Sound card upgrade

[MachineMan]

Hello forum members. I've just joined but I have owned and used Orion Pro for nearly 8 years now. I am planning to self-release some music and want it to sound the best it possibly can.

I am wondering if buying a more powerful soundcard would make a significant difference to my recordings? Currently I just use the stock soundcard in my laptop, which is Realtek AC97 Audio.

The tracks sound fine but if there is a way to bolster their quality by using a better soundcard or driver then I would do that.

Thank you.

[bones]

It won't make a whole lot of difference, as the soundcard is only used to allow you to hear the result. All the work is done by the CPU and RAM.

[V/M]

bones is mostly correct, except with incoming audio. If you're recording vocals or other real-world sounds via the soundcard, then there will be a difference there. the other difference is that what you hear will affect the decisions you make in mixing..

but still it is true that the quality of the soundcard has no direct effect on the quality of the audio files produced by Orion.

[suneel]

I am wondering if buying a more powerful soundcard would make a significant difference to my recordings? Currently I just use the stock soundcard in my laptop, which is Realtek AC97 Audio

well yes and no.

No - because if you have already have published song(s) to a label, then you probably have gotten used to the cheap quality AC97 card, and you want to keep it safe.

Yes - because you want to hear the sound as balanced/clear as possible and want to get a professional ASIO card. ASIO in hardware will lower your cpu usage, something to think of . Also AC97 cards are primarly manufactured for entertainment and games and not for audio production as such. So it is not going to give you a balanced sound. Some frequencies will be attenuated so that movies, music, games may sound bassy and bright. It may even sound GOOD. Eg Like heavy bass, boost around 1000hz and hi end. But it is not a transparent result , as a professional audio card will have a flatter response, which will get you better mixes IMO. Also like V/M has said for recording multiple audio again you would need a pro card.

AC97 Audio is a card for the masses. Pro audio cards are for some1 who knows exactly why he needs them.

[MachineMan]

Ok, thanks a lot everyone. I can understand the need for an ASIO card to give a more truthful sound so there is more integrity when mixing and EQing, that makes sense.

I suppose I can get a good ASIO for around 100 bucks? What model is good these days?

[user_45a27]

bones is mostly correct, except with incoming audio. If you're recording vocals or other real-world sounds via the soundcard, then there will be a difference there. the other difference is that what you hear will affect the decisions you make in mixing..

but still it is true that the quality of the soundcard has no direct effect on the quality of the audio files produced by Orion.

You forget to add 'Midi latency' to the other difference list. If you record a midi keyboard then an ASIO card is the thing to have ! midi have no latency but as the messages are usually used by audio apps, if you have to deal with a windows audio or dx drivers, what you play will be delayed accordingly to the buffer size ( usually bigger with non-ASIO drivers). With an ASIO card the "midi latency" is minimized ( even if there is no midi latency, but I thing you all get that it's slaved to the audio in a way).

If you don't need to record multi channel audio you can look at

*M-Audio 24/96 or 24/192 ( even if working at 192 kHz could be a probelm with many VST )
*ESI-Julia ( said to have a good freqeuncy responce 'transparent spectrum', but ESI is a bad company with consumer support,and their driver update)
* E-MU 0404: I have noting to say about this one as I don't know it ( contrary to the 2 previous one). Technically you have a big difference; a built in dsp processor to run effect on... but I don't know if it's really intersting.
*You also have some card in the price range you want from AudioTrak

these products are PCI cards, 2 mono I/O only and price<100 bucks. If I were you I would take an M-Audio one or maybe the E-MU ?