Cubase compatible sound card

[ian c]

I was at the Steinberg presentation down at Scan today and it wetted my appetite to produce some music again. Im a casual user of Cubase version 5. My problem is I might not use cubase from one month to the next and EVERY time i come to use cubase i have to spend half an hour trying to configure my sound card, drivers etc .....

I recently invested in a decent Scan 3x system mainly for video editing but as i said i fancy a dabble at music again..... my system is based around an i7 processor, gigabyte motherboard, plenty of ram on the Windows 7 64bit operating system.

I dont have a dedicated sound card at present and here is where i need your help. ideally i would like an internal card under £100. this needs to be windows 7, 64 bit and Cubase 5 compatible. low latency would be good also easy to set up so i dont have to faff around for an hour every time i want to use cubase.

Suggestions please

[DDY]

There are dozens of cards which would satisfy your requirements, to narrow the choice down, what other features are you after? e.g. I/O requirements, interface (PCIe/PCI)...

Alternatively give ASIO4ALL a go, it's a software ASIO driver, it puts a bit of load on the CPU and the latency only goes down to about 10ms but it's good for light tasks. Also, make sure you close everything e.g. Internet browsers, Steam, Skype... before starting up Cubase because some applications can steal control of the audio device, the cause of many problems in my experience.

[ian c]

Hi DDY,

I Just want an OK sounding card with Cubase 5 and windows 7 compatible drivers. i had ASIO4ALL installed on my previous system.... it helped but wasn't 100 percent reliable.

As i said it was so frustrating trying to configure my system after not using Cubase for a while.

cheers.

[ian c]

also wondering how installing a card affects my warranty ? or would i have to have it installed at Scan ?

[Biscuit]

I dont think installing a card yourself does affect your warrenty however a lot of people i know who do various kinds of music production tend to use firewire external devices anyway.

Anything from M-Audio, Tascam, Focusrite, Motu etc etc should work with Cubase 5 once the drivers are updated. What are your requirements for IO?

[ian c]

I dont think installing a card yourself does affect your warrenty however a lot of people i know who do various kinds of music production tend to use firewire external devices anyway.

Anything from M-Audio, Tascam, Focusrite, Motu etc etc should work with Cubase 5 once the drivers are updated. What are your requirements for IO?

IO ? do you mean midi ?

also my budget is £100 max.

[Biscuit]

nooo i mean inputs and outputs. For example 2 x 1/4" Jack?

[ian c]

nooo i mean inputs and outputs. For example 2 x 1/4" Jack?

With my previous system my synths were run through a behringer mixer to the 3.5mm jack on my pc.

These were recorded in cubase alongside the soft synths. to that end midi was never a requirement.

As i keep stressing, this was not an ideal situation as i had to re -configure my system every time i opened up cubase and invariably this would take up to half an hour.

I repeat i want a simple system to record live inputs along with soft synths in Cubase 5 on the Windows 7 64 bit OS.


Anyone ?

Thanks :-)

[Biscuit]

Yes but what im asking is what kind of inputs do you need, just plain old line level or do you need mic inputs?

How many outputs do you need, just those for your speakers or do you plan on expanding?

Im trying to get a better understanding of what your requirements are now and for the future so i can hunt down the best thing to fit the bill.

[ian c]

i think just line level. i dont need a mic input. at present i monitor on behringer ms40's via the speaker out on the built in sound card.

[DDY]

In that case you can get away with anything with its own ASIO driver, this could be something as simple and cheap as the ASUS Xonar DS for £30. Although most soundcards under £100 are targeted at the gamer market they normally have ASIO drivers and work well with DAW software, I've had good experiences with Creative cards so I could recommend those.

As for cards built for musicians, I’ve had good experiences with EMU and M-Audio products. Again, since you don’t have any specific requirements you could go wild, although I would suggest something reasonably new so you get driver updates when new OS'es are released.

[Biscuit]

Entry level EMU (Creative Pro) and Audiophile (M-Audio) Cards

http://www.studiospares.com/audio-in...?source=215_74

http://www.absolutemusic.co.uk/store...gle%2BShopping

Both have windows 7 drivers

[ian c]

thanks for your suggestions guys .....

i was talking to someone today who highly recommends this .....

http://www.soundware.co.uk/sc/produc...io%20Interface


what do you think ?

[Biscuit]

yeah nothing wrong with that but it is external and over your budget ^^

The models i have posted are well supported and widely used for people just getting into the lower end. Infact i think i had the EMU when i was going to start some music production

[DDY]

I reckon you get better bang for your buck if you go internal PCI or PCIe.

Also FYI, there are three versions of the EMU 0404!

PCIe (2010) - Available everywhere under £100
USB (2006) - Can still find new in few places £100+
PCI (2004) - Good luck finding one new!

[Biscuit]

I reckon you get better bang for your buck if you go internal PCI or PCIe.

Also FYI, there are three versions of the EMU 0404!

PCIe (2010) - Available everywhere under £100
USB (2006) - Can still find new in few places £100+
PCI (2004) - Good luck finding one new!

Good point, mine will have been the PCI one. Probs not much between them other than a bridge though i suspect?