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I personally wouldn't mind having a couple of those and run Reason and Ableton Live side-by-side. Tweaking knobs on screen in real-time using a stylus is much better than using a mouse.

No way. Even better than that is to get a simple MIDI controller like an Oxygen 8 and tweak real knobs in real time. Use the right tool for the right job.

A firewire audio interface with 4ch in, 10ch out, up to 192kHz and mixing capabilities is available from M-audio.

It can even be completely bus-powered.

A good example of a firewire application (not a storage device) using isochronous transfer.

Well, QnDJ works with an iBook and Propellerheads Reason 2.5 and this (USB powered)...
I think the ultimate power/portability/cost ratio has been reached for some time...

Otherwise, a cheaper but probably less autonomous PC using windows and FruityLoops could also do, of course.

Mod down and Flame away, but I'll be brave...

I've been doing audio production work for a couple years using Windows 2000, Nuendo, Amplitube, This incredible $139 gadget, using only this inexpensive audio card. I don't get blue screens of death, my hardware is fully supported, etc. I run a second HD with Red Hat 9 (and incidentally, the awesome Ximian Desktop), and I can't even get my sound card to work. I love Linux, but no serious musician will be using the penguin for audio production for at least a few more years.

Yeah, and when you want music instead of just "sound" get something like the Digital Audio Labs card (http://www.digitalaudio.com/) or one of M Audios board (http://www.midiman.net/products/consumer/index.ph p)

[It's getting cheaper] with large ATA hard drives and digital interfaces for various applications to drive real-world mixers and soundboards becoming cheaper and cheaper, the actual cost of recording, in a real sense is very minimal. A whole setup can be had for $20,000.

"CD quality" does not been just having something recorded at 44.1KHz at 16 bits. A $5 rat shack microphone and a sound blaster is not going to get you anywhere near the capabilities of that low (vs. 24/96 or even 24/196) sample rate. Good audio equipment costs some real money. Take a look at this for a good quality entry level audio card. With good audio equipment (pre/pro, speakers), your $5 rat shack microphone recording will sound like utter crap compared to something recorded with this card (and a sennheiser or comparable microphone). Simple playback of normal CDs through this setup will also be an eye opening expierience.

LIke another person stated, the reason Dell's and Emachines are cheaper is 1) they get parts in bulk, and 2) they use shitty components.

Who here in tech support wanted to shoot themselves when the old guy 15 miles out in the valley (who just yesterday got running water and indoor plumbing) is complaining about getting "only" 24.6k from his SM56k motorola. Or Lucent LT winmodem. Or god forbid the blue and white G3's. Or even the DSL guy with the no-name brand NIC who just can't seem to create a network-worthy packet (or is spewing shit all over the LAN).

WE know the value of good pieces. I wouldn't give an emachine or compaq to anyone I know if you PAID me.

That being said, go for the most stable AMD chip/mobo you can find (my crappy via KT133 has to be turned on. then turned off. then turned on again before it'll boot), about a gig of good ram, the maxtor or IBM hdd (it was just a bad batch! not all IBM's are crap!), a GeForce4 4200, USR courier v.anything (or Intel NIC), M-Audio Delta DiO 2496 sound card,HDTV tuner card...*drools*

oh wait, uh, what was i saying...oh yeah. don't buy a LT winmodem or I'll come after you. And your children.

The Midiman Delta Dio 2448:

Buy it here, perhaps

Nothing fancy about this card... other than the true 24-bit/48 kHz sampling rate and digital I/O support if you need it. It's about $100 depending on where you get it, but it makes up for the extra price with lots of connectivity and crisp, pure sound (crazy THD, it's in the manual somewhere)

That's a great link you posted. Even better, it does appear at least 1 is supported under Linux. The ALSA Project's Soundcard Matrix lists support for the Midiman Delta 66, and there's also OSS/Linux beta support for the LynxONE (though binary non-free).

Of course, they'll both set you back 400-500 bucks... Fortunately, the still well-performing Turtle Beach cards have long enjoyed good Linux support.

In response to some previous comments about perceived limitations of software synthesis for live performace, or emotional expression:

Good synth software like Reason (and its synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers), can be controlled realtime via standard MIDI devices. A couple interesting ones (I don't work for Midiman!):

• Midiman Oxygen8
• Midiman Surface One

Tactile interfaces like these allow for a huge range of expression and compensation in a live OR recording environment. A mouse/keyboard can be used too, but I often fid the onscreen controls are not large enough or truly desiged for exacting real-time control.

Some may not find electronic sounds familiar or comfortable, but I truly believe a GOOD electronic musician has all the tools to add variance and emotion to a musical performance. Do many do it? I dunno, but the capability and potential is there.

After looking at the available stuff and reading up on USB latency, I'm convinced that the PCI card+breakout box with D/A-A/D converters is the optimal setup. I wish this architecture would make its way into more "mass production" sound cards so the prices could start falling.

I guess I was silly to think that I had satisfied all of toy cravings in December...

From reading the Linux Audio mailing list, I can offer a quick summary: There is pretty decent hardware support for a variety of pro audio gear. See below. The software side is not quite so good. As one poster put it: "The problem is not a lack of developers for Linux Audio. The problem is that instead of two or three 90% complete software packages, we've got twelve or fifteen 20% complete packages."

That might be a little pessimistic, but there's some truth to it. However, there is usable software out there, even if it is not done. Broadcast 2000 was aimed at video editing, but was apparently useful for audio as well. Ardor is a hard disk recorder package. There's a lot of stuff out there - heck, just search Google and Sourceforge.

The ALSA project http://www.alsa-project.org/ is an important site if you are looking for pro audio Linux drivers and software.

Now, about the hardware: http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/ is a place to start.

Also check out http://www.boosthardware.com/LAU/Linux_Audio_Users _Guide/

The M-Audio pro hardware has a lot of good cards - everything from an inexpensive 24 bit / 96 Khz DA /AD card all the way up to the 10 channel Delta 1010, suitable for real pro / recording work. These cards have Linux support, and is probably your best bet for really good AD / DA and Midi under Linux.

The RME Hammerfall card is also supported under Linux. Other quality hardware (from Echo and other companies) is unfortunately not so well supported.

Personally, I'm planning on getting one of the M-Audio cards just for playing with.

it does resampling (poorly, too) so that the output is always at 48k even if the input is at 44.1k ;-(

if you want a semi-cheap true digital output soundcard, try the midiman Dio 2448.

while there is a slight advantage to having even a resampled spdif output (compared to a regular old analog out present inside a noisy pc bus), sblive value2 is about $50 while this midiman card is about $109. if you're into audio quality, might as well spend the extra $50 and do it right.

--

Computers and general-purpose computer peripheral devices are not covered by the Audio Home Recording Act. This means they do not pay royalties and they do not incorporate technology to prevent serial copying.

In refrence to the 'serial copying' thing, I'm assuming the RIAA is refering to these clauses from the actual document: No person shall import, manufacture, or distribute any digital audio recording device or digital audio interface device that does not conform to-- (1) the Serial Copy Management System; and No person shall import, manufacture, or distribute any device, or offer or perform any service, the primary purpose or effect of which is to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or otherwise circumvent any program or circuit which implements, in whole or in part, a system described in subsection
Ok, so what the act says here is that you can't build ro import a device that doesn't conform to SCMS and you can't build a device that is made to remove SCMS. WEll guess what? This part of the bill must have been overturned. Here is a device that, in addition to converting digital formats, will set the SCMS bits to whatever you want. And here is a soundcard that will let you manually control your SCMS settings. I can list a whole bunch more devices that fall in the same category, but I think the point is made: Perhaps when the act was first passed, devices had to comply with SCMS, now they don't.

Configuration:

• Channels 1 & 2 use 1/4" phono jacks (selectable MIC/line level)
• Channels 3, 4, 5, 6 use RCA jacks
• Channels 7+8 and 9+10 are stereo pairs with 1/8" phono jacks (i.e. what you have on your soundcard.) These channel pairs do not have pan or gain controls. They are designed to hook up to sound cards, where the PC controls pan/gain.
• Channels 1-6 have pan (left/right) and gain controls.
• There are master left/right gain controls.
• Outputs: Two 1/8" stereo jacks & Two RCA jacks
• LEDs: Left/right signal, Left/right clipping

Midiman has a web site but I haven't checked it out yet.

Hope this helps,
Jeff