Hieveryone,
I was just wondering how do you go out from a computer into regular nearfield monitors for mixing? A soundcard? How are you guys doing this? I would need to go out then into my patchbay. I'm using a hafler ta1600 amp and tannoy reveal monitors.
thanks,
evt

I go out of my soundcard into two channels of a Mackie, out the Control Room Outs to the monitors. Suprisingly it sounds better this way than connecting the monitors directly to the soundcard outs and using the software mixer to attenuate them. I guess it's because i get to use all the available bit depth, and do my level control analog.

I connect them directly from the D/A outputs of my interface. However, I've heard that it is better to connect a direct box between the outputs and the monitors, I have no idea why is that better ... perhaps someone can provide some insight?

quote:

Originally posted by copperx:
I connect them directly from the D/A outputs of my interface. However, I've heard that it is better to connect a direct box between the outputs and the monitors, I have no idea why is that better ... perhaps someone can provide some insight?

I don't think that would offer much if any advantage. Many people have erroneous ideas of when and when not to use a direct box. If you need to change a high-impedance instrument or line-level signal to a lower-impedance signal more appropriate to connect to the mic input on a mixer or mic preamp, and need to 'balance' the signal so it can travel down a longer cable with less noise/interference picked up as the signal travels down the cable, use a direct box.

Since 'nearfield' monitors are 'near', using a direct box to 'balance the signal' would probably not be worth the bother since the cable lengths involved are hopefully 20 feet or less (only as long as necessary to get to the inputs on the monitors or power amp, please), and slapping an extra transformer in the signal path between your mixer/soundcard/BigKnob/whatever and your monitors is probably not desirable either unless you have a very good and specific reason to do so.

quote:

Originally posted by evt:
I would need to go out then into my patchbay.

I don't see any real reason to use a patchbay, since more than likely you won't be connecting and unconnecting your speakers like you would other pieces of gear (in which you would probably want to use the patchbay for so you don't have to crawl behind all of your gear to change stuff). So going from your soundcard, to the amp, and to the speakers sounds like the best route.

I have active monitors, so I just go from my soundcard to the speakers... Direct and simple.

-tkr

You should be able to just use a line output from your soundcard. My computer's card has a TOSlink digital out so when I monitor directly off my 'puter I just run an optical cable from the soundcard to a D/A converter and then run some short XLRs from the D/AC right to my amp or powered monitors.

Is your soundcard line out balanced or unbalanced? I found I got ground hum when connecting powered monitors to an unbalanced (internal) soundcard. My new interface is balanced and connected via TRS to my Eevent 20/20 BAS and it is dead silent noisewise.

What are some soundcards that you would recommend for connecting the monitors. I am looking into getting a new computer and want to know what soundcard I could get. I'm not going to use the computer for recording in, only for mixing so I need 1/4" outs, I guess balanced would be better, my patchbay is a balanced patchbay too.
evt

Well, I finally upgraded from my Mac's stock 24bit stereo soundcard to a Metric Halo ULN-2. That may be outside of your price range if you only plan to use it for playback. I would think maybe one of the less expensive firewire interfaces may do the trick. Presonus or Edirol or something. I think those have balanced jacks. The RME internal PCI cards receive very good remarks around here. I would suspect those are balanced too.

quote:

What are some soundcards that you would recommend for connecting the monitors.

I have an Edirol UA-25 that I use with my laptop and an EMU 1212m for my regular pc. I like the UA-25 for my laptop but I'd recommend a PCI card (or firewire, but they're WAY more expensive) for a regular PC.

Before buying a new computer, check out the issue Peakae mentioned about PCI Express.

Here's the link:

PCI-E sucks for audio

Zygon, just firing off the hip here without reading the article, but what makes PCI-E suck is the chipset that you have. Intel 915GM chipset with PCI-E causes all sorts of problems with audio. Intel 915PM chipset with PCI-E causes no problems, at least that I'm aware of. I shopped for that chipset to use with a PCI-E Nvidia card. No problems here so far, does everything I need. So far I've only pushed it to record 16 tracks simultaneously for 2 hrs. No hiccups. FWIW

quote:

Intel 915GM

...wasn't the only chipset. I was looking into a nForce4 SLI board - but this was almost half a year ago, I should've included that fact - I'm not surprised the (digi) world changed since then. Thanks for pointing that out.

quote:

Originally posted by jabulani_jonny:
Zygon, just firing off the hip here without reading the article, but what makes PCI-E suck is the chipset that you have. Intel 915GM chipset with PCI-E causes all sorts of problems with audio. Intel 915PM chipset with PCI-E causes no problems, at least that I'm aware of. I shopped for that chipset to use with a PCI-E Nvidia card. No problems here so far, does everything I need. So far I've only pushed it to record 16 tracks simultaneously for 2 hrs. No hiccups. FWIW

But the 915xx chipset has still performance issues, use a 945 or 955 based motherboard for best performance.
The Nforce4 chipset's except the Nforce4pro take a huge performance hit compared to Nforce3.
I would not worry to much, if your system works for your needs then there is no point. shopping for a new computer is another story, with fewer PCI slots, if any in newer motherboards I wonder when we will see audio cards and DSP cards using PCI-e.