Can Modular be used as computer's sound card?

yarmark · Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 4 Location: Seattle

I am *seriously* considering picking up a modular G2... Is this a feature of the hardware?

Any suggestions of similar products that can use their sound routing as the in/out for computer recording and bussing? I know that Access does this with their virus machines. any others?

thanks

Alexander · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 10:27 am Post subject:

I don't have any answer to your question, but why would you want to use a synth as a soundcard?

yarmark · Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 4 Location: Seattle

because i would imagine that the AD/DAs are good quality and it would therefore eliminate the need for an electronic musician such as myself to buy a separate sound card if I didn't require preamps or XLR plugs. It would also be very handy for recording/working on the road.

Kassen · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 10:50 am Post subject:

No, won't work. I don't think it could either because it's USB1.0 and I don't think that can strech to 4*96KHz*24 bits, most certainly not full duplex.

It wouldn't make any sense either because far superior DA converters can be bought for far less and you'd end up summing your computer and synth before your mixer which would take headroom.

Access made a good sounding synth (I can't think of any digital hardware that sounds as good, eccepting some 70's stuff) but none of what they did after that made any sense to me at all.

Kassen · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 10:52 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 10:52 am Post subject:

The USB connection is just for the software control of the G2 and not for audio and midi.

yarmark · Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 4 Location: Seattle

thanks for the opinions and infos both of you. the world never turns out to be as perfect as I want it to be.

elektro80 · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 11:02 am Post subject:

I wouldn´t say the DACs are the worst ever but there is a certain character to the sound that might be OK for an instrument but not for a modern DAW.

Kassen · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 11:38 am Post subject:

Well, ok, enough about the DAC'S.

I still think it's a bad idea even if we'd be talking imaginary perfect DAC's because except for the situation where the PC and the G2 would be your only gear and digital summing would be desired or acceptable it would create a gain-structure nightmare.

Good soundcards need not break the bank anymore. Some of the EMU pci cards are quite reasonable in price and and the "m" versions sound marvelous.

Kassen · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 11:41 am Post subject:

By the way; some modern soundcards that come build in to motherboards feature a optical output but bad build in DAC'S; on a tight budget you could experiment with using the optical output directly to a modern HIFI amp.

yarmark · Joined: May 23, 2006 Posts: 4 Location: Seattle

slave to this · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject:

ian-s

Kassen · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:37 pm Post subject:

Kassen · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:42 pm Post subject:

blue hell · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:43 pm Post subject:

cebec · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 1:53 pm Post subject:

slave to this · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 2:38 pm Post subject:

what are opinions, if any, about RME dac's? i want a fireface bad despite the price.

James

Kassen · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 2:50 pm Post subject:

Ithink RME makes top quality stuff in general. I never heard anything but praise about them.

As for the G2/1616 thing; I'm not sure because I never heard a 1616 in action. I did look up the spec-sheets and those DAC's have a filter that can configured through software so yes; different implementations could very well sound radically different.

Also; I kinda regretted making fun of the sb16 because the sb16 even if it's cheap will always perform. I think every system under the sun has drivers for it so that's worth something too...

elektro80 · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 5:09 pm Post subject:

In general, the RME gear is quite good.

jksuperstar · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:31 pm Post subject:

Jason · Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 3:53 pm Post subject:

yes this would be awesome and puts the G2 in the back seat in comparison to say the T1 etc however the G2 makes up for this in its sound which is quite nice. But yes each new product is like a swiss army knife now days doing everything the G2 is not entirely like that but boasts other powerful features such as its 4 individual inputs allowing extensive processing I hope this is of some help. Oh yes I have a fireface and LOVE it I love RME anyway... used to do tech support for em too. But again there are so many new products coming out its staggering. Aside from converter quality look towards low latency Drivers indeed.