SBLive performance

[Hakim]

Hi all, my SbLive just kicked the bucket and I would really like your advice about which soundcard I should get to replace it (50-150$ range). I just do a little recording using Cakewalk - all I've really done so far is create the drum track in Fruityloops and export it to a wave file which I drop into track 1 in cakewalk...the other tracks I just do on my bass, guitar and mic into an amp which is lined into my SBLive.

I have noticed before that sometimes Cakewalk drops tracks and/or there is latency when i do more than a few tracks...is this because the soundcard can't handle it or is my machine too slow? (P3 733, 20gig, 128MB) Do any of you out there with SBLive do 8-16 simultaneous tracks without latency? What is the highest number of tracks you can record without latency?

Anything you have to say about your experience with the performance/limitations of the Live I would really love to hear!
Thanks

Kevin Druhan

[Styrerra]

I just tweaked the hell out of mine and it's down to 8ms

1: you don't need the dos drivers this will slow it down (along with windows start up time). Just uninstall SB from Add/remove and select the dos drivers.

2: You can Hardcode the IRQ it belongs to and set it to a multiple of 512 ( a Vcache hardset). [A little more advanced if you do not know what the system.ini is don't bother].

3: A third pary driver is located at http://come.to/sblive Although if you are a gamer you do not want these drivers

had no complaints lately since I tweaked here and there

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The Voice and The Drum: These are the only form of True Music
Everything Else is synthesized

Studio: MC505, Korg ER-1, Cubase VST, SB Platinum
Win 98, 600mhz, 758MBR[3x10 1x20]GB Hard Drives

[timstoel]

The SBLive has kept me going for a few years and put an album out the door and money in the pocket, but for serious use I wouldn't buy one. For your price range, just pick up an SBLive value unless you need the S/PDIF (I use the value). Buy a used one otherwise, usually found under 50.

Tim

[gshrub]

sound blaster cards seem to work ok if you can change the sampling rate
in your recording program to 48000hz.I use cakewalk guitar studio and the tracks would go out of sync when recording at 44100hz.

[JM350]

If you want to do recording leave the Soundblasters behind and get a real audio card, for just a few more dollars than your budget M-Audio ($160) and Echo ($200) make very decent stuff. I don't know too much about them but you might want to look at Hoontech as well.

[brzilian]

The SB Audigy is not a true 24bit card. It only plays back in 24bit. Recording is still only 16bit. Read the text on the website carefully.

[momus]

PLEASE CHECK OUT MY AUDIGY RELATED "WINDOWS MELTDOWN THREAD!!"

[pljblues]

Lava Lamp - A guy I knows uses his SB card for games, etc. and also has an M-audio card installed just for recording.

Brad R.

[JM350]

Yes, leave the SB in there for games and whatever you should be able to run two cards without conflict if you have things set right. If you are very serious about audio you should either keep the games and other non-audio to a bare minimum or have a computer just for recording.

[ozraves]

The M-Audio Audiophile can be had for $150 new if you shop around a little. I think it's the best thing going for people who only need two channels.
The M-Audio Audiosport Quattro may not be able to run at 96 kHz. You need to be careful with the specs. There was to be an Audiosport Duo that looked more promising to me as it promised 96 kHz operation. However, it appears to be vaporware as I don't see its page anymore on the at the company site.

[Comadivine2000]

Thanks for getting this out there cause I'm having the same problem.
I'm using Sonar,and just baught a 1.8 ghz Pentium 4 256 ram.

I'd be open to any suggestions anyone might have.

Feel free to email me.

-brian

[JFM6STRING]

Use the M-Audio Delta 2496 card. It can be had for around $150.00 and is the best thing out there for the money. I recently purchased one from Guitar Center and it cured all my latency problems and got rid of the all the noise associated with recording on Soundblaster. Also, it has midi hookups as well as digital and analog, (rca to rca). Good luck and keep the faith.

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JIMI MARTIN