Sound card or Motherboard sound

biggles wrote on 1/13/2006, 3:44 PM

I shoot mainly personal stuff with the occasional wedding and corporate event. The finished product almost always end up on a DVD.

For weddings I use a mix of MP3 recorders and minidiscs as well as on-camera shotgun and wireless mic.

Thus 95% of my sound is captured straight to DV tape. The MP3 files I 'drag-and-dropped' straight onto the Vegas timeline and the minidisc files I capture via 'line-in'.

So far I have been using the motherboard sound chip but am starting to wonder if I shouldn't add a sound card to my system (M-Audio or similar). But I don't want to spend dollars on something that will not result in an improvement to my finished product.

Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated.

Wayne

Comments

farss wrote on 1/13/2006, 4:06 PM

Technically given your workflow the sound card will not make one bit of difference to the sound of your project. Your soundcard is only providing you with monitoring of the sound, even if what you hear from the sound card is full of hum and noise that doesn't get into the sound in the files or the rendered output.
Of course though it does pose a question. If even your cleanest audio sounds like it's full of nasties then how can you tell when your audio does have a problem?
So even though you may never use the sound card for recording it can have an indirect impact on your finished product unless you're very careful. If your existing soundcard is pretty clean (and most mobo sound isn't) then you might find better things to spend your dollars on. Then again even an external SoundCrapper box isn't many dollars and it should if nothing else get rid of a lot of the nasties that you hear from the mobo. Of course you also need to think about some decent speakers.
If you're using your computer for recording THEN it's a very different story but as your workflow doesn't seem to include that I've ignored the issue.
Bob.

biggles wrote on 1/13/2006, 4:38 PM

Thanks for the reply Bob.

It did occur to me, after reading your reply, that when I record from my minidisc the sound would go via the sound chip - am I correct here?

Wayne

GlennChan wrote on 1/13/2006, 4:51 PM

Some of the on-board motherboard sound seems to be pretty good. However, if Ilisten carefully when you have hard drive or network activity going on, I hear interference from other computer parts.

The sound quality is excellent most but not all of the time. I think my computer's on-board sound has less noise than the old Soundblaster Lives.

2- Try Rightmark:
http://audio.rightmark.org/index_new.shtml

It lets you benchmark your audio setup. Should be free.

3- How is your minidisc hooked up? Digital or analog connection?

farss wrote on 1/13/2006, 4:52 PM

YES,
if you're playing out of the Mindisc and recording via analogue inputs on the sound card then absolutely. The quality of the soundcard very much enters the equation.
What makes most mobo sound cards really c**p is the AGC that you cannot turn off. Probably the Minidisc has it's own AGC so in the end you could end up with a real mess.
I've NEVER worked this way even though I've got a half decent sound card UNLESS I'm coming from an analogue format like 1/4" tape, once my audio is in the digital domain it stays in the digital domain. That's why I'm no fan of most Minidsc recorders, there's no way to get the recorded data off them without going through a D->A.->D conversion step and even with the best gear money can buy things must go downhill in the process.
So my advice would be to find a way to get the DATA from the Minidisc into the PC without having to record it. Firstly it'll be way faster and the result will be better quality. I'd make that your first priority. If that's not possible look for a Mindisc player with SPDIF outputs, I think Sony make such a unit. If your mobo sound card offers SPDIF in then you set, still only real time capture but you've bypassed the analogue parts of the mobo sound card and their inherent noise.
To do this you might need a MiniDisc recorder that records in WAV rather than Sony's ATRAC, not certain about all the issues, a bit confused myslef but there were numerous posts about the issues on this forum.
Bob.

fldave wrote on 1/13/2006, 5:17 PM

Are you using Sony SonicStage to transfer your "line in" minidisc recordings, or from the minidisc output to the "line in" to the sound card?

I have a Hi-MD minidisc recording in ATRAC3Plus or uncompressed PCM, use SonicStage version 3. USB transfer to PC, then export to .wav.

PC "line in" definitely goes through your PC sound card, so a good sound card would be in order.

Chanimal wrote on 1/13/2006, 11:07 PM

My motherboard sound seemed to work and sound fine.

However, I switched to a dedicated card (Audigy Zs (don't record much (and even then only via the input--not the mic), just monitor)) when I read how much CPU time a mobo sound chip used, versus a dedicated sound card (offloads much of the CPU usage). That was the determining factor for me.

riredale wrote on 1/13/2006, 11:22 PM

I use conventional Minidisc all the time, and the only way of getting the audio into the PC is via analog (thanks, RIAA). Even so, it sounds very clean. Can a purist "hear" the difference between a straight digital in versus a D->A->D transfer? I'll bet it would be very hard to note the difference with decent equipment.

Many older motherboards are really terrible with audio in, and for those cases a separate soundcard (or an external USB soundcard) would help a lot. I understand that newer motherboards can have pretty good audio specs. If you can hear extra "junk" inserted by your motherboard, you need a separate card.

farss wrote on 1/14/2006, 1:39 AM

I'd have to agree, I seriously doubt anyone short of a purist is going to pick the difference and let's not forget the average TV isn't noted for stellar sound. Still there's no harm in avoiding any loss of quality if you can and there's a nother big plus, saving you time.
I don't know about anyone else but having to capture hours of video in real time is a big enough PIA but to then have to repeat the wait while you capture your audio is a real deal breaker for me. Last month I had to edit a 2 camera 2 hour shoot with double headed audio and lay in some new tracks from CDs and I had 36 hours to deliver the DVD master, anything in that process that could be done faster than real time was a BIG plus for me.
Bob.

Steve Mann wrote on 1/14/2006, 1:11 PM

It depends on what you're recording. If it's rock music, no one would notice the worst of noise on the analog, I do use Minidisk and the noise floor of the sound cards is surprisingly high. Around -50 to -55dBm is the accepted spec. The noise is unavoidable because computer circuitry is very noisy to begin with. If you are recording music with quiet or low-volume passages, this high a noise floor will kill your quality.

Though I haven't made the investment yet, an external sound capture is far superior to any internal sound card. If you only do one or two channels of audio, then the M-Audio external (I don't recall the model) should be sufficient. It's around $250. Since I need more inputs, I am probably going to buy a Prosonus Firepod (about $600) to start.

Steve

biggles wrote on 1/15/2006, 6:37 PM

Thanks for your help everyone - methinks it's time to trawl e-bay for a decent sound card.

GlennChan wrote on 1/16/2006, 12:19 PM

Wouldn't it just be a better idea to get the hiMD minidisc?

It can do a digital transfer, which is perfect. It should be faster than real-time, but I'm not 100% sure. There is a limitation of a single upload. If you don't like that, there are hacks around it.

biggles wrote on 1/29/2006, 10:26 PM

I already have two minidisc units so would be hard-pressed to justify a third, but thanks for the advice.

I have just bought an Echo Gina24 off EBay, so think that I am now pretty well set up to do what I need to.

Again, thanks to everyone for the helpful advice.

Wayne