Reccomend a Sound Card for Gamer/Recording

This one is pretty good. I'll assume you want a PCI and not a PCI-e card since you didnt specify.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

also the asus xonar D1 would be good, but it looks out of stock all over.




yay 1000 posts. (nm me)

oops i meant to specify PCI-E PC is new build last year, unless GFX cards use PCI-E and sound cards use PCI

you could do either with that mobo. The PCI-e would be a tight fit if you have a big GPU. (thats what she said LOL)

No difference in quality between slot types, it mostly matters what free slots you have.

well i have a 5850

then get a PCI card like the one I linked. If you find others that look appealing, I can give you my opinion on them, but I like the striker card personally for the price and the usage you want.

what about this PCI-E one i linked in the op

http://us.store.creative.com/PCI-Express-Sound-Blaster-...

creative cards are garbage, IMO. The drivers are the worst part, the hardware specs aren't that bad. I have been burned too many times from what was the only high end sound card maker for years. But now finally there are real other options. Just my opinion, but many others here share the Creative hate. Make a poll thread and ask that very question, you will LOL.

dadiggle, that's great, but those are two separate comments, one was about the slot to use based off the mobo layout (the PCIE is right next to the PCIE for graphics, but all 3 pci are separate and unused). The other was his reaction to why I didn't like his creative card link. Yep, many times they put the same parts on a card regardless of which slot the final product will use. There is no correlation between PCI/PCIE and sound quality/features/overall experience. They simply have them for people that have this or that slot open in their case. Especially with SLI/CF frequently used.

My main concern is a soundcard that will not require me to boost my mic DB as that causes static when i record and its a pain to have to edit out the static, or would it be my headset? i have Ear Force X1's by turtle beach

As i said in the OP Asus M4A77T/USB3 not sure if i have spdif output, why do i need it?

archey, listen, skip the spdif input, as it accepts only digital info and can't be used for the microphone like you said originally wanted to use. Something with really good preamps is ideally what you want, but unless you are doing pro recording, your don't really need it. $200 is usually what it takes to get a really good 0ms latency card with nice recording preamps for recording analog sound. The specs will not reveal this, your ears will. It makes it harder to track down a good card.Since you want to do gaming too, the needs of the card change. Having some hardware acceleration or at least compatibility for things like dolby digital live or DTS live could be more important than some sound quality.

Another thing, your setup makes a big difference in sound quality and noise levels. Can you please tell me what kind of mic and how you are connecting it to the onboard sound currently? For instance, I use shure sm58 and sm57 mic through a mixer. The mics are hi-z, requiring transforming to low z that a computer could use. The mixer does a fantastic job of doing that. If I used a regular old low-z mic (you can tell because they usually have a 3.5mm or "big headphone" jack (lol sorry dont know the size, maybe 1/4 inch?)) then I would likely get a lot more noise.

Re: creative for recording, I still stand by they are crap. They are best used for digital source recording, as their onboard preamps for the analog side are weaksauce and taint the sound. Just my opinion let your ears tell you different.

check these recording cards out, if when you game, you only need to have your headphones sound good, and are not interested in 5.1, etc. check these out. They are for recording, but still work fine for games.

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Tascam-US1...

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/ART-USBPho...

one ive actually used and found the quality was really good _for the price_. Best bang for the buck recording wise, it has upgraded preamps.

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Alesis-iO2...

I would if I did.

As I said I am only concerned with something that will remove static from my recording and not wreck my gaming audio. Or is it my mic causing the static? I use Ear Force X1s. If you can recommend a headset could it please be decent for gaming but will have no static while recording audio.

Thanks,
Archey

You are using the mic in the earforce x1s to record audio? Not ideal, but they shouldnt cause static. Have you tried other sources into the onboard sound to verify the mic is or is not causing the issue?

The headphones - I cant find a pic of the cord end showing what kind of plugs it uses. If it is just the usual headphone jacks (with a separate one for the mic), then you can use that with any sound card, on board or not.

You can always use your current setup for games, even if you find out the input on your mobo is not working correctly. Windblows lets you use multiple sound devices if you set it up in the Control panel, so those recording solutions I linked will work for when you record videos.

I know for sure its my mic, as it only causes static when i boost it to 30.0dB, if i don't boost it's real quiet, i've tried recording with stereo mix, when i do my system audio echoes abit and the mic is real quiet

well, thats a problem +30 db is way too much boost. You get echoes because it can hear itself from your headphone/speaker output. If you like your current headphones, see if its still under warranty. You could buy another set of the same headphones and see if it fixes it, and return it if it doesn't. Then you would know to get a different brand. I really don't know what are good headphone/mic combos these days, I don't play multiplayer games too much anymore.

would there be a reason why its really quiet without the boost?

The reason for it needing the boost is the mic is not very sensitive for a reason. It may be a bad mic, bad cabling or both. Maybe the mic portion is very low quality, even if the speakers in the headphones are really good. That's why I said try another pair and see how they do. Do you use these just for the computer? You could get a standalone mic that sits on your desktop and still use the headphones.

Yeah i've decided to go with the stand alone for audio recording while, and while gaming like in vent or w.e ill use headset

Can you reccomend a good stand alone, i hear blue ball was good or something

Blue makes good mics for the price. They are a little overpriced IMO, but not much. I haven't used them at home, but I know others that use them and are happy with them. The reviews on many of their products are good. They certainly have good build standards, their products are well made.

Personally I would pick a USB condenser style mic made for vocals. I can't really recommend one, since I use shure sm58 and sm57 exclusively (they are high z mics, they use XLR, which would complicate things for you). So I direct you to musicians friend.com where I would just look at reviews and price. Sound quality at $50 will not be way different than $100, just quality of the hardware. $50 will buy get you something that should work great. Some good brands are nady, alesis AKG shure, and blue.

Here is a cheap one that got decent reviews:

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Nady-USB24...

Not really looking for a mic looking like that, but thanks anyway i think i found a blue one at a local store.