ReRe: [linux-audio-user] Demudi looking good, soundcard advice?

[MarC]

I was looking also for a sound card for audio, well supported in Linux 
(specially under Demudi),
so I really apreciated your comments.

However I've got some more questions which I state below:

Emiliano Grilli wrote:

>giovedì, 14 ottobre 2004 alle 12:47:25, Alejandro Lopez ha scritto:
> 
>  
>
>>The only other thing is I may need to buy a decent soundcard for this 
>>PC. It should have a GM synth (nothing special since I guess I'll be 
>>using soft synths anyway but I don't want to run a synth just to write 
>>a couple of arrangements), one stereo output and one stereo input both 
>>with good overall audio quality. Seemingly, the current trend is 
>>towards either USB 2.0, firewire or PCI. A colleague has just told me 
>>that USB 2.0 is supported by the Linux kernel starting from the latest 
>>version (2.6 I think?) only. Since music distributions are based on 
>>other distributions, chances are that they now run the 2.4 kernel or 
>>maybe older. Does that make sense or am I talking complete b*ll*cks? 
>>Also, this friend has heard about drops happening with audio over USB, 
>>but apparently this was on a Mac and the USB device was a hard disk 
>>rather than a soundcard. Still, he seems to think that USB 2.0 is not 
>>as good option as firewire for audio. (Which reminds me of SCSI vs IDE 
>>drives for audio a few years back, yes SCSI was the serious option for 
>>a couple of years but it was an 80% more expensive as well, and shortly 
>>afterwards IDE started to go "fast enough" and cheaper.) Is firewire 
>>better? Is it more expensive? Also, how does it compare to PCI? Lastly, 
>>if any of you has bought a soundcard (recently so the card is still in 
>>production) which is reasonably similar to what I need (wouldn't mind 
>>if it's slightly better, say 4 mono inputs and 4 mono outputs or 
>>something) and has succeed with having it running under a Linux based 
>>music studio, I'd be grateful if you drop a line.
>>    
>>
>
>As far as I know firewire based audio cards still aren't supported by ALSA,
>and USB devices aren't that good, especially with jack (a sound server
>which you probably *want* to run ;)
>
>Also onboard synths are difficult to find nowadays on pro or semi-pro
>hardware, for this is better to stick to an hw external expander or a
>soft-synth like qsynth or timidity.
>
>Among PCI cards, one of the best value for price is IMHO the m-audio
>audiophile 24/96, which in europe you can find at around 100 eur. It is a
>pure stereo card based on the well supported envy24 chip, it has s/pdif
>I/O, analog I/O and MIDI I/O :
>
>http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html
>
>I don't owe one, but I have recommended it to a pair of friends and they
>seem to have liked it :)
>  
>
>As for 4 I/O, the only one I know is the m-audio delta 44 (around 155 euro
>in europe, but *without* s/pdif and MIDI):
>
>http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta44-main.html
>
>the delta 66 is the same as the 44 but with s/pdif (~ 190 euro).
>
>Then, the cheapest (of which I'm aware of) 8 I/O interface is the staudio
>dsp2000 c-port (around 400 euro in EU):
>
>http://www.staudio.com/products/dsp2000.html
>
>
>  
>
I must say first that I'm an ignorant about technical sound issues (but 
I have some knowledge about electronics and spectral analysis so I 
should be able to learn it some day...). This explains the nonesenses 
and atrocities that I may have written below....

For my case, I guess that I should try Delta 44 as I don't use digital I/O.

Now I'm ""working"" with a Creative Audigy card and I want to buy a new 
one basically because Audigy doesn't allow realtime monitoring through 
jack (the latency is at least 45ms and for me is too much) and because I 
want to have a good dynamic response to record my acoustic guitar (now 
it saturates the input or I must record at a low volume with a lot of 
noise).

This could be a good option for what I'm searching for? Should I buy any 
other external hardware to record acoustic guitar without saturating the 
input? I'm always affraid of external mixers or amplifiers as they are 
very expensive and add noise to my signal. Anyone can help me destroy 
this myth?

[for the electric guitar I currently use an expression pedal which 
outputs "line level" -> it goes through a Red Box Pro (DI) -> I connect 
it to the "mic input" but for the acoustic guitar I only have a mic 
output and I cannot go through the red box...]

And finally, 24 bits are enough?I guess it may influence in the range of 
different volumes that you can record (-> to solve the saturation 
problems with my records of acoustic guitar)

great thanks in advance!