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External laptop sound cards.

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Posted on November 5, 2009 at 14:59:18
Blaike
Audiophile

Posts: 1
Location: West Coast
Joined: November 5, 2009
 Hey everyone,

I'm interested in doing sound recording on my laptop, there's a few problems though. The sound card that's in there isn't quite up to the task.

-There isn't a line-in port, just a microphone port, which works *except* for the fact that if you listen to the audio stream, there's a massive delay between what is sent into the laptop and what comes out of the speakers.

-when playing a couple different audio streams (ex. the input sound and windows media player) the sound becomes obscure, I'm assuming because the card doesn't have very many audio channels.

I was able to correct the first issue by routing the input through FLstudio, which seems to bypass the windows setup and eliminate the delay, however, FLstudio still has a lot of issues, mainly because of the second issue.

So what I wanted to ask you guys is, will a product like this fix these problems:

http://reviews.cnet.com/sound-cards/creative-sound-blaster-x/4505-9334_7-33319294.html?tag=contentBody;compare

Or do I need something like this:

http://reviews.cnet.com/sound-cards/creative-sound-blaster-audigy/4505-9334_7-31156120.html?tag=contentBody;compare


It'll be very much appreciated if someone could provide some insight on these products.

Thanks guys!


EDIT:
Also found this

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=873&product=16642&listby=

RE: External laptop sound cards., posted on November 6, 2009 at 07:58:18
hfavandepas
Audiophile

Posts: 65
Location: Rotterdam
Joined: February 9, 2009
 Hi Blake,

I haven’t heard any of your suggested soundcards in real live, but I do know, that the guys who do recordings in there home-project-studio’s are not using these cards.

Also PCMCIA soundcards are less and less produced and I see no new models launched in the last years. So if you’re laptop has an USB or Firewire interface I would look for an external USB or Firewire soundcard.

Also I would look for a external soundcard that also can be fed with it’s own external power supply so that it doesn’t have to lurks it’s power from the labtop through the USB or Firewire cable.

Looking at how much money you are willing to spend on the cards you suggested, you can also buy very nice sounding external USB or Firewire soundcards.

However there is an overwhelming choice in USB and firewire soundscards and may be this article is helpful in narrowing you’re choice:
“choosing an audio interface” on www.sounonsound.com
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep08/articles/audiointerfaces.htm

As already suggested by others: in this price range Edirol UA-5, Emu 0404 are good contenders, but also Tascam's US144, M-Audio's Fast Track Pro, Digidesign, Echo, Focusrite all have good budget USB / firewire soundcards.

My impression however is that right now (end of 2009) TC Electronic is class leading in the budget-area and I would urge you to take a good look and listen at there models ‘Desktop Konnekt 6’ , ‘Konnekt 8’ or ‘Konnekt 24D’.
These soundscards also come with the software programs you need, to make recordings.

Be sure to test your labtop with the USB of firewire soundcard first, before you buy. Although rare there are still labtops with USB or firewire ‘chips’ that do not follow standard-proceedings.

fully AOB optimized cMP2 PC -> Lynx AES16 -> XLR AES/EBU -> Lavry Black DA10 -> XLR Mogami Gold -> Klein & Hummel O300
RE: External laptop sound cards., posted on November 5, 2009 at 20:21:11
neergan1216
 I simply connect the laptop digital to an Edirol UA-5 USB interface. Then analog out to a tube amp. The sound is fantastic.

RE: External laptop sound cards., posted on November 5, 2009 at 17:08:07
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 3048
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 I think you would do better with an external USB sound card, or, better, a Firewire device if your laptop supports it.

If you use a USB device, be sure and get one that uses a block mode driver in the computer, rather than the built in USB support, and be sure that it runs at USB 2.0. Otherwise, you will be restricted in the bandwidth. At a minimum you need to run at 96 kHz 24 bits full duplex. I used a USB sound card some time ago and it would run 96/24 only in input mode or output mode, but not both and did not support monitoring of recordings being made. Something like the EMU 404 would be better than all of the Soundblasters, based on reports I've read.



Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

What kind of recording?...., posted on November 5, 2009 at 18:14:52
doodlebug
Audiophile

Posts: 1740
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Joined: July 27, 2006
 I've been doing live, onsite recordings of small ensembles for years with up to 8 analog channels in at one time.

In my case, I've used a Presonus Firepod and, lately, the FireStudio running into a laptop. I can get all 8 channels tracking at 24/96K rates into Cubase with a Dell/WinXP laptop. Here's the quick poop on it:

Audio Chain:

Mics -> Presonus FireStudio -> Firewire ExpressCard -> Laptop -> CuBase

Preparation:

- Isolate the Presonus on its own F/W controller (the ExpressCard).
- Turn off all unused Firewire ports on the laptop.
- Turn off the wireless
- Strip out all the Desktop 'bling', sounds, and most everything on the desktop that flashes, bounces, pops up, etc.
- Do not put any sort of outboard drive onto a USB port and expect to record directly to it.
- Remove all unneeded software then defrag the disk drive.
- Max out the laptop memory.

The Recording Event

- Don't expect to ride the gain _and_ be able to play in the band at the same time. Your playing or the recording will suffer. There will be a heartache tonight somewhere in there.
- Expect cables to screw up on you.
- Expect to have to reboot during the session - $$ for the musicians.
- Expect to get confused with what your tracking software just did unexpectedly and don't have time to diagnose it.
- Expect to get the band to practice a while until the whole rig gets stabilized again.
- Try to keep the instruments isolated enough that they can over-track their parts separately.
- Expect to spend days trying to organize another session with the same musicians to get the tracks laid down again.

The Mixdown Event

- Expect to run out of computer resources overusing all the cute add-in compressors, reverbs, etc.
- Expect to spend hours rerunning the same part of the track trying to get it 'just right' until your wife comes out and threatens legal action if you don't stop. Get some headphones and keep going.
- Learn the hardway that it helps to have another person with you to critique your work.
- Expect to get pissed - at the other person.....wine helps the pissed part but will screw up the mixdown.

Hope that gets you started.

Cheers,

David

RE: What kind of recording?...., posted on November 6, 2009 at 14:10:50
John Swenson
Audiophile

Posts: 2013
Location: No. California
Joined: October 13, 2002
 Hi David,
I sing in several choirs and have been recording our concerts for 30 years now, I know exactly what you are talking about!

One thing to add to your list is to make sure you turn off all screensavers, and power saving modes. I've had the fun of the laptop decide to go into sleep mode 20 minutes into a concert, when I bring it out of sleep the firewire interface is not working, so I have to reboot. This time for some reason it refuses to see the firwire ADC box, so I'm frantically trying hotplugging with the box turned on, turned off, unplugged, plugged in etc. I finally get the computer to see the box, I think its working but it hangs 2 minutes later. I reboot again, it still doesn't see the box, I'm about ready to throw the whole thing out the window when I decide to reboot again, this time it sees the box!

Then I remember the whole problem was going into sleep mode, so I frantically find the location of the power controls and change the setting at which point it tells me I have to reboot for the new setting to take affect! I am ready to scream. At this point the choir has already started the second half of the concert while I'm trying to get this thing working. Of course I have to reboot twice again to get the computer to see the box!

I finally get it working and dash up and sneak in the back to rejoin the choir. Afterwards I listen the recording and there are dropouts all through the second half (at least the parts I got recorded). At this point I almost throw the whole pile of junk in the trash can as I'm leaving.

At home I set the whole thing up and try it out again and it all works perfectly. At that point I was ready to go buy a cassette deck! That was it, I threw that whole setup out and got all new stuff which has worked perfectly ever since.

John S.

ha! Good one...., posted on November 7, 2009 at 15:35:32
doodlebug
Audiophile

Posts: 1740
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Joined: July 27, 2006
 Hi John,

Yep, nasty stuff if it wasn't so funny. And the entire choir folks standing there thinking you actually _know_ something, too.

I once set up the day before at a personal residence for a private in-house classical piano concert. The whole rig was set up in what looked like a guest bedroom adjacent to the large living room with grand piano. Got everything set just right, wires dressed, levels set with the musician, etc and left for the evening.

Came back the next day for the concert to find that the audio interface had been turned at the power strip - which took out the power supply brick for the laptop, which had then run down its battery.

Turns out the 'guest' bedroom was actually the main bedroom for the batchelor, who was the Martha Stewart type, if you can imagine such a thing. He explained that the bright blue LEDs on the gear kept him up during the night! I never was able to get the whole rig back up and stable enough to track the concert. I got bits a pieces of it with dropouts. Jeez.....

Cheers,

David

RE: What kind of recording?...., posted on November 6, 2009 at 17:33:40
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 3048
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 Power management doesn't work. It almost works, just enough that it can be advertised, and the "Energy Star" BS-sticker put on the product, but that's not good enough.

I'm thinking the people responsible for these abominations should be put on board a fly-by-wire aircraft controlled by their products. That would focus their minds properly.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

RE: What kind of recording?...., posted on November 6, 2009 at 14:31:08
Old Listener
Audiophile

Posts: 693
Location: SF Bay area
Joined: February 6, 2005
 A fine story. It sounds like a mutation of the demo virus got you.

Bill
RE: What kind of recording?...., posted on November 6, 2009 at 06:56:29
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 3048
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 I would add that if you are using a 24 bit ADC (as you should be) then there is little to be lost if you run the gain very conservatively. If you think of the equivalent of 0 on a traditional VU meter, this should correspond to -20 dBFS. This will allow for headroom for peaks, and you will still be left with 21 or 22 bits of resolution. If you clip at this point because your levels were too high you won't be able to undo the effect of your error. You can always boost the gain where you want it in the mixing or mastering phases of the production process, add any desired compression, etc...

If you are using a 16 bit ADC then getting an optimal gain setting may be important, but this is going to be hard to do without a lot of trial and error, wasted time, and lost good music.

Be sure to note that musicians play several dB louder when there is an audience, so if the levels are set near maximum in a practice session a live recording is going to have overs.





Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

Thanks, Tony...., posted on November 6, 2009 at 07:39:07
doodlebug
Audiophile

Posts: 1740
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Joined: July 27, 2006
 I've since learned many of the points you make, for sure!

Still, I find that being distracted by watching what's going with the computer and the audio interface takes away from focusing on the musicianship. As a result, neither ends up at their best. Yes, the Presonus is 24 bit in.

I have found I can track 8 full analog channels at 24/96 into a laptop just fine as long as I have set up the laptop ahead of time. Then I am only limited by the amount of disk space available for recording time. This means that I can usually get enough tracking space for 5-6 songs at a session. Mixdown comes later, of course.

Cheers,

David

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