Just picked up a Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro mixer. Now, I need a soundcard to plug it into! All I want to do is record a guitar track or two using an SM57 (anyone have one for sale?) & use them with computer-based drums. Maybe some vocals. What soundcards do you recommend? Lavely
I've been using the Aardvark Q10 Direct Pro for the last year or so and I love it! BTW, thinking that you only want to record a track or two at a time................. funny, that's always how it starts. BC
well the current EMU drivers work well with Cubase (and Cubasis VST is bundled with the card), as is Steinberg's Wavelab lite. However with wavelab lite, it doesn't use the ASIO drivers, only WDM, so you're limited to 24/48 with, until later in the fall with some new drivers called PowerFX that may allow 24/96 or 24/192 to happen under WDM... Also, some quirks with some Sony sw (acid 4 pro, etc.) are being worked out at the higher resolutions, but other than that the EMU drivers work with most any thing, plus you can get the sampler stuff for like $99 more ($600 retail or so) with the best sounds EMU ever made or had.
I'm learning about sound cards myself. Here's what I learned. Since you can use the pres in your mackie board, you wont really need any sound card/interface with pres built into it.you can just get a unity gain interface.I chose the Aardvark Direct Pro LX6 because it got good marks from people I know for sonic quality and connects through PCI. Plus I already have great mic pres,so all I need the card to do is act as a balanced signal pathway into my Computer.I will upgrade to the Motu 2408 mark3 in a few months as I change over from using Adats. THe guy I buy products from at sweetwater (Dan) let me know about interfaces in the $3 to $4 hundred range. I asked about the M Audio stuff and he recommended the Aardvark interfaces over it.In particular, he recommended the direct pro LX6.He feels that there is less latency in monitoring and the fiedlity of the aardvark is better compared to the M Audio Delta 44, Delta 66, and Delta 410 that I was looking at. Also, you need to consider your PC's capabilities as far as connectivity. If you buy a interface that connects to your computers board, that might be cool but you need to set up the PC so there isn't any conflict with the sound card that's already in there. There are also interfaces that will connect via firewire and USB. You should consider what type of connection is best for you
You can also get a M-Audio 2496 card. It is only $150, and you can use the pres from your Mackie. It is a good sounding card for exactly what you are looking to do, and also comes bundled with recording software (usually Cubase lite version). I have a Mackie 1402, and one of these in a PC, and it does a fine job for just messing around. B
