About getting a sound card

[Chaojon]

Hi I am a death metal vocalist and I want to start recording vocal covers, although my recordings sound like ****ing **** because I plug my AKG D-5 straight to the PC and my growls lose a lot cause I don't have an external sound card, but I am really short on cash, I cant really afford a 150 dollar sound card, do you have a suggestion for a cheap soundcard? maybe even used? I didn't found any on ebay.

[Plankton]

You don't have to have a soundcard to do that. Just get an Interface. Firewire preferable over USB.

[P A N]

this is the only thing i could find that might do what you want. honestly, i wouldn't spend any less than 300 bucks on a sound card, but if you're on a budget this'll probably do the trick.

Lexicon Alpha | Sweetwater.com

[Freebase Dali]

Here's one for 81 dollars that I've recommended to someone before and have worked with his vocal tracks recorded with it, and the results are great for such a cheap unit:

Alesis iO2 Express Audio Interface | Musician's Friend

It doesn't need to be Firewire unless you have a lot of channels. These 2-channel units run fine on USB.
Anyway, it's fairly simple to set up. Also has phantom power if you use a condenser.
You just have to find the right driver for your host program. If it uses ASIO, then you'll probably end up downloading the ASIO4ALL driver with this unit. No biggy though. It's free.

Since I know what the results are like on this unit, I can safely recommend it above others I haven't heard, from a mixing analysis standpoint. You just have to be mindful of your recording levels. For the price, you can't do much better.

[Chaojon]

If these sound cards aren't that good, I want to remind you my budget is 150 that means that if I get a sound card for 81 dollars I can get another piece of equipment that will make my recordings even better, any suggestions?

[Chaojon]

I did a little research and now I am not sure what to get, which one is better, the SCARLETT 2i2 the Alesis i02 or the Lexicon Alpha?

[XtremeEclectic]

You are better off picking up some stand alone equipment or older gear to record on, or through and then putting it on your pc via cd or other media. You wind up overpaying on less quality equipment just for the convience of recording directly to the computer.

[P A N]

Originally Posted by XtremeEclectic

You are better off picking up some stand alone equipment or older gear to record on, or through and then putting it on your pc via cd or other media. You wind up overpaying on less quality equipment just for the convience of recording directly to the computer.

i disagree completely. standalone equipment (if used as a standalone product and not a link to your computer) can do many times less what a computer can do. the computer inside it will likely come nowhere close in terms of processing power. editing your audio on a computer is not only a thousand times easier it also has many times more options. you can customize your workflow on a computerized editing suite whereas a standalone is pretty rigid. expanding a computer's virtual effects and instruments arsenal is easy as pie. i could go on and on really. but it really comes down to the fact that not too many people use standalone devices... and there are a lot of reasons.

[XtremeEclectic]

Originally Posted by P A N

i disagree completely. standalone equipment (if used as a standalone product and not a link to your computer) can do many times less what a computer can do. the computer inside it will likely come nowhere close in terms of processing power. editing your audio on a computer is not only a thousand times easier it also has many times more options. you can customize your workflow on a computerized editing suite whereas a standalone is pretty rigid. expanding a computer's virtual effects and instruments arsenal is easy as pie. i could go on and on really. but it really comes down to the fact that not too many people use standalone devices... and there are a lot of reasons.

by stand alone I mean recording it seperatly from the computer, and than putting it onto the computer for editing and processing, not leaving out the computer entirely. I recently peiced together a small system for recording for a friends band due to them having issues with there sound card and there source between them, and the computer, and the results are far better than the 500 dollar card they took back

[Chaojon]

do you know where can I get used sound cards which are good and in a for my budget?