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Garbage In, Garbage Out
Feb. 26th, 2009 07:54 pmI've seen this so often that I can't count it.
"I'm having problems using my computer to record. I'm working on an album, but things sound lifeless and strange. I have a top of the line Soundblaster, but it just doesn't seem to get what I want recorded. Is it my software?"
No, it's your sound card.
A sound card isn't an audio card. They're two very different things.
A sound card is a multi-purpose card that has a microphone in, Line in, line out, and sometimes a headphone out. It has a software synth, some sampling capability, and maybe a couple of other things. Sound cards are designed for consumer level applications where you want to skipe your friends or use a webcam, play games, and do a few other things. They're optomized for this, and this means that frequency response is not flat -- otherwise you'd have feedback problems from your microphone. This means they're especially bad for recording things in the same range as vocals, like guitar, piano, organ, and of course, voice.
An Audio Card is a special card that usually has at least stereo in and out jacks and may have a lot more, including digital I/O and MIDI I/O as options, along with things like word clock and other formats. Audio cards have really high specs, and most of them now handle 24 bit recording at 96KHz or even higher specs. These cards are mostly just analog to digital and digital to analog converters, and their frequency response is ruler flat. What you record is going to sound exactly like it went in. Also, Audio cards do their processing on the card instead of relying on the computer's processor to do it. (No Soundblaster after the AWE64 Gold does on card processing) This means that an audio card isn't going to cost you tracks, speed, or processing. And audio cards tend to have lower latency in their drivers, again because the processing is on the card.
Bottom Line: You're not going to get professional quality recordings on a sound card. I don't care what the sound card company says. Too much has to be compromised to cover all the bases a soundcard has to cover to allow you to get professional quality recording. Anyone with good ears will be able to tell the difference.
And the reality is that good audio cards aren't expensive. The M-Audio Delta 1010LT is about $200, and it has 8 pairs of analog in's and outs, plus MIDI and S/PDIF I/O for digital transfers. That 's dirt cheap for a top quality audio card that is still being supported and will do an excellent job of recording a project. And if you don't want to go that route, there are lots of USB microphones out there now that will also get you excellent results. You'll have to do things one track at a time, but it's a rather inexpensive way to go about things, and since Audacity is free, that's a good way to get into a 16 track recording studio for very little money but still have excellent quality.
"I'm having problems using my computer to record. I'm working on an album, but things sound lifeless and strange. I have a top of the line Soundblaster, but it just doesn't seem to get what I want recorded. Is it my software?"
No, it's your sound card.
A sound card isn't an audio card. They're two very different things.
A sound card is a multi-purpose card that has a microphone in, Line in, line out, and sometimes a headphone out. It has a software synth, some sampling capability, and maybe a couple of other things. Sound cards are designed for consumer level applications where you want to skipe your friends or use a webcam, play games, and do a few other things. They're optomized for this, and this means that frequency response is not flat -- otherwise you'd have feedback problems from your microphone. This means they're especially bad for recording things in the same range as vocals, like guitar, piano, organ, and of course, voice.
An Audio Card is a special card that usually has at least stereo in and out jacks and may have a lot more, including digital I/O and MIDI I/O as options, along with things like word clock and other formats. Audio cards have really high specs, and most of them now handle 24 bit recording at 96KHz or even higher specs. These cards are mostly just analog to digital and digital to analog converters, and their frequency response is ruler flat. What you record is going to sound exactly like it went in. Also, Audio cards do their processing on the card instead of relying on the computer's processor to do it. (No Soundblaster after the AWE64 Gold does on card processing) This means that an audio card isn't going to cost you tracks, speed, or processing. And audio cards tend to have lower latency in their drivers, again because the processing is on the card.
Bottom Line: You're not going to get professional quality recordings on a sound card. I don't care what the sound card company says. Too much has to be compromised to cover all the bases a soundcard has to cover to allow you to get professional quality recording. Anyone with good ears will be able to tell the difference.
And the reality is that good audio cards aren't expensive. The M-Audio Delta 1010LT is about $200, and it has 8 pairs of analog in's and outs, plus MIDI and S/PDIF I/O for digital transfers. That 's dirt cheap for a top quality audio card that is still being supported and will do an excellent job of recording a project. And if you don't want to go that route, there are lots of USB microphones out there now that will also get you excellent results. You'll have to do things one track at a time, but it's a rather inexpensive way to go about things, and since Audacity is free, that's a good way to get into a 16 track recording studio for very little money but still have excellent quality.
