Best Sound Card for my PC?

March 19, 2009 6:34 AM

What is the best audio card for my "old" PC? I'll be using it for home recording.

I quit my band and want to focus on my own music. I have a little (not a lot) money to play with and have settled on getting a Digitech RP350 which has Cubase LE4 bundled with it. Cool so far but my PC eats ass in terms of the sound card. I have a RealTek AC97 PCI card running on a P4 Windows box. What could I get away with that would make my stunning musical masterpieces come to life? I'm looking in the $40 to $50 range but I'm open to any suggestions that might fit my Windows machine.

posted by KevinSkomsvold to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Have you considered USB2-based audio interfaces? I'm a big fan of the Line 6 TonePort (recently renamed POD Studio) line. The ToneDirect monitoring technology really cuts down on latency, which is a real issue on older boxes.

But, if your experience is anything like mine was, you'll probably be disappointed with the experience of recording on an older box. I saved up and finally replaced my computer, and now recording is painless. Prior to that, I'd tried every optimization in the book and still found it discouraging. So, my advice would be to made do with what you can stand but start saving money for a new box.
posted by wheat at 8:01 AM on March 19

How many inputs do you need? You can get a decent price on 4 input cards. I found one for $99, which is a little out of your range, but I dont think youre getting anything nice for $40 with multiple inputs.

If you just want a nice single input card then you can get an Audigy SB0090 in your price range.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:19 AM on March 19

The differences between a cheap sound card and a more expensive one are half in the D/A converter and half in the A side preamps and such. You can get a much better quality sound from a lower quality card by using a good pre-amp that gives you a quality line level signal coming in to the card (of course you would then want to nudge down your levels etc.).

Are you talking about just recording or multi-tracking with plugins and editing? If you are multi-tracking, USB1 sound cards will have enough latency to be really annoying (otherwise you will be able to get better sound at a lower price with one of these), not to mention the fact that your computer will seem very slow very soon, especially if you use reverb and compression.
posted by idiopath at 10:28 AM on March 19

This may be cheaper than you were considering, but back when I was more cash-constrained, I recorded using a Soundblaster Live! card using the free drivers from kX Project. I got some very satisfactory results, and I can say that the sound card was not the weakest link in the chain. This card is extremely easy to find, and you can probably get one on eBay for $5. You can also run multiple cards at once with the kX driver if you need more than 2 inputs at a time.

The kX drivers let me record at 24 bits, gave ASIO support, and allowed me to tune the latency according to the limits of my PC. Their web site also has more information about the cards, such as which outputs have the least noise, etc.
posted by SNACKeR at 10:59 AM on March 19

Following up on what SNACKeR said, check out the ASIO4ALL drivers. These were the only way to make recording not an absolute nightmare back when I was recording with a Dell 5160 laptop. (iMac, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.) And, of course, spend some time optimizing your Windows OS. If you can make this a dedicated recording PC, so much the better.
posted by wheat at 7:24 AM on March 20

Sorry for my late response. Your feedback was indispensable and I really appreciate it!
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:40 AM on March 23