency (shows how much those safety buffers are adding) and at 64 samples I'm getting rather whooping 5ms.
This may as well show how much PCI is still better than USB/FW.

[phatty]

So it seems that ie an EMU1616 combo would be a good choice for latency?
I remember the good old days when we had about 3 cards to choose from

[Lunch Money]

You simply will NOT get better audible latency than the TonePort, and still be able to apply effects (eg. amp sim) with any of those other solutions. The TonePort uses a special driver that runs parallel to the ASIO driver. It uses this secondary driver (ToneDirect) for monitoring, and delivers "zero" (not literally, because that's impossible under the laws of physics) latency. I've never measured it, but it's far less than the 6ms ASIO latency I get. If I were a guessing man, I'd say between 1 and 2ms. That's WITH effects. By using ToneDirect, I can set the actual recorded ASIO latency to 4096 samples and not need to care at all about how much latency that gives me. Fewer pops and crackles than trying low-latency ASIO. <shrug>

The build quality of the TonePorts is junky. It's a plastic housing. The CONVERTER quality is exceptional. One of the Line 6 enthusiasts on their forum pulled it apart and discovered a pro-quality chip in there. I don't know enough about estoteric chip names to remember or care, so I just took them at their word, but nobody called them out as being full of crap, so I'm still operating under the assumption that the converter they discovered WAS a good one.

USB vs. PCI -- Sascha said it all. I'll add my personal experience is that I actually *have* owned both of these, and the TonePort produces the same high-quality playback for games, multimedia, etc., that the 2496 does. You simply won't notice a difference. Most of the people talking about the differences in "quality" on this thread are just making educated guesses. Sascha's right that the build quality is kinda dodgy in terms of ruggedness, but the sound quality will be fine.

Now... as to the person who asked, "why mention mixers?" It's because a mixer has a preamp... but you're right that it's the preamp part that you need, not necessarily a "mixer". But a mixer also gives you a tactile "volume knob" for your speakers, the ability to hook more than one instrument up at a time, etc. So while a mixer isn't necessarily "the" solution, it's the most practical solution. But at the price point, the preamps on the mixer won't be great and you're better off with an "all in one" solution. When I had the AP2496 I also bought a TubeMP Studio V3 by ART... supposedly it would be a much better quality preamp. Supposedly. Well, it WAS marginally better, but we're still talking a low-end piece of gear, which is adding an extra gain stage = more noise, especially if you don't know how to stage your gain. A mixer is definitely something to consider in conjunction with the 2496.

And just to echo what's already been said... USB or not... it's still your soundcard.

[newbie_here]

You can't do 5.1 sound with the KB-37, I don't think!

But then, if your current soundcard is capable of feeding your surround system, you can still continue using it. There's gonna be no conflicts with the Toneport, as you can assign whatever soundcard to whatever program. No need to disable either of the two (these days at least, it has been different in the past...). You could just keep your setup as is and only use the Toneport for your sequencer of choice.

That is great... had no idea I could have both.

and the TonePort produces the same high-quality playback for games, multimedia, etc., that the 2496 does. You simply won't notice a difference. Most of the people talking about the differences in "quality" on this thread are just making educated guesses. Sascha's right that the build quality is kinda dodgy in terms of ruggedness, but the sound quality will be fine.

I understand, its good.

There is however a last question... last last last last I swear
What does a soundcard, for this music business does?
I mean, like I always hear in newbie guides that a good soundcard, or a pair of headphones is a MUST.
But then what does a good soundcard provides in terms of sound quality? Because so far we've discussed ports and inputs and stuff like that... but in the guts, aka my sequencer... the produced sound, sounds better indeed than lets say, using the onboard card?

And last but not least lemme thank you all once again for your great replies... you guys are really helpful, thank you very much

[bduffy]

If I may take a stab at this: many of the improvements you get from a professional-grade soundcard are going to be subtle, especially if you have inferior speakers, etc - but they are improvements nonetheless, and you'll hear them more as your needs expand. For instance, if you're using balanced outputs, you're reducing the possibility of introducing noise and interference into your signal, which can produce phase problems, and just plain mess with what you think you're hearing! And a good digital-to-analog converter will just sound better, as I'll get into below.

Another area of improvement over your crappy motherboard chip is "clock jitter", which basically (without getting into it too much) means that poor interfaces, as they transfer the digital audio to analog, introduce timing errors which can "smear" the stereo image. A card with low clock jitter will probably sound a little more "focused" or "bright" than a jittery card; this is something that expensive audio cards have to get right, or they'll be in deep doo-doo!!!

And if you need any more of a push towards EMU, SoundOnSound rates them as the best low-jitter card under $500! Add in the Pro Tools-grade converters, and it's a no-brainer.

Hope that helps.

[newbie_here]

Thanks bduffy.

I take it then as neither the 2496 nor the Toneport are good low clock jitter, but rather they are bad...
Then I guess I have to think it twice because obviously Im not wasting any more than $100 as stated

I mean, this is regards of

low-jitter card under $500!

Under $500 I bet is like 450, 350, still too expensive.

[skipkent]

Line6 Toneport UX1. Phenomenal device for the price. Gearbox kicks ass.

The Toneport bypasses your built in soundcard completely, until you disconnect it. If you're in the coffee shop and you don't have the toneport with you, you listen to your mixes through the laptop headphone jack. I assume you're using a laptop but I don't know, and don't care to read through the mountains of verbiage here to find out!

Phantom power - don't worry about it. When you know/care what a condenser mic is as opposed to a dynamic mic, you can worry about phantom power. Dynamic mikes are the cheapest, most common and most versatile. They don't need phantom power. One or two decent used dynamics off of craigslist and you're set to go. They will work fine with your UX1.

You don't need a mixer or ANYTHING else besides a cable or two, some headphones and a Toneport. Yes it's made of plastic. Nice, durable plastic. I've managed to drop mine several times onto tile floors and no problems.

If you need a paperweight, go outside and get a freekin' rock.

; )

PS - After you buy that Toneport, THROW the included driver/gearbox cd as far away as you can (keep the Ableton cd, of course). DO NOT load it onto your pc or you will be writing one of those pathetic reviews on musiciansfriend yourself. Download the latest Gearbox from the line6 site and work from there.

[bduffy]

Thanks bduffy.

I take it then as neither the 2496 nor the Toneport are good low clock jitter, but rather they are bad...
Then I guess I have to think it twice because obviously Im not wasting any more than $100 as stated

I mean, this is regards of

low-jitter card under $500!

Under $500 I bet is like 450, 350, still too expensive.

Well, I wouldn't jump to conclusions about that; Greg said that they'd verified that the internal components of the toneport are very high quality, so no reason to assume that you'll be jittering all over the place! I was just putting that out there as a small concern, and since you're just getting started, I think something like the Toneport is plenty good enough for now. I'm a proud Line6 POD owner, my unit is about 6 years old now, and I trust their quality.

[tomg]

I don't have anything Toneport that I want to share right now but here's some pretty freaking good Toneport enabled music. These guys are going about it the right way. It's good.

http://www.sellaband.com/silverimage/

[bduffy]

I don't have anything Toneport that I want to share right now but here's some pretty freaking good Toneport enabled music. These guys are going about it the right way. It's good.

http://www.sellaband.com/silverimage/

What - you know they're recording on a Toneport?

[tomg]

I don't have anything Toneport that I want to share right now but here's some pretty freaking good Toneport enabled music. These guys are going about it the right way. It's good.

http://www.sellaband.com/silverimage/

What - you know they're recording on a Toneport?

Well... parts of it. I don't know how much. They are a VST band. Cool huh!!


Quote from the page.

"For the harmonization I use mainly EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Silver, sequenced in Sonar 4. Simple but effective The choirs are EastWest Symphonic Choirs Drums are DFH sampled in FL Studio 5, guitars are Line6 Toneport, bass is Broomstick Bass...I think that's all."

[bduffy]

I don't have anything Toneport that I want to share right now but here's some pretty freaking good Toneport enabled music. These guys are going about it the right way. It's good.

http://www.sellaband.com/silverimage/

What - you know they're recording on a Toneport?

Well... parts of it. I don't know how much. They are a VST band. Cool huh!!


Quote from the page.

"For the harmonization I use mainly EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Silver, sequenced in Sonar 4. Simple but effective The choirs are EastWest Symphonic Choirs Drums are DFH sampled in FL Studio 5, guitars are Line6 Toneport, bass is Broomstick Bass...I think that's all."

Ah, I didn't see that (just snuck in a peak between projects here at work), thanks! You know, this sounds pretty good! EWQL sounds good like always...everything except for the drums; they sound like an old Dr. Rhythm! I was thinking they need to pick up EZDrummer, big time.