Audio Recording

If you are planning to create a simple home studio setup: then the computer that will be used for recording needs a decent sound card:

So how are you going to select or buy a sound card for recording purposes? Below are the characteristics of a good sound card for recording studio purposes:

1.) Can create high resolution recordings using Analog to Digital Converter. You will take note that if you are recording, the signal is analog. However if you are planning to bounce it to your hard disks, then the analog will be converted to digital based recordings using a sound card.

Make sure that the sound card can record the analog recordings at the highest recording resolutions as possible. Below is a short list of recording resolutions used by common sound cards and their remarks to quality:

a. 16 bit 44.1 Khz –> if this the maximum recording quality, this considered to be a low resolution recording. This is not recommended for high quality recording purposes. Most onboard sound cards have this maximum recording resolution.

b. 32 bit 44.1 Khz –> this is considered “OK” when it comes to recording resolution. Creative Audigy sound cards have this resolution.

c. 24 bit 96 Khz –> this is the best recording resolution recommended for home studio purposes. Audiophile 2496 and Creative Audigy SE has this resolution. Of course the higher resolution the better, but you will end up consuming a lot of hard disk space for this.

2.) Cheap Price – I recommend not to buy a sound card more than $150. It is because you can buy home recording studio sound cards less than $100.

3.) Flexible in Different Operating Systems – it would be nice if the sound card is supported not only in Windows but on other platforms as well, such as Mac, Linux, etc. This will offer more flexibility in the future if you chose to buy another computer (so you can reuse your sound card).

4.) Supported by as many recording software - beware of buying sound cards that will only run in Protools or specific recording software. It is because; no one knows that you will end up using Adobe Audition for example. I recommend researching in advance for the different recording software that the sound card will support.

5.) Best to run in 2.1 but can supported other audio formats as well – if you are mixing audio for commercial CD production. Then a 2.1 output is fine. However it would be desirable if you can get a sound card that can play 5.1 or more.

6.) Highest SNR as possible – the minimum acceptable level is 100dB. Anything less than 100dB is not good.

So there you are, put all choices in a spreadsheet and rate the soundcards one by one using the factors listed above.

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UPDATE: January 7, 2012
Most modern sound cards used for professional music production are now USB or Firewire external audio interface. The above tutorial suggest the use of PCI sound cards which are not anymore commonly used in home music production.

For better flexibility and convenience, it is recommended you will be using an external audio interface instead of PCI sound card. If you are on the tight budget, you can read this post cheapest 24-bit/96KHz audio interface.

If you are not familiar with how these external audio interface works, it is just a soundcard (like an old PCI soundcard) except that it is external and connected to your computer either USB or Firewire connections.

If your are using Windows based laptop, it is common to use USB audio interface. Once you have installed the drivers, you can then connect your musical instruments to these external audio interface in a more convenient method compared to internal PCI-based soundcards.

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