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Hello guys,

I'd like an advice about souncards. I'd like to record my band and we are using a mixer to connect all our instruments and we are gping to play everything at once but we might overdub over recorded tracks as well, we think the best think to do is use the RCA out channel to record what we are playing, I was lookin at some soundcards and think the M-AUDIO Audiophile 2496 souncard got enough for what we wanna do, but then I think it would be good to use an external soundcard, so we can use it with a laptop, I found the Tascam-us122 but this gear doesn't have RCA inputs, is there any way to use the Tascam for our purposes...let say by using other kind of input?...or is there any other good soundcard for what we want to do?

Thanks for your help guys...

Tavo.

Comments

Ben Godin Thu, 07/22/2004 - 19:44

hello Tavo.

In my private home studio (i work at a pro studio but i do free recording for local bands), i have a 24 channel mackie mixer connected to a 24 I/O Motu interface, i don't know if you have the money to buy one, but it is a great choice, i WOULD NOT recommend that you get a single in and out sound card, believe me it is a hassle to mix everything on the mixing board and not be able to go back and edit, with my recomended combination, you can send an out of every channel and record a 24 channel song, and then play everything back throught the mixing board and have a great sounding master while being able to edit any recording errors in the sequencer. Anways, best of luck. 8-)

anonymous Thu, 07/22/2004 - 21:44

hey benny thanks for your comments...I wish I have the money to invest in that but unfortunely I haven't thats why I put my eyes on the soundcards I mentioned, but anyway I don't need to be that "pro", I play in a band with some friend. just from time to time...it is really a hobby and I just want the recording to sound as decent as possible using something is not that expensive...

anyway I appreciate your advice...thanks

c ya!
Tavo.

anonymous Fri, 07/23/2004 - 13:13

Hello Kurt,

Well you got me right, those kind of solutions are what I need...jajaja...the cheap ones...

Could I just use the US-122 directly to the peavey mixer?, I mean with the same approach, using the RCA output from the mixer to the 1/4'' in the US-122?, and what about the "quality" of the sound, would it be the same as if I go with the audiophile (the souncard with RCA inputs)?....

Thanks for you advices guys!

Tavo.

KurtFoster Sun, 07/25/2004 - 12:12

Does the mixer have 1/4" jacks or XLR's? The rca's on the Peavey should be used to send and recieve signals from a cassette deck or DAT for board tapes and playing back break music. It will be at a lower semi pro level of -10 or even -20 dB.. This will force you to back off the levels on the Tascam, raising the residual noise floor.

To get good gain staging, all input and output levels should be compatible. Aside from levels, impeadence mis matches can cause audio to become thin and anemic sounding or distort. Do not try to push a pro level input (+4dB) with semi pro levels (-10dB).