You said your Creative Soundblaster worked well? I have found Creative to be one of the best sound card manufactures.

I do not have experience with this particular card, but it is one I'd be willing to buy when I get the money.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Newegg.com - Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Newegg.com - Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card[/]

You can always read the reviews on Newegg's website. They often have very up-to-date hardware.

Plus it has ports that fit in the front expansion bay of you're computer, very useful.

akrasia, post: 350923 wrote: Hey all... Here's my situation...

Looking to get a new desktop and the last hangup is a soundcare/interface...

I have nice mics and headphones, good mixer, use Adobe Audition primarily, but soundcards have been kicking my arse.

I've recorded perfectly fine tracks most of the decade by plugging into an old Creative Soundblaster. (akrasia.bandcamp.com for samples) It was simple and it worked. Then it kicked the bucket. Picked up the M-Audio Rev 5.1 and was unable to use it for recording at all as the drivers would not let me do both recording and monitoring at the same time. That sucked. Then I picked up a Lexicon LAMBDA which opened up a whole world of grief. Been doing this for years, but I'm the guy in the band who Doesn't Do the sound engineering. Recording, mixing, all of that I can do. Plugging boxes into boxes with wires isn't my bag.
In a perfect world, someone has some good thoughts on simple, quality soundcard solutions for a non-techie that just wants to be able to press a button and start recording. I've poked around the Google and Forums, but most of what I've found extolls the virtues of the latest hardware from 2004.

Help?
Thanks everyone :^)
bill AT akrasia DOT com

So nice mics, headphones, mixer....might be helpful if you listed your existing equipment and computer/OS you're thinking of getting and then maybe a budget for a decent interface.
Also how many tracks or channels you think you want to record at a time.

Whatever you do, just make sure it's a breakout box. Internal cards only achieve the best noise performance with a good motherboard. Of course people have hangups about firewire or usb, they both have flaws but provide functionality (unless it's bad usb).

corl45, post: 350932 wrote: You said your Creative Soundblaster worked well? I have found Creative to be one of the best sound card manufactures.

I do not have experience with this particular card, but it is one I'd be willing to buy when I get the money.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Newegg.com - Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card[/]="http://www.newegg.c…"]Newegg.com - Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card[/]

You can always read the reviews on Newegg's website. They often have very up-to-date hardware.

Plus it has ports that fit in the front expansion bay of you're computer, very useful.

That really surprises me ! In my own experience I found Creative cards being the worst I came through! They might be very good sound cards in the real meaning of it, they may be Ok for gaming and listening to a DVD if you don't have an external surround receiver, but I find them not good at all as a recording interface.
My personal "best buy" for recording is the Phase-xx series from Terratec. They only do A/D and D/A, but they do it extremely well. Unfortunately, these products seem discontinued. I'd look at a firewire external interface from Terratec, or at E-Mu interfaces.

The X-Fi has yielded some decent recordings on this interweb. Are you sure you want to keep the computer in the mix? Zoom H2 / H4n or Marantz, Korg, and many other quality field recorders these days. Push a button to power on. Push record. It really is that simple. Although on my Korg MR-1000 I have to push record, then play to start recording. I tried the whole laptop plus interface thing, but when you add a ten minute setup and tear down for every event, that gets old quick. People tripping over cords and knocking your laptop off the table, even quicker. If you need more than 2 tracks, perhaps a soundcard and computer has it's merits. Not that the average consumer can pop for 8 channels of quality pres, cables, mics, and all that jazz. At some point you have to have room in your bedroom for the band too.