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Laptop internal soundcards vs bus-powered USB soundcards


Guest petesasqwax

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Guest petesasqwax

I just grabbed an insane deal on an i5 laptop that I want to use for making beats in the box (no external recording or effects). It use to be that the integrated internal soundcards were shit - is that the case?

Also, has anyone got any experience of bus-powered USB souncards? I'm looking at the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or maybe Solo - anyone used them?

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In my head, I feel like if you really are connecting no peripherals (other than headphones) then what's the point of a better performing soundcard? Even if you are playing virtual instruments on the laptop keyboard then assuming you are not capturing some amazing button mashing skills you'll probably edit / quantise anyway?

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Guest petesasqwax

That's exactly what I thought too, man, but wasn't 100% whether it would be an issue if I was using VST instruments and would need a soundcard to process them.

If I do need one there seem to be a load of Edirol UA 25s on eBay for very little money - anyone used one?

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In my head, I feel like if you really are connecting no peripherals (other than headphones) then what's the point of a better performing soundcard? Even if you are playing virtual instruments on the laptop keyboard then assuming you are not capturing some amazing button mashing skills you'll probably edit / quantise anyway?

 

I've always assumed the same thing, without knowing. I don't think a soundcard adds any additional processing power, and that is was would be used for VST instruments and the like. I always assumed the soundcard was solely for recording and converting the analog signal to a digital file (and also converting digital to analog output for playback.)

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The problems with internal soundcards are usually latency and ground loops. The latter won't be a problem with headphones, and the former can be mitigated somewhat using ASIO4ALL.

 

Of course it won't sound as good as a real soundcard, but if you're just making beats on the go and not trying to mixdown or master you'll be fine.

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I don't know about your computer in particular mate, but my own personal findings are this...

 

I've got 4 1/2 year old MacBook Pro which as pretty decent/useable soundcard fitted. But, when I plug in my NI or Echo (in particular) interface, I can here the difference. It's not night and day, but the difference is there and especially when it comes down to getting a good overall balance for the sound (I wouldn't go as far as to call it mixing), I much prefer the external soundcard. If it sounds good with the internal it's more of a lottery how it wil sound in many different situations/setups, if it sound right through my Echo, there's much more chance of it sounding ok everywhere.

 

The only other thing, is my computer CPU definitely works more efficiently with the external than internal sound card.

 

A UA-25 was my first interface and it was very good in all ways except it was USB 1.1 and it's inherent latency per sample rate was not up to everything I've had since.

 

In your situation, I probably try the laptop with the internal first and then possibly get one of those small modern output only interfaces (like that lttle Traktor 2 channel thing NI make), for the slightly better sound and efficiency (both pad latency and CPU strain).

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If you are just working internally, there is no difference whatsoever...

As Rock Well noted there are caveats

 

1 Although the files you create will be exactly the same, the external card may have a higher headroom and better D/A, this could allow you to achieve better mix down, which could lead to you mix downs sounding good across a wider range of playback devices (Notice the could here, much like shitbox speakers, some engineers will use shitbox D/A as reference too)

If you are not doing any critical mix down work, or indeed finishing off elsewhere ignore no 1 entirely (Note, everything i do right now is done on Airbook with built in speakers hahaha, long story, my bass is a bit all over the place, besides that, fine)

 

2 When using an internal card with ASIO4ALL vs a USB unit with native ASIO driver, you may experience better performance with the external due to the fact that ASIO4ALL is just wrapping a WDM driver in to an ASIO package, however, some external USB interfaces have very poor drivers anyway, or in the case of some chipsets, just poor hardware (Notably for example anything by Tascam tended to run better on ASIO4ALL than it did on it's native ASIO driver)

OK, in this case, you have bought what i would assume is a fairly modern i5 with an up to date Windows, so personally i would say ignore point 2, run it in WASAPI, chances are you are going to get low enough latency to finger drum, and the performance hit is very very small using WASAPI (Native MS Windows driver)

 

 

I am in the camp of "You are wasting money on a cheap USB interface" or should say was, since the release of the Audients for about £100, everything has changed, these are no longer simple generic (Rebrand this piece of shit however you want, and sell them) Audient changed the game up entirely, their particular cheap crap, while performing in terms of latency the same as every other cheap piece of crap, actually has an extremely nice Audient Pre.

Beyond one of their devices (For the pre) i am still in the camp of you are wasting your money, unless you need a specific device for a very specific need, built ins are not so far behind a cheap crap interface that they warrant purchasing, and a quality interface is not so much further up the pricing ladder, with a cheap device, you will want to upgrade, with something like an RME Babyface or Babyface Pro, you will not want to upgrade, for a long time, if ever, with the extra cost not only comes immense build quality, unbelievable customer support (Yep still making lowest latency drivers for latest OS, for 15 year old interfaces hahahaha), but also the best drivers in the business, lowest latency anywhere.

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Guest petesasqwax

Yeah, that's what I assumed - it won't be doing any of the heavy lifting, I shouldn't imagine, although I may just get a USB soundcard if I see one cheap enough. Seems strange that latency would be an issue more for an integrated piece of hardware rather than one attached via a cable, but I appreciate it's related to the quality of the item in question.

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I'm thinking about a good soundcard sold cheaply, not a cheap soundcard per se, obviously. For example, a factory refurbished Scarlett 2i2 is 80 when bought direct from Focusrite, although I'm possibly more likely to go for a little NI one - maybe even one I can use with DVS if I get a rush of blood to the head ;)

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Seems strange that latency would be an issue more for an integrated piece of hardware rather than one attached via a cable, but I appreciate it's related to the quality of the item in question.

 

I assume (no real knowledge happening here), every audio interface has software drivers of one quality or another wherever it is. I went from a USB 1.1 Edirol, to a USB 2.0 NI, to a FW Echo one and as the connection got better the latency dropped. Then I got a newer NI one, still on USB 2.0 and the latency dropped a good margin below the FW interface, because of more efficient drivers apparently.

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That's the only thing I can think that might take relative load off the CPU. Crap drivers could make your CPU work harder, though I could be talking bollox - perhaps only practically meaningful at low latencies. Not sure any audio stuff is particularly taxing for modern CPUs.

RME are definitely the don daddies at drivers. That kind of low level programming requires decent skillz.

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If I were going to be using it for major work, an RME Babyface or something similar might be justified, but as I've got the laptop for a stupidly cheap price (£180 for a HP i5) and although that doesn't account for the additional RAM I'll put in it (it only ships with 4GB) it's still difficult to warrant spending more for the soundcard than I paid for the laptop. That said, if I'm buying a soundcard for it, I don't fancy buying a shit one...

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1 an RME is near enough for life haha said laptop is not

2 a couple of factors besides drivers do come in to play, the bus chipset is important, for instance on a ton of firewire interfaces they bail at low latencies on anything but a toshiba chipset, your laptop will be hit n miss on the USB ports, you will have try each port, even there is three, they could all be shared, one could be shared with the webcam or mousepad, all of these things can affect low latency, a classic example was the fad for gaming mice, they are great performance for games, share it with an audio interface, shit city, the problem is that the usb is always being scanned by the computer to see if any changes have happened, clogging bandwidth (ignore the bullshit usb bandwidth specs, they are burst and theoretical) so with the best drivers in the world, you are still on usb.

 

A small tip i keep for getting people set up with laptops, interface tech is important, i get people to buy old gen 1 i7 13" lenovo laptops, they are pretty slow, but those bitches have express card, so you can run an old express card RME (Multuface/Digiface/RPM) latency is half that of RME own USB drivers (lowest latency usb available)

I have one loaded with an RPM (best dvs interface ever made)

 

It is all pretty much a crap shoot, but the reason i always recommend RME is not only their drivers, but their hardware uses a custom FPGA set up, so it taxes the computer zero.

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Guest petesasqwax

Let's pretend that I don't want to spend in the region of 3x what I paid for the laptop, though - a Traktor Audio 2 is looking like it might be a good option. Anyone used one?

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Guest petesasqwax

I'm a massive fan of MOTU interfaces. I had an 828 for years and loved the shit out of that thing. I'd still be using it now if something hadn't happened with it that stopped my PC being able to communicate with it. I'll go have a hunt. Wonder how much He-Man stuff shows up if I just put MOTU into the eBay search field...

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Firewire works on PC, but you need a firewire port, in fact firewire works on more PCs than Macs, because even though they invented it, they just removed it from their hardware, lots of people still using firewire on PC.

But that is beside the point anyway haha, old MOTU are either firewire or PCI extension

Mid age MOTU are firewire/PCI extension or USB

Newer MOTU are Hybrid (USB and firewire) or PCI extension

Latest MOTU Hybrid or AVB (They still have some PCI extensions stuff, but looks like they are last of line)

 

If you keep looking, you will pick up a microbook in the Focusrite price range you were looking at, and it is a way way more robust device than that Focusrite (I want to say crap, knowing that it is crap, but there are some Focusrite fans here, never trust any company that farms out software/driver development, when the third party says no, with no interaction or involvement in users, do you think that pans out well, just go look at Liquid Mix grrrrrrrr, add in to this a completely generic device, with generic pres, and then slap the Focusrite brand on it, aaaaaaah and we wonder why nobody trusts british developers anymore)

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All the initial issues I had with MOTU stemmed from Firewire cards - learning the hard way that only FW cards with TI chips make the MOTU happy! Once that was over it was perfect until it just stopped recognising it, at which point I tried everything to make it work again to ultimately no avail. I'll keep an eye out for a USB MOTU card definitely (my laptop doesn't come with FW ports, I'm pretty certain but will obviously check when it arrives). For the time being I could always use my M-Audio Conectiv :d

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I believe Saint used to make beats and even do club gigs playing off his internal soundcard. So unless you are recording in you should be good. But it seems like most every serious producer uses one. If you do get one Apogee seems to be the best Mac choice. I use one. Focusrite is supposed to be very good too tho.

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So I re-examined the spec of the laptop and it has 1394a... Also there's an 828 and an 896 on eBay for 50 each which I'm sorely tempted to invest in to replace my Scarlett (which I like, but don't quite love like I did my MOTU).

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