USB interface question

[Oransky]

Hi
I need a simple help for finding a right solution - which external sound card to buy.

I never had a deal with such USB stuff before.

I have a laptop with USB in, and nothing else. I have only $100, not more in my budget for a simplest (2X2) audio interface to plug my guitar in laptop for processing.
Need no noisy results (that may occur with 16 bit AD converters when I will need to process guitar sound with software through compressor with high gains or so).
I keep my eye on M-Audio Transit (24 bit, $99) and cant find nothing more :confused:
If this device working with no clicks/bugs, I should get it. Pity I cannot try it before I will buy.

Can you give me any advises?

Regards

[ivanoff]

I have M-Audio Omni studio on Delta 66 and one M-Audio Delta 44.
No problems, both work fine.
But they are PCI cards, no usb cards
Ivanoff

[Oransky]

Yes. I used M-audio PCI card on my computer too before (Delta 1010 LT) and it worked ok. But this time I must use only USB card

[Bill Park]

You got no money. You want the best solution for no money? Get a 1/4" female to 1/8" male adapter cable. Buy one (under $10) and use the sound card in your laptop. There is nothing to be gained in buying a cheap interface, the built in will usually sound as good and you already own it.

With the money that you save, buy the Radial Dragster which will allow you to adjust the impedance loading on your guitar pickups. They are about $50.

[jcgriggs]

If it is just for guitar, what about something like this:

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Behringer-Guitar-Link-UCG102?sku=241228

Hope this helps,
John

[Richard Rupert]

I've got one of these, and it works well:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Edirol-UA-1D-USB-audio-interface_W0QQitemZ330381063284QQcmdZViewItemQQptZ LH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item4cec3ef474

[Oransky]

You got no money. You want the best solution for no money? ...use the sound card in your laptop. There is nothing to be gained in buying a cheap interface, the built in will usually sound as good and you already own it.


Well... In my laptop there is Realtek HD Audio on-board which DOES NOT ALLOW low latency path of the processing signal. I have to use laptop as a signal processor for my guitar, real-time of course (as i used my desktop computer before but with pci cards with asio).



With the money that you save, buy the Radial Dragster which will allow you to adjust the impedance loading on your guitar pickups. They are about $50.

i have the output of the dry guitar sound going out of Roland guitar MIDI synth, so its impedance is ok for next path.
well, so all I need is a fine conversion just for guitar signal. And there cannot be a talk about using on-board laptop's soud card:(

Regards

[Oransky]

I've got one of these, and it works well:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Edirol-UA-1D-USB-audio-interface_W0QQitemZ330381063284QQcmdZViewItemQQptZ LH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item4cec3ef474

Richard, I wonder if its 16 bit conversion will allow to have undistorted guitar signal that riches its floor about -60 db, while still has to be sustained with digital compressor! I think I should use not less then 20 bit AD.

Thanx

[Oransky]

If it is just for guitar, what about something like this:

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Behringer-Guitar-Link-UCG102?sku=241228

Hope this helps,
John

First, I had interested with this but alas, this 16 bit conversion warns me about that dirty sound of 1996 soundcards tested about a floor of theirs dynamic range.

Regards

[Bob L]

16 bits for guitar is no problem... in fact... I still do many complete sessions at 16 bits 44.1k and the end results can be stunning, at least in SAWStudio. :)

Bob L

[Bill Park]

Well... In my laptop there is Realtek HD Audio on-board which DOES NOT ALLOW low latency path of the processing signal. I have to use laptop as a signal processor for my guitar, real-time of course (as i used my desktop computer before but with pci cards with asio).
Regards

Try reading this:

http://www.mslinn.com/index.jsp?sites/mike/bear/audio.html

scroll down to the headline "ASIO driver" should solve your problem. The author says:
"I downloaded the free ASIO drivers from asio4all.com. After configuring the ASIO4ALL driver and telling Cubase to use it, latency was no longer noticable. Here is the configuration panel for ASIO4ALL showing the setup I used:"

[Richard Rupert]

Richard, I wonder if its 16 bit conversion will allow to have undistorted guitar signal that riches its floor about -60 db, while still has to be sustained with digital compressor! I think I should use not less then 20 bit AD.

Thanx
Yes, it is 16 bit, but very quiet. However, even with ASIO4ALL I could not get low latency performance.

Also, for what it's worth, I just bought a new HP laptop and tried to record two track using the onboard sound. It's horrible; my previous HP had good sound, but for some reason when I record using the on board audio on this new computer (a ProBook 4510s) I get a "watery" distorted sound. I don't know why. I will have to try the Edirol to see if that clears up the situation...

[Bill Park]

....when I record using the on board audio on this new computer (a ProBook 4510s) I get a "watery" distorted sound. ...

Is it possible that the on board mics are being merged with the signal, or that the output is being looped back into the input?

also, with a low budget notebook like that which promises the world, would things improve if you disabled a few things running in the background?

[Oransky]

16 bits for guitar is no problem... in fact... I still do many complete sessions at 16 bits 44.1k and the end results can be stunning, at least in SAWStudio. :)

Bob L

Ok, this is the truth what you say.
But somewhere in the end of my certainty I should prefer to use 24 bits if money may allow it. As I said, with my need of those crazy compress-sustain going down to -60 db algorithms 16 conversion may be risky.

Of course, if compressor is placed before AD converters, there will be no any uncertainty in fine result in the end. But then I need good analog compressor to be in my gear which complicates my setup for live repetitions/shows with a group.

Thanx

[Oransky]

I have tried ASIO4ALL but the latency is too big, tried all variants of settings. The time of delay is not less 40 ms. I wonder if laptop's proc 2.13 Ghz can't do the more. And internal sound card is so noisy, even if I mute all input sources.

[DominicPerry]

Yura,

Sorry, I only have bad news for you.
1. All internal laptop interfaces will have problems with latency. It's not a problem with the spped of the CPU.
2. All cheap USB interfaces will be rubbish, regardless of 16 or 24 bit. Cheap interfaces generally will not have good audio quality and will sound noisy. They also tend to have poor drivers.
3. Even expensive USB interfaces struggle to get low latency. Probably only the RME Fireface UC is any good in this regard and it is very expensive.

The good news is that there are many cheap Firewire interfaces which will provide low-latency and good sound quality. Things like the Echo Audiofire 2 and 4. But you will need a Firewire interface.

I have searched for good USB interfaces for a long time to go with my Asus Eee. I have only found two, and I tried many. Sound Devices USB Pre sounds very good, but the drivers are unreliable and won't get low latency. And very expensive. And the RME Fireface UC, which I haven't tried but I am confident will work well.

The easiest route is to get a Firewire interface.
The alternative is to use a small external mixer and monitor from that and then use an M-Audio Transit as the interface, if your onboard soundcard is too noisy. I had a Transit and it was surprisingly good quality but the latency is high so you need the external mixer.

Dominic

[Oransky]

Dominic,

thanks a lot for information.
btw all I tried with this laptop & asio setup this day till now was Sawstudio (live mode). the latency was too big. but when I loaded another program, Guitar Rig, it allowed much more fine result with ASIO4all. This means that my goal is reachable principally.


Yura,

...The alternative is to use a small external mixer and monitor from that and then use an M-Audio Transit as the interface, if your onboard soundcard is too noisy. I had a Transit and it was surprisingly good quality but the latency is high so you need the external mixer.

Dominic

But I don't understand what do you mean saying that ... the external mixer will help with high latency?

And does not USB interface reach small enough latency as non USB interfaces do? I could be happy with 4 ms if that is possible.

And btw, you say with Transit latency is high - did you try it with SS only? If so, this corresponds to what I got. SAW works some different way with buffers unlike other processing software.

[Bob L]

Be careful with SAWStudio using any latency causing plugins.... they will cause the latency to be added into the overall latency as SAWStudio auto compensates for the plugins withheld buffers.

So... test without plugins first... note that if you have any plugins adding latency, in SAWStudio, the Buffer Size Change icon will appear in the upper left corner of the main titlebar...

Bob L

[Ian Alexander]

Dominic,

But I don't understand what do you mean saying that ... the external mixer will help with high latency?

This means that if you use an external analog mixer to monitor the output of SS and the input that's being recorded, you'll have no latency. In that case, the latency of the sound card will not matter.

[Oransky]

This means that if you use an external analog mixer to monitor the output of SS and the input that's being recorded, you'll have no latency. In that case, the latency of the sound card will not matter.

Thanks, now this is understood. So this setup is not for my task anyway.

[Oransky]

So... test without plugins first... note that if you have any plugins adding latency, in SAWStudio, the Buffer Size Change icon will appear in the upper left corner of the main titlebar...

Bob L

Yes I see that

Thanks

[Richard Rupert]

Is it possible that the on board mics are being merged with the signal, or that the output is being looped back into the input?

also, with a low budget notebook like that which promises the world, would things improve if you disabled a few things running in the background?
You know, I never considered the possibility of the on-board mic merging... my previous laptop did not have an on-board mic and worked fine with the set I've been using. I've been plugging an AKG 414 into a small Mackie mixer, then going into the mic input on the front of the laptop. Perhaps it's NOT canceling the on-board mic... wouldn't that be interesting? I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the tip. I'll post if I find anything awry.

I just remembered that using the on-board mic alone sounds watery too... maybe it's just REALLY crappy and you're on to something!

[Ian Alexander]

You know, I never considered the possibility of the on-board mic merging... my previous laptop did not have an on-board mic and worked fine with the set I've been using. I've been plugging an AKG 414 into a small Mackie mixer, then going into the mic input on the front of the laptop. Perhaps it's NOT canceling the on-board mic... wouldn't that be interesting? I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the tip. I'll post if I find anything awry.

I just remembered that using the on-board mic alone sounds watery too... maybe it's just REALLY crappy and you're on to something!
Does the laptop have a line in? Might be preferable to a mic input.

Also, if you're running Win XP, right-click the speaker icon in the system tray (lower right corner of the screen.) Choose Open Volume Control. If necessary, under Options, choose Advanced. That should show what's hot, what's not, and what's muted. Try different combinations of level from the mackie and on the XP Volume Control. There may be a sweet spot in terms of SNR, FR, etc.

I had an HP desktop once that had a reverb on the sound card output by default. That gave me a brief moment of angina once, since I'd already sent the file to the client.

[Bill Park]

I had an HP desktop once that had a reverb on the sound card output by default. ...

I forgot about that!... on-board effects could be another part of the problem.

[Richard Rupert]

Does the laptop have a line in? Might be preferable to a mic input.

Also, if you're running Win XP, right-click the speaker icon in the system tray (lower right corner of the screen.) Choose Open Volume Control. If necessary, under Options, choose Advanced. That should show what's hot, what's not, and what's muted. Try different combinations of level from the mackie and on the XP Volume Control. There may be a sweet spot in terms of SNR, FR, etc.

I had an HP desktop once that had a reverb on the sound card output by default. That gave me a brief moment of angina once, since I'd already sent the file to the client.

No line in... only mic in. But I found the problem. The on-board sound is "Soundmax". I opened the Soundmax "Control Panel" (accessible in Windows "Control Panel"-- are they out of names for these things or what??) for it and found there are three "microphone enhancements" options (and not one was endorsed by Dave Labrecque). The factory selected one was "Voice Recording", so I disabled it by selecting "No Filtering" (the third option being "Speaker Phone"). That cleared it up nicely. And to be even MORE clear, "Voice Recording" made the audio "watery" with just voice too. What's up with these "features" anyway? :confused:

Thanks to Ian and Bill for pointing me in the right direction.

[Oransky]

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/FCA202.aspx

If to compare to USB things the FW has only one small minus - I have to supply it with power adapter.

It costs $150 here now and promises all I need at once (for two audio for input). So I ordered it and will use it tomorrow!

I have a laptop of name "Nautilus", no any manual for it, given me from my bro. Found a lot of sockets on it and FW as well recently:).
there is as well "audio in" socket additionally except for "mic in" (and headphones", "front", "surround", "center"). But I can use only "mic in" for input signal and hadn't found how to use that "audio in". Fortunately, soon I will need no any one of those audio sockets to use.