buying to digital PC recording gear

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Member Since: May 23, 2002

i'm thinkin about buying the Aardvark Direct Pro Q10 package for a home project studio, does anyone have any suggestions or comments on this system that will aid in my decision on buying it?'
i appreciate it if you do.

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Member
Since: Apr 05, 2002


May 23, 2002 01:47 am

Yeah, I have the Q10 and I have been happy with it. I think most everyone here has their own preference but I got the Q10 because it eliminated the need for an external mixer for me. The new drivers they just released now support WinXp and since I have got them, I run XP, I haven't had any problems. Don't get me wrong, there are better cards out there, but for the price and versatility, I don't think you can really beat it. Also, their tech support was really good about helping me even before they supported XP, so that was a bonus for me. I like the dual use inputs (XLR or 1/4") and it has phantom power on the first 4 inputs which is great since I use some condensor mics. Also, the last two inputs have a button to switch them to a hi Z for recording guitar inputs directly and I get a nice clean signal when I use them. I personally ahven't had any noise problems such as line noise or shielding problems, so I was happy with that as well. The fact that its rackmountable was cool to em too because it lets mekeep everything nice and neat and if I want to use it to record a live gig that is nice too. Though I don't use it, it has the MIDI ports in the back and its got some nice loop so you can run external processors on it as well. So far, I have been happy with it. I think a lot of the guys here use stuff from M-Audio I think. I know some use GINA and such. ANyways, any questions you have on it I will be happy to try to answer them the best that I can/ I will say that it comes with ProAudio 9, but that it doesn't work with winXP. But, the upgrade cost to get to SONAR isn't too bad. I think it was around $80 or so.
Marc (da Sharc)

Chief Cook and Bottle Washer
Member
Since: May 10, 2002


May 23, 2002 10:35 am

Only one suggestion. Do what you are doing! Some of these guys that frequent this site are REAL sharp! Also if you havn't read the recording tips on this site.

Before buying any gear to to the manufacturers website and see if they let you download the users manual for the product you are considering. This cuts through a lot of hype. Last if the manufacturer's website has a forum in the support area browse a little and check out the complaints.

Eat Spam before it eats YOU!!!
Member
Since: May 11, 2002


May 24, 2002 10:50 am

I use a q10 in XP also but I had some problems with IRQ conflicts. XP doesn't let you change your IRQ's so I had to turn off Plug and Play (which I guess I should have done as soon as I built the thing. . .) and I had to swap some cards around to get them to install on different IRQ settings. XP has IRQ shareing so it will say the q10 works but it won't until it's on it's own number.

Stupid me also seemed to forget to turn DMA on for the harddrive and that was killing me. Seems to be working fine now. . .

peace
sam
[email protected]
www.Track100.com

Administrator
Since: Apr 03, 2002


May 24, 2002 12:08 pm

well, when it comes to hardware, whether the OS has "IRQ Sharing" doesn't really matter, as Windows has had pretty decent IRQ sharing for a long time, the hardware needs to support it to.

High performance sound cards, and commonly video capture cards as well simply work too hard and need to many resources to be able to share it's IRQ with anything...not always the case, but it is at time, and ultimately, necessary or not, having each component on it's own IRQ is good to do if you can.

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