Bought an EMU 0404... what do I do with it now?

Louigi Verona · May 25, 2009, 18:54:45

So it is my first external professional soundcard... what do I do with it? What possibilities does it give me apart from letting me work with ridiculously low latency?

g · May 25, 2009, 19:11:20

You could connect a condenser microphone and record things.

Saga Musix · May 25, 2009, 19:46:51

you can sell it.

jokes aside, why did you buy it if you don't know what to do with it? I bought my soundcard because it had this "ridiculously" low latency (which is pretty cool, also for MIDI), for the low noise level and great recording capabilities and more stuff it has...

Louigi Verona · May 25, 2009, 19:53:35

Yeah, me too for all of the reasons above. I want to know about "and more stuff it has".

M?

uncloned · May 25, 2009, 20:04:07

have you tried a search?

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/proaudio/emu-0404-usb.html

Saga Musix · May 25, 2009, 20:15:04

oh, and one warning in advance: midi via USB can get quite unreliable on some devices. usb has horrible unpredictable latencies.

Sam_Zen · May 26, 2009, 01:13:43

Some advice : check if your ASIO drivers are still up to date.

maleek · May 26, 2009, 06:15:38

I used an EMU APS for well over six or seven years. A good sound card can be a good investment.

Louigi Verona · May 27, 2009, 20:28:50

Okay, here is the first thing I achieved with the soundcard - I synchronised my MC-303 to FL Studio (that was possible before in question, but the soundcard has standard midi in and out, so it was easy to connect it). It worked like a charm (provided charms do actually work, haven't met successful wizards lately).

Anyway, lots of cables now lying around the room. I am beginning to feel myself a real musician. Or something.

uncloned · May 27, 2009, 21:04:15

LV,

Besides the obvious controlling of your synth from your computer I find the ability to record improvisations as midi and then edit freely the tempo - delete stray bad notes - and treat the recorded source as you would hand entered data really powerful - record as piano - change to synth - copy to another track - now control two VSTi's.

That is the flexibility I like.

It is like wearing a ability amplification suit.

PPH · June 06, 2009, 15:32:52

You can work with higher bit depth. For example, 32-bits.

This will reduce calculation errors when mixing and applying effects, because precision is greater. In practice, though, you might not see many improvements. Most software, internally, already works with 32 bits. But if you make a song in OMPT and then export to wave, you can export as 32 bits waves and process them. You couldn't do that before. Still, in practice, it doesn't make much difference, unless you record stuff.

Saga Musix · June 06, 2009, 17:01:53

QuoteThis will reduce calculation errors when mixing and applying effects

wrong. mixing is not done in hardware and especially not with the hardware's sampling rate. for example, modplug always uses internal 32-bit mixer precision, no metter what precision is used for output. You can also export 32-bit wav files at any time, you can import them in an audio editor at any time, you can edit them at any time - no matter what soundcard you possess.

PPH · June 06, 2009, 21:40:02

Quote from: "Jojo"
QuoteThis will reduce calculation errors when mixing and applying effects
wrong. mixing is not done in hardware and especially not with the hardware's sampling rate. for example, modplug always uses internal 32-bit mixer precision, no metter what precision is used for output. You can also export 32-bit wav files at any time, you can import them in an audio editor at any time, you can edit them at any time - no matter what soundcard you possess.

As for "mixing is not done in hardware", that's what I meant when I said "Most software, internally, already works in 32 bits".

I know you can export 32-bit wave files any time. But you can't listen to them if you don't have a card that can handle it, can you? So, if you sequence your things in Modplug and export them in 32 bits to mix them with other software, you need a sound card that supports 32 bits, unless you don't need to listen to what you are mixing.

"32 bits" doesn't have anything to do with sampling rate, anyway. But, since you mention it, better sound cards can handle higher sampling rates too.

EDIT: Still, what I had written wasn't clear. I should have been more precise in my language.

Saga Musix · June 07, 2009, 10:30:08

Quote
I know you can export 32-bit wave files any time. But you can't listen to them if you don't have a card that can handle it, can you?

most players have downmixers. of course you won't hear your 'zik in 32-bit quality then.

PPH · June 08, 2009, 13:34:21

Quote from: "Jojo"
Quote
I know you can export 32-bit wave files any time. But you can't listen to them if you don't have a card that can handle it, can you?
most players have downmixers. of course you won't hear your 'zik in 32-bit quality then.

Well, we finally agree then, sort of. I didn't know about the down mixers. Does most mixing software include them? If they do, I didn't know.

Anyway, I have a semi-pro card, and it hasn't changed my life. Of course, I'm neither into recording stuff nor into using a MIDI keyboard to enter notes. That must be the reason.

Monitors, on the other hand, are a big change. Music sounds much better.