multiple sound cards?

[OneTrickPony]

my brother does a lot of recording on his comp and asked me how he could get multiple inputs at the same time. does anyone here have any experience with multiple sound cards? sound cards with 4 inputs usually cost more that 200, so i was wondering if we could just put in 4 $30 cards. any info would be appreciated.

 

[Goi]

It probably wouldn't work the way you want it to. Windows has a main soundcard, and to be able to use multiple cards at the same time, even if possible, would probably require a lot of configuration on the hardware and software level. My advice would be to just bite the bullet and purchase that audio card with multiple I/O. Some of them can be had for less than 200bucks. What kind of audio card does he need exactly?

 

[nortexoid]

sounds cards can only occupy a certain range of resources...and if you want to add more than 2, conflict on the resource level is going to occur...

also, one cards is going to be selected default and given priority over the others....i.e. mixer controls, etc...i'm not sure if u could theoretically use more
than one card simultaneously even...never tried it.

 

[OneTrickPony]

he doesn't really care about the quality of the card. he just wants multiple inputs that he can use at the same time with a program like cakewalk or sonar. he'll probably have to get the 4-input one. looks like we're gonna go on ebay for christmas.

 

[Goi]

There are many affordable cards that have multiple I/O in the 100+ range, which would be around the same, if not less, were you to get 4 separate cards. In addition, you'd get less compatibility problems, and much better sound quality. What I would recommend would be the M-Audio Audiophile 2496, which has 4 input and 4 output. Half of them are analog L/R and half of them are digital coaxial, so you'll have quite a bit of flexibility on what you wanna use. The cost? Just $159 at digitalconnection.com

 

[nortexoid]

actually, u should then check out the guillemot maxi studio ISIS XL here

it's one of the most affordable pro/semi-pro soundcards available w/ a crap load of ins