Creative Live! vs Audigy plus front drive input

[Chas Uno]

Ok, some of you may know that I used to be a pro musician (gave up a few years ago), but I'm still involved in the making, playing and recording of music. Creative do a number of different sound cards in their range, with the earlier cars being designated Sound Blaster Live's and the later being called Sound Blaster Audigy.

Now, I already have an Audigy card (first generation) in my computer but would like to fit one of the front Creative 'Drives' that fits in the front panel and has loads of inputs/ outputs. This will make it so much easier to plug instruments into the computer as well as many other audio devices for recording purposes.

The Audigy drive bays aren't that easy to find at a reasonable price, and a lot don't come with connecting cables or driver disks. More common are the 'Live!' series of sound cards and front drives, and they're also cheaper.

So here is my dilema. Shall I buy a Live SB card and drive and downgrade from an Audigy, or should I stick with the Audigy and continue to look for a reasonably priced front Audigy drive bay? As mentioned, I will be hoping to record music from various analogue sources and instruments, and I also play a few games but nothing that up to date. To be honest, I'm not that bothered about surround sound because I don't have surround sound speakers. Besides, all SB Live! 5.1 cards onwards have surround sound capabilities anyway.

I am bothered about sound quality, and from some reviews it suggests that the Audigy range have much better sound processing with improved chips. So which should I go for? Is it worth sticking with the Audigy range or will the Live! range be just as good? And has anyone had experiences with the front Creative i/o bays?

These are the two types of SB sound card and drive bays that I've been looking at:

Creative Audigy:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=330118520555&rd=1&rd=1

Creative Live!:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=250112589067&rd=1&rd=1

Cheers for any help anyone can give!

 

[bassy-alex]

Hey..

just to confuse matters more... I upgraded my soundcard a bit ago, and went for a Creative X-fi music. Great spec for the money, and you can get the front panel type thin like you want;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Creative-Soun...2QQihZ011QQcategoryZ75519QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Im restricted by my case, so cant use one, but the inputs on the back are fine.

Alex.

 

[arc]

not checked in a while, but if you are serious about sound quality - used to be m-audio cards you'd pick over creative kit.

http://computers.search.ebay.co.uk/...ZC12QQfromZR40QQsacatZ3667QQsatitleZmQ2daudio

 

[Rampage94]

all depends on what your machine is and what program your useing. im guessing your doing it all in the box? in that case what are you useing? protools, sonar. ect..ect.. or is it out of the box? if you can tell me exactly what it is your useing and what you want it to do i can make a good suggestion off of that.

 

[pinin__prestatyn]

Live! is ancient now, you can pick up the audigy front cheap I'm sure.

 

[Chas Uno]

Sorry for taking a while to get back to this thread - kind of forgot about it

OK, just to clear a few things up. My current PC is a Pentium III running 700mhz and with 512mb ram. However, I'm about to upgrade as I've been given a load of cast off bits and am building a higher spec PC (Pentium IV). Thing is, I don't know the exact specs though my mate reckons the processors (it came with two) are at least 2.6Ghz. I'll have to fit them first to work out which is which! The MOBO is of ATX spec so it's fairly modern and has plenty of scope for upgrading.

So this leaves me with another option, and that is to get a higher spec sound card that won't work with my PIII PC but will with my (to be built) P4.

My question regarding quality was between the LIVE! and Audigy range of SB cards. I'm NOT that fussed about surround sound as I mainly want to do recording from instruments and also from analogue sources (i.e. vinyl, cassette, stereo video etc.) and then do some analogue to digital conversions.

For multi-track music recording I will be using Cubasis software. I used to use an old copy of Sonic Foundry/ Sound Forge to do stereo analogue to digital conversion, but I suspect that Cubasis will do the job just as well and probably better.

I like the SB cards as they're relatively inexpensive and the optional 'drive' I/O front panel makes connecting devices quick and simple as well as being integrated into the PC. I'm aware that M-Audio are better quality but they are also a lot more expensive in comparison. I'm only doing this as a hobby now so am not that fussed about having high end equipment.

Also, to put it in perspective I did some vinyl to digital conversions on my previous PC - Pentium II 233mhz, 64mb ram, Win98 and an ancient Sound Blaster card (I think it was 16 bit - was released around 1998). I used Sound Forge to record, clean up and edit the tracks, then used Nero to burn the CD's. When I played the CD's to some of my pro-musician friends they had no idea that they were vinyl conversions nor that they'd been converted/ edited on such an ancient PC. They actually thought they were listening to a commercially released CD! That was with just two track stereo processing, so going to multi-track with outboard software processing will obviously require more processing power. However, it does show that for CD quality stereo audio an old 16 bit sound card and ancient PC can work very well as CD quality is 16 bit anyway...

So my questions really are:

1. For stereo analogue to digital conversion, is the LIVE! series as good as Audigy or does the Audigy offer better processing capabilities?

2. For multi-track recording (from analogue sources as well as using samples) and subsequent processing/ mixing, will the Audigy offer advantages over the LIVE! series?

3. For high end Audigy cards (such as Audigy ZS/ X-Fi), is there a minimum system requirement?

4. And to run the optional front panel I/O 'Drive', are drivers needed or do the drivers for the sound card cover this installation?

I currently have my eye on an Audigy 2 on Ebay complete with front i/o drive. I think it will be up to the job for what I need unless I get told otherwise!

Any other advice or recommendations?

 

[SlinkyCinqi]

Hi there!

I run the SB Audigy 4 Pro and it runs fine with all Steinberg, Native Instruments, Audition and other softwares, running with 2ms latency usin ASIO2 drivers, when i bought the card it came with the splitter box (external not internal) and i'd say it'd be more than up to what you want it to do! although bearing in mind for the 2ms latency i am running 2gb RAM and a AMD Athlon64 4000+ don't know how this would affect you though

hope this helps you out

Lenny

 

[Chas Uno]

Cheers for that Lenny, but I don't think my machine is powerful enough to run an Audigy 4

I have my eye on some Audigy 2 Platinums (comes with the front drive bay/ breaker box) on Ebay so hopefully I'll get one sorted soon. They seem to be the best for what I'm looking for in my price bracket and will be compatible with my machine.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

 

[Xen]

To the first post AUDIGY ALL THE WAY RAWR!!! :slayer:

Secondly, everything on an audigy card is done hardware side (rather than the drivers doing half the work and slowing down the performance of everthing else) so there shouldn't be any issues using it on a slower machine. Don't quote me on that tho... never tried it before so i can't say for certain

Thirdly wow, i didn't know there were other musicians/composers on here! We should start a thread and share sum choons innit