Sound card question (newbie)

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cjnelson79
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Sound card question (newbie)

Post by cjnelson79 » Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:25 pm

I am just getting started with audacity and am first looking into proper equipment. First of all, my computer still has the stock sound card (high definition audio device) which I know isn't good. My question is if when I buy a mic preamp, do I now have a newer sound card for the audio to be processed with or do I need to buy both a preamp and a new sound card?

kozikowski
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Re: Sound card question (newbie)

Post by kozikowski » Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:28 am

You can use a UCA-202 between the mixer or preamp and the computer.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/ ... Lenovo.jpg

It does very well and it's usually far better than built-in sound cards.

This is under re-write, so ignore the typos and bad sentences.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/wind ... rding.html

Koz

cjnelson79
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Re: Sound card question (newbie)

Post by cjnelson79 » Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:53 am

I mean for example If I only have a condenser mic and the m audio duo preamp. Are those two things enough?

cjnelson79
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Re: Sound card question (newbie)

Post by cjnelson79 » Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:34 am

Or in other words does the sound card inside the m audio preamp bypass the pc internal sound card?

cjnelson79
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Re: Sound card question (newbie)

Post by cjnelson79 » Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:30 pm

Wait I think I just discovered the m audio duo has just a stand alone adc/dac converter so that isn't what I need.

bgravato
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Re: Sound card question (newbie)

Post by bgravato » Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:04 am

Depends on what kind of preamp you buy.

If it's a preamp with USB (or firewire) connection then the soundcard is bypassed.

If you buy a preamp that has only analog output, then you'll need to connect it to the line-in of the computer's soundcard.

If you haven't bought the preamp yet, I'd recommend buying one with usb interface, such as the ART USB Dual Pre. You'll find quite a lot of reviews of many devices on this topic: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

If you already have a preamp, that doesn't have a digital connection, then you could consider buying a device such as the UCA-202. Again have a look at the above mentioned topic for reviews.
Include as much details as you can in your post (Audacity version, Operating System, Equipment used, etc).
Please post your question in the appropriate forum (regarding audacity version and operating system).

cjnelson79
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Re: Sound card question (newbie)

Post by cjnelson79 » Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:03 pm

Thanks. I have Windows 7 64-bit. I'm not seeing support for this OS from the art dual pre. Do you know which usb preamps work well with Windows 7 64-bit?

bgravato
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Re: Sound card question (newbie)

Post by bgravato » Tue Jan 24, 2012 4:33 pm

cjnelson79 wrote:Thanks. I have Windows 7 64-bit. I'm not seeing support for this OS from the art dual pre. Do you know which usb preamps work well with Windows 7 64-bit?
I don't use Windows, so I can't answer that question sorry.
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