sound card for music production

[Tripp]

as the title says really. i am building a mate a rig out of old gear i have laying about, but i need a sound card for music production for it.

all input welcome

thanks

 

[QuietOne]

Soundblaster X-Fi Elite pro may cater your needs. I have one in my old rig, has three modes. Gaming, Entertainment and creation modes. Mine is PCI though.

 

[Drakkonen]

Hey mate, few questions. What sort of headphones/monitors are being used? Budget? Does it need to be internal or could it be external? Does it need instrument/microphone inputs?

 

[Feronix]

What's the budget?

I'd say the STX as it has a good headphone amp and would work well with studio monitors (which I'm assuming he uses when producing music). Also has a lot of I/O so it should be able to take most peripherals he throws at it.

Could also go external like Drakkonen said, but most of these interfaces are quite expensive.

Would personally stay away from Creative. Heard a lot of bad things about them, mainly on these forums.

 

[Drakkonen]

You can get some really good external cards these days for the same price or less than an STX. Also just to point out monitors will need a balanced output which will need trs or xlr output which i believe the STX does not have (being only standard stereo 3.5mm outputs?). That being said if they use passive monitors then that does not matter so much because they will be running the signal to an amp anyway.

 

[Tripp]

right it needs a mic input for guitar,vocals and drums. pci or external not really fussed which really, an my mate said it doesn't really matter how much it is (within reason i think)

 

[Drakkonen]

Ok so with the drums, how many mics is he planning on using? I think internal is out of the question here.

Some to look at would be the Focusrite Scarlett series and the M-Audio Fastrack series. Can't really go wrong with either of these though I found the Scarlett to be more transparent. Whichever one has enough inputs to do the job would be the one to get. If he can spend more then maybe look at MOTU or RME interfaces. Generally recording drums is a fairly expensive process.

 

[Tripp]

Ok so with the drums, how many mics is he planning on using? I think internal is out of the question here.

Some to look at would be the Focusrite Scarlett series and the M-Audio Fastrack series. Can't really go wrong with either of these though I found the Scarlett to be more transparent. Whichever one has enough inputs to do the job would be the one to get. If he can spend more then maybe look at MOTU or RME interfaces. Generally recording drums is a fairly expensive process.

thanks for your input mate you have been very helpful, i have put this one t him : http://www.dawsons.co.uk/focusrite-...io-interface?gclid=CNOO4MT_27wCFSQXwwodxRIACg

 

[Drakkonen]

No problem mate.