No Music Playing
Start your musical journey by discovering amazing songs and artists
Player settings
Loading devices…
No output devices found. Use a supported browser (e.g. Chrome) for device selection.
Names may show as "Output 1", "Output 2" unless this site has microphone access.
So that's what it feels like to hear clearly
General discussionHi friends, I just bought an ECHO AUDIOFIRE 12, and I must say it's a very beautiful piece of hardware. I was stuck for years with crappy motherboard soundcards, then I worked one year and an half with a Behringer BCA2000 (most crappy card ever, but when it works the latency is 10ms, that's the only advantage of having this piece of crap)... and I finally took the step and invested a bit in a real soundcard. I opened FL Studio 7 and I discovered plenty of sound characteristics that I never heard before, in my own prods! I can't really explain it, but everything much more clear, much more distinct, I can easily spot every little sound, it's nearly as if I heard the waveforms themselves. I already heard of that, that soundcards sound much more "clear" in a certain price range, but man, I thought I had to study sound engineering to get the difference, and it's absolutely not the case (plus I am a little deaf due to excessive clubbing and mutliple ear infections due to a virus). As for the latency, I have 2ms in 44100hz under FL Studio (at 0.3ms it gets a bit too demanding on my CPU). In theory I could get to sampling rates of 192khz on 12 channels... but didn't try that yet :p So, so far so good, audiofire rulez! If I experience something bad, I'll let you know. Cheers, Jordan
Replies
watch out! before you realize it you re investing tons in quality studio monitors, acoustic treating of your room etc etc... ;)
Originally posted by : bandarlog
A good soundcard and good monitors should be a priority for every producer!
for christ's sake , why?! i mean, what's the advantage? i'm having a muse 5.1 from creative and a cheap 5.1 soundsystem and it works just fine i guess..
Originally posted by : meutn
Originally posted by : bandarlog
A good soundcard and good monitors should be a priority for every producer!
for christ's sake , why?! i mean, what's the advantage? i'm having a muse 5.1 from creative and a cheap 5.1 soundsystem and it works just fine i guess..
The soundcard not pro? ok, not that big a deal allthough... but really, 5.1 speakers: you just don't know what you're doing. Name me one released producer that produces ona surroundsystem without monitors.
I know it's hard to believe when you don't have monitors and you're all like 'hey I'm fine' untill you have monitors and you discover the truth about your music. 5.1 changes your sound man. Maybe you should play a bit more live, send some more demo's to labels in order to find out that mixing is a big deal and that it is very very hard if not impossible to do that on 5.1 speakers.
Originally posted by : meutn
Originally posted by : bandarlog
A good soundcard and good monitors should be a priority for every producer!
for christ's sake , why?! i mean, what's the advantage? i'm having a muse 5.1 from creative and a cheap 5.1 soundsystem and it works just fine i guess.. coz good monitors color your sound much less than cheapo consumer stuff. so it s much easier to predict how your music will sound on other soundsystems. i m sure your creatives color your sound like hell which means that when you re mixing you re tuning your sound to those speakers.
off course this doesn t mean you can t make music on cheap stuff. i read an interview of four tet where he says he uses an uber-cheap creative chatting mic for recording vocals, guitar, etc... he does have decent monitors though ;)
i have second hand behringer monitors, i was shocked the first time i heard my music trough them. in a lot of tracks the bass was waaaay to deep and to loud.
I used to make everything with cheap headphones and the tunes sounded as i wanted them to sound when i listened with the headphones. but as soon as i played it throug a hifi system everything got messed up.
with the monitors i now can try to mix a track in a way that it sounds like i want it to sound on every soundsystem. i have the monitors and a pair of second hand hifi speakers next to eachother so i can compare. and when a track is finished i play it trough the soundsystem of our local youthhouse to check the sound.
the monitors made me realise the importance of eq-ing filtering compressing etc. and i'm still experimenting with the best methods to give every sound it's place in a track/mix.
Originally posted by : dtr
btw, headphones is a cheap way to get high quality sound.
You can't mix on headphones. Sound quality is indeed better than hifi speakers but things like kicks and all just can't be mixed right. Also stereo seperation and reverb give a wrong image on headphones. I use headphones for night producing when I can't make too much noise but the final mixing is always done on monitors.
edit: btw: And once you're into monitors you'll find out that even there there are lots of differences. My next buy will be GOOD monitors, like in the price range 1500€. I noticed that mine (alesis m1 mk2 active) don't give the right picture when it comes to bass. I'm going for dynaudio bm6a
There's also lots of difference between the type of monitors: it all depends on your room accoustics, the size of your room, the walls. I'm lucky that my produceroom isn't square with lots of angles and corners in them + I'm a nerdy near-fieldproducer. I sit behind my pc on 1.5meters from my monitors. When you're in a real studio (bigger), nearfields won't cut it anyomre. just do the test on your monitors (or speakers): go 3 meters to the right, 3 meters to the back, listen close to a wall, it all sounds different! Needless to say that room accoustics drastically change your perception of sound.
Huhu... update: doesn't work anymore. For the 20 minutes of euphoria it was nice, now I have to bring it back to the shop...
Looking forward for it to be fixed :(