----- Original Message ----- From: "Sinatra Y2k" <sinatra_y2k@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <fruityloops@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 8:43 PM Subject: [fruityloops] Re: new soundcard? > > > You probably won't notice an awful lot of difference in quality unless you > > have very revealing monitoring system. > > _HOWEVER_ > > The latency you can get with the 2496 should be a lot lower than with the > > Live! > > Latency is definitely a big issue for me ... I don't have a particularly > revealing montioring system (Alesis Montior 1's with a Samson Servo 120) Hehe, that is alot more revealing than my monitoring system; Cambridge Soundworks multimedia speakers or a cheap pair of Sony headphones! > also I wonder whether I might notice an improvement in the quality of > softsynths, and effects plug-ins generally - shouldn't they be able to > function at a higher resolution? I think some of the higher end softsynths and samplers are capable of working at higher samplerates and resolution, but remember that will eat more CPU as more data has to be shifted around, plus there will be a knock on effect on your downstream effects. It probably isn't work it. > Shouldn't I be able to render the *.wavs > at a higher resolution? You should be able to do this with your setup as it is, but of course you can't here the full resolution. In the render settings dialog of fruityloops, you can choose 32 bit floats and then import this into an editor that understands 32 bit wavs (like cooledit Pro for example). I know for a fact that cool edit pro can read and process a 32 bit wav file, but play it back thru a 16 bit device. That said, true 24bit playback of a mix down is much more of a plus than 24 bit softsynths, the whole mix will be more detailed, dynamic and noise free :-)). Remember though, it still has to sound good in crunchy old 16 bit, for CD!! > Or when we talk about sound quality (insofar as the > soundcard is concerned), are we really only talking about recording external > stuff, and the A/D conversion (and therefore stuff that starts and stays > digital would not be tangibly improved). If you take the signal out of your soundcard in the digital domain to a DAT machine or external/rackmounted DAC, then in theory two different soundcards should be exactly the same (although in practice one may add more jitter to the digital signal, so degrade it slightly). However, if you are using the analogue outputs, the quality of the soundcard will directly affect the quality of sound coming out of the computer. When you come to record the same applies. If you put the analogue signal into a digital mixer and then feed the resulting digital signal into the soundcards digital input, the soundcard should have little or no influence on the signal, but if the analogue stage is used it does have a strong baring on the signal. My guess (this is just gut feeling) is that the 2496 will give you a significant quality boost in record quality; soundblaster cards are, afterall aimed at the consumer market where playback is the most important function. In the professional environment (more where the 2496 is aimed), recording is more important so you would hope that more time would be spent on getting the input stage right from a design/implementation point of view. The extra headroom given by a higher resolution card can be useful when it comes to recording live instruments or vocalists. You will be able to get away with less compression (so leave room for more flexible post processing) before clipping or noise becomes a problem, so this gives you the advantage of leaving production decisions until later in the production process. > > Bare in mind that the 2496 has no on-board MIDI synth. That isn't an > issue > > for me, but it might be for some people. You _might_ be able to keep the > > Live! in there as well (although I have heard of people having problems > > getting both the Live! and the 2496 to play nice in the same system). > > This shouldn't affect my MIDI controller, though, should it? I haven't been > using MIDI-proper, or soundfonts or anything like that - just my knob box, > and my shiny new Oxygen-8 (which is USB anyways, so it should be okay .. i > think?!) No, shouldn't have any effect on that. Talking of controllers, I managed to get my thrustmaster joystick going as an analogue controller in fruity this afternoon. Its really cool to put the cut off on the X axis and the resonance on the Y axis, especially on drum loops. I use the X-Y controller in fruity and then link knobs to that controller to get the desired effect. I guess laptop users with touch pads have pretty much a Korg Kaos pad, but without the flashing lights. I'll stop waffling on now and get back to making some music. Andy