Best guitar & mic recording soundcard?

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Member Since: Jan 29, 2010

Hi all!

I'm looking for the ultimate home-recording soundcard, and for under $300. Here's what it should do:

- 1 1/4" TRS guitar in (mono, unbalanced, and preamped!)
- 1 XLR mic input (with phantom power)
- No/tiny latency
- Support hi-def recording (192 kHz)
- 1 midi in/out [bonus]
- Act as a soundcard, out to normal PC speakers [bonus]

Basically I need a way to record my electric guitar with amazing quality, right from the guitar to the PC. No preams, and ideally no external box (though I can live with one).

What I currently have is the M-Audio Fast Track USB, but that's got a lot of latency (it's USB 1!). To cut latency, what I do now is skip the USB out and use the 1/8" headphone out into my gaming soundcard's line in. That's got 0 latency - but as you can imagine, horrible static, and I can even hear buzzing when the processor is working. I have to turn sound gates way up, and it's almost worse than high latency.

So a PCI soundcard seems like the more pro way to go. Guess I can live with having 2 soundcards, but if there's one that does all this and acts as a decent gaming soundcard, all the better! Otherwise I have no more free PCI slots.

I've got a more than decent PC: Intel Core i7 2.6 mHz; 9 GB RAM. PCIe support.

Do I want the M-Audio Delta 1010LT? Does that have TRS in? Is it preamped? I can't find info confirming this.

Looking forward to suggestions. Thanks!

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Member
Since: Sep 30, 2009


Jan 29, 2010 07:30 pm

Well, i know you said you wanted to skip the USB, but i'd really suggest you reconsider. Often better drivers will fix that issue (m-audio still has yet to even update to windows 7 on many devices)

I highly recomend a Line 6 UX1 or UX2, depending on if you ever want to do something like dual micing, or recording the line in and mic'd acoustic guitar. Or if a buddy is over and you want to play leads over his bassline. You get the idea.

Also with the line 6 gear comes bundled PODFarm guitar modeling software. This stuff really sounds incredible. Better IMO than many amps i've played. Actually. This software sounds better than ANY amp i've personally played. Almost every amp i've used was sub $1000, and many did sound quite good. But pod farm sounded better. Also podfarm has a lot of great stuff for vocals and bass. And the reverbs in that program sound better than most reverbs i've heard. Its definitely my swiss army knife at the moment. Take a look at some of CptTripps stuff in his profile, or i'll link you to my youtube account if you want to hear several of the tones you can get out of it.

My latency with the UX2 goes down to around 5 ms input, 10 ms output when my PC can handle it (lower latency = higher chance of annoying continuous "clicking." Its not an artifact in the recorded sound, just really irritating processing). Also i should note even on my laptop I can get this low latency if its the only thing i'm running really, but once you add drum software, synth software, just any VSTi's. I need to up the latency a bit. You can actually get pretty high latency without even noticing it while playing guitar or keys. 30, 40 ms maybe? just a guess. Sounds like your PC is quite a rig anyway, you'll be able to have quite a bit running without having to increase the latency at all.

One more quickie thing on latency, if you are using a lot of VSTi's and such, and you have to increase your latency too high to be able to play, just "freeze" the instruments and they'll be exported to audio, taking the load off your PC, allowing you to use low latency again.

You can pick one up for $150-200, shop around online and remember stores like GuitarCenter often price match plus an additional discount.

The only thing the UX1/2 doesn't have is midi. But you can pick up a decent 1 in/out unit for under $50

And again, i know you said you didn't want to go USB. But it sounded like your main beef with it was that it lagged. This thing has super low latency. Also, i'd personally suggest just using the UX1/2 as your main soundcard even while gaming. Especially if you've got a decent set of monitors. Nothing scares me more than playing resident evil threw my PA System at a high volume lol. And then just keep your internal sound card in your pc as backup.

A small pie will soon be eaten
Member
Since: Aug 26, 2004


Jan 29, 2010 08:07 pm

Quote:
Do I want the M-Audio Delta 1010LT? Does that have TRS in? Is it preamped? I can't find info confirming this.


No TRS but it has 2 pre-amps (XLR).

The rackmount version i think has TRS but that's quite a bit more expensive - better off with a mixer I'd say.

Administrator
Since: Apr 03, 2002


Jan 29, 2010 08:11 pm

I might be wrong here, but haven't we seen LOADS of threads over the years from peeps having problems with that dang 1010LT?

A small pie will soon be eaten
Member
Since: Aug 26, 2004


Jan 29, 2010 08:19 pm

Well I've got one and it's never failed me.

Any crap recordings I've done fall squarely on me :)

Used it with XP and 7 to date.


Administrator
Since: Apr 03, 2002


Jan 29, 2010 08:23 pm

Man, I could swear we've heard plenty of issues...I think mostly it's been regarding usability...there is some limitations on something when using the preamped inputs and not being able to use others or something weird...eh, memory fails me, I am 40+ ya know...

A small pie will soon be eaten
Member
Since: Aug 26, 2004


Jan 29, 2010 08:27 pm

I think there have been issues when using alongside another card.

It's always been fine for me but i do remember a few people running into troubles.

I think there was a period when there was no (or limited) Vista Support too.

Member
Since: Sep 30, 2009


Jan 29, 2010 09:09 pm

Ya, like i mentioned earlier M-Audio SUCKS about updating drivers. I'm still waiting for them to update the drivers on my UNO midi device for win7. >:O ah well. I like programing drums in more, but still it's nice to be able to fool around with those drum sounds, expecially now that i got an electronic and "twisted kit" expansion pack from toontrack.

Granted, the UNO isn't exactly their biggest priority but still, how much trouble can it be for them to rewrite the driver or whatever it is they do.

SM7b the Chuck Noris of Mic's
Contributor
Since: Jun 20, 2002


Jan 31, 2010 02:22 am

I've had a great relationship with M-audio. Never a problem, i've had my audiophile for 8 years and i had a 1010Lt that worked fine(fyi it's 24/96 and to be honest most people aren't using 192) . That said The mic pres on the 1010lt were finicky and i never used them , i had rca-1/4" ran from the card to the direct outs on my mixer . the line 6 stuff work very well for the $. Master, not to sound sinde but TRS are balanced inputs , TS are unbalanced. the Pro Fire 610 has everything you stated except it's not PCI. there aren't too many PCI cards that have built in pre's that are in your price range (and most of them have break out boxes) .

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