I've been lurking on LAU for a few months now and I've finally managed to come up with something worth asking:<br>I'm looking for an affordable external sound card for music production. What are your recommendations?
<br>Being a novice, I'm having trouble finding what I "need" (and I'm growing wary of google's pagerank system...) so I thought I'd query the real experts. ;-)<br><br>I try to keep my options open, but there are some things I prefer:
<br>-It should be a hell of a lot better than the crapy onboard AC'97 sound I use right now (SNAP-CRACKLE-POP)<br>-It should be external: USB or Firewire or otherwise are all OK (I'll be using it with my desktop now, but I plan on setting up a laptop for music some time)
<br>-It should be affordable: I can always make exceptions here (especially since I'm not very familiar with this type of hardware), but I'd prefer if it were around $200 USD or less.<br>-It should be *exceptionally* functional with Linux and JACK. (Naturally, this is best proven through experience)
<br>-Although the above should cover this, it ought to work with my Novation X-Station synthesizer (which already works great through USB with JACK)<br><br>I'd really appreciate any recommendations -- or blacklists (although ALSA's soundcard matrix usually faithful enough) -- of hardware to be used by a novice electronic musician.
<br><br>I try to be brief, so if I'm being too ambiguous just ask me for details!<br><br>Thanks,<br> -Lou<br>