Do I Even Need A Soundcard? Options

[humbug]

Hi there, I'm a newbie. I just threw away some money on an Edirol UA-30 USB audio interface which sucks and is WAYYY too noisy. I did a side by side test with running sound straight into my minijack (on a G4 Powerbook) and the sound was sooo much better.

So... why do I even need a soundcard? I've heard that M-Audio makes decent devices, but to me they look just like the cheap, plastic piece of crap I just bought. Is it just that Edirol sucks? Did I get a bum device? Are other devices that much better? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[kaboombahchuck]

It all depends on what kind of sound quality you want and how much you want to spend. If you like the quality of the standard sound card, then use it and save your money for other goods. Going USB with an external sound card will always leave you dissapionted.

[humbug]

thanks, kaboombahchuck

are firewire devices any better?

[Dave Bourke]

USB was originally designed for simple input devices like mice, computer keyboards, joysticks, etc. -- not for complex and fast I/O like audio.

My advice to all starting out is to save your money for a little bit longer and buy a Firewire or a PCI solution. You can't drive nails with a rubber hammer...

Regards.

[ourmanflinty]

Hmm usb v firewire v pci...well, laptop so usb v firewire..unless you got a pcmcia pci exp chassis. it's not cut n dried, usb can and does deliver good audio quality, ask apogee, they use it for the mini me, mini dac etc and you can't tell me they aint top-quaility by-which-all-others-can-be-measured. True they are only one way devices, ie mini me goes in but you can't monitor, and...if the bus is busy doing mouse midi dongle keyboard broadband modem etc etc then you run the risk of delays getting the info in and out on time, give the interface it's own bus and you have a good chance of success. Personally I hate usb since that poxy mbox usb crapped out on stage with a sosumi through the pa and 'usb too busy' on the screen as i was playing with plug-ins live. But if someone offered me a usb apogee cheap i'd consider it and be careful how i used it.

[CanadaRAM]

Humbug: Just as a guess it sounds like you need to do some investigation of the Edirol 's setup first before spending more money.

Main cause for poor noise performance is improper gain structure. Could it be that your levels going into the Edirol are too low, or that large amounts of gain is being made up at the wrong part of the chain?

We don't know what you are recording or what your signal chain is, so we can only guess.

Another cause of interference might be too much going on on the computer or the USB bus while you are recording. Worst case would be recording to a USB hard drive while an antivirus scan is going on in the background.... Try slimming your system down, detaching from the Internet and removing non-essential peripherals when recording.

The Edirol may possibly be defective, too. Contact your dealer for how to diagnose.

Thanks
Trevor
www.CanadaRAM.com