Hey, Right now I have a
M-Audio Delta 44 and it's working good but I have been saving up for a year and Have money to spend and soundcard is one of the things I want to upgrade..

most soundcards i saw, that had a good price range aprox 500$, they included preamps, I already like my ART PRO CHANNEL PREAMP, I don't want a soundcard with a preamp or any Gain knobs, etc.

anybody have any suggestions on a great quality card??

Hey iceking,

I have these thoughts...

Have you thought much about what it is you're hoping to upgrade? The Delta 44 is perfectly good at what it does (or so I've heard). Do you need better A/D conversion? More inputs? Digital inputs?

Considering these questions will help you get the most out of your next purchase. You may not need a new soundcard to replace the Delta 44, maybe just this or that piece (say, digital inputs with a Audiophile 2496 + a good A/D converters).

That help?

I'm not famillar with what you mean by A/D Conversion...

I'm cool with the # of inputs the Delta 44 has, I only record vocals so I really only need 1 input.

I have read that people use their delta 44, at a high sample rate like 82,000 or somethin..

When I change the sample rate to that high it minimizes the volume a lot when i record into any program....and then i have to normalize and raise the volume on all the vocal tracks; i feel i'm losing quality when I do that.

Maybe i'll see a quality difference when I get my Blue Baby Bottle Mic.. Right now i have a NADY SCM 1000 & an ART Pro Channel strip going into my Delta 44...

Does anybody see any suggestions with my setup or problems??

Has anyone used teh Blue Baby Bottle, I hear it's really good.

I have a Delta 66 and a Delta 1010. If you have a minimal mic selection I would suggest that you stick with your Delta 44 for now and spend your money elsewhere.

I did a test where I recorded two sets of tracks at two different bit depths and sample rates on the Delta 66. It was a band I was recording and we did the same song twice. 4 tracks for drums, two electric guitar tracks, and a bass track. 7 tracks in all. I tried 16/44.1 and 24/96. Then I mixed each set of tracks down to 16/44.1 with no eq or plugins. The 16/44.1 sounded better. We all heard it and it blew us away. I did this because I fully expected the 24/96 to sound better but I wanted to know if it was enough difference to justify the added computer overhead. Turns out that in my setup 16/44.1 was just fine.

Anyway, I suggest that before you go for high sampling rates that you try it yourself and see if you get the same results. I think you'll find that recording at 44.1 works just fine.

I'm happy with the sound of my Deltas and I really don't think they are holding me back. Maybe I'll get an Apogee or another big bucks converter some day but I'll get a lot better mileage out of some new mics and preamps first.

Given what you've said, iceking, I'd say spend your money elsewhere.

(And A/D conversion means audio to digital conversion. Sometimes [most time??] soundcards, because they are in your computer, don't have as high fidelity A/D conversion as outboard gear, say an Art DI/O or Apogee's or whathaveyou. I think your probably set for the time being, though, in terms of A/D conversion. Or am I wrong?)

Well if you're on a mac I'd suggest the Mobile I/O 2882. It has everything you're looking for and more besides. It's what I use and has the heart of my system. I do Mobile and home recording using it. It also use the ULN-2, which has better pres (they actually rival my Millennias). They also have 8 useable pres. YOu don't HAVE to use them and on quiet sources best not to. But otherwise they are good pres.

In conjunction with the ULN-2 I can get 18 channels in/out. I also use an older motu 2408mkII for the additional 8 adat I/O. For mobile recording I use a 15" 1 gz AlumPowerbook, the Metric Halo Record Panel, which is amazingly sweet. Extremely low on the CPU for a crash free environment. I then drop the audio tracks in DP for editing/mixing. I really dig this set up!

Sorry. The above post was meant for Jabulani Johnny's thread.

Have you thought of going fire wire? If you already have a compatable program and a fire wire 400 port it may be the way to go.

There are advatages and dissavantages to both fire wire and PCI cards. So you have to of coarse whiegh things out. And as usual the program rules.

Just an idea to think about.

iclickoften@yahoo.com Ive heard the M Audio 1010 is so quiet... now use 4986 M Audio.. Dont trust the SEditions s like Live etc that come with them. You can't save with them even though you can export... to waves.