[Ardour-Users] need advice for soundcard

[Jörn Nettingsmeier]

On 02/27/2010 10:08 PM, fred wrote:
> Hi Jörn,
>
> could you please explain more your : "forget about "integrated dsp" AND
> "runs under linux". these two are mutually exclusive, and i'm sure paul
> is already warming up for the native processing rant :-D"

there is no universal way to program dsp chips embedded in audio 
hardware. that means
a) they can only be supported when the vendor cooperates fully, which 
has never happened so far, and
b) any support would have to be written from scratch for each new device 
that comes up, and it's unlikely somebody would start working on it 
under these conditions - lots of work, and very few potential users.

other DAW vendors like digidesign sell their users expensive hardware 
dsp units. ask a random digidesign customer what they think of their 
stuff, and their business practices. you will hear some very nasty words 
indeed. dsp hardware was important way back when general-purpose cpus 
weren't powerful enough. these days, dsps are just a means of locking 
your customer to your particular type of hardware.

paul davis has been very vocal in the past about native processing (i.e. 
doing all interesting stuff on the cpu, as opposed to external dsp 
chips), that's what my joke remark was hinting at.

> English is not my native tongue and it's hard there !

sorry for my sloppy phrasing...

> Please, can you be more precise when you say :" the major problem is the
> low number of channels you want :) " ? I know my place is not a
> professional studio, but you know how eveybody like his sound to sound,
> don't you ?

sure :)
your specifications were interesting in that you want very high quality 
but only 2 channels. that's unusual. most professional cards have 
something around 8 channels in/out. so you actually have less choice for 
fewer channels, not more.

but you should be perfectly happy with an m-audio product, as others 
have commented.


best,

jörn



-- 
Jörn Nettingsmeier

Audio engineer
Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio)

Lortzingstr. 11, D-45128 Essen, Germany
+49 177 7937487

http://stackingdwarves.net