buy a sound card

[Gustin Johnson]

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laurent.bellegarde wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm writting a book about audio-video editing with free software for a 
> famous editor in France. I'm talking a lot about ubuntu studio.
> 
> As i'm not a musician, i have few question about
> 
> for someone who wants to run GNU/Linux for MAO
> 
> - what's a cheaper price for an amateur sound card ?
> - what's a good price for a medium sound card ?
> - What's a good price for a professional sound card ?
> 
I am not sure what delineates each category.

> what's the main difference between a first price sound card and a 
> professionnal one ?

I am not sure what the differences are between the categories.  These
days I am not sure that differentiating between an amateur and
professional is even useful in this context.  I am not sure where I
would place me on that scale, and almost no one knows me as well as I do :)
> 
> I need too examples of sound card that runs without any trouble or very 
> easily under GNU/Linux,
>
I have heard that the M-Audio Delta series works well.  I can personally
vouch for the RME 9652 as that is what I have at home.  The 9652 worked
out of the box under 64Studio and Ubuntu Studio, and that was more than
2 years ago.  My current rig has a PCI 9652, an RME ADI-8 DS and an
Alesis ADAT (which acts as an analogue to digital converter for the
9652).  This gives me 16 simultaneous inputs.  You can have 3 of the
9652s in a given system so this solution scales beyond medium use.

> for beginners (and cheaper) :
> 
Some of the cheaper M-Audio stuff.  Of course onboard sound will
probably work well enough.  It really depends on what one hopes to
accomplish.

> for medium use, semi-pro :
> 
> for professionnal use :
> 
I would lump the last two categories together.  IMO there is nothing to
be gained by distinguishing between them.

Instead of a scale with amateur to pro, how about just price ranges.
Leave the choice up to the end user.  I would not consider myself a pro,
but the quality of the 9652 and the ADI-8 DS was worth it to me.

Hth,

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