Dirt Cheap Sound Cards

[padtastic]

I have alot of outboard devices that record audio in so much better than any interface for the computer that I could afford right now, so I'm going to use them, and port the audio into the computer by other means.

So I'm looking for two things:

1. One card or usb device with a asio driver for my host and vsti's(just XP compatible), ONE stereo analog in, and ONE digital in....


I've looked at the low end Emu's and I think they are around 99 dollars, has anyone seen anything cheaper than this?


2. A card, or usb device that just acts as a driver so I can run my host and vsti's.


Thnx, any help or criticism of lack of knowledge about something I wrote is welcome, I just want to learn, and get these cheapo cards so I can get to making music.

[butter]

Personally I think EMU is the way to go for a budget soundcard. The converters are terrific for a card in that price point. A word of advice though, don't go too cheap! Even if you're just learning you still need something that's good quality and a lot of manufacturers tend to skimp on converters.

[Midinovela]

If your onboard has no Asio you may install Asio4all drivers until you have the money to buy your card. Obviously... forget about recording analog with onboard soundcards

[BertKoor]

Obviously... forget about recording analog with onboard soundcards

Ehm, these days that's not that obvious anymore... Some PC's with ChrystalAudio chips onboard (20bits DAC) have a really nice low noise floor, quite straight frequency response and even low latency. They work well with Asio4All as generic Asio driver.