[wplug] SBlive

[Dave Neuer]

I'm using alsa. The recend emu10k1 drivers seem to
work well. I hear what you're saying about the
hardware deficiencies, but the ALSA drivers are good
and improving, and I'm not above hacking them if
there's an obvious place for imrovement.

As far as it being a consumer-grade card, I'm not a
professional musician. I'm a professional programmer,
and a hobbyist musician. If it turns out that people
are into my digital recordings, and I get a little
more time and discretionary income, I may eventually
graduate to something higher-end. For now, the SBLive
meets my needs, and is a vast improvement over most
consumer-grade cards out there.

Dave

--- DAVID G MATTHEWS <dgm4+ at pitt.edu> wrote:
> It depends on what you want to use the card for. 
> The guy I responded to
> ssid that he wanted to use it for recording.  Kernel
> drivers in general
> suck big time for recording.  They're fine for games
> or mp3's, but for
> anything more advanced than that, you should use
> alsa.  Kernel drivers
> have crappy latency, and they don't support more
> than 2 channels very
> well.
> Not only that, but there are some pretty basic
> technical flaws on the
> SBLive card.  For one thing, it's hard-wired to 48
> khz, so any 44.1 khz
> audio (the sampling rate of CD's), it gets resampled
> to 48, ad then back
> 44.1.  Sampling rate conversion inherently involves
> a loss in quality.
> Not only that, but any outocming audio automatically
> gets routed to the
> effects unit (which is only accessible through
> winblows) before it gets to
> te output.  The effects chip only accepts an analog
> signal, which means
> that your audio is getting converted to analog to
> get to te effects chip,
> then back to digital by th fx chip itself, then back
> to digital, and
> finally back to analog by the DAC.  Multiple D/A/D
> conversions - yuck!
> The SBLive is a fine consumuer card - but tat's wat
> it is: a consumer
> card.  If you want to do any kind of sound editing
> or recording, it's not
> te best choice.  (I say this because I have one and
> have been disappointed
> - especially when using non-alsa drivers.)
> -dgm
> 
> 
> On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, MICHAEL M DELANEY wrote:
> 
> > Well, as much as I hate creative (Aureal fan :),
> their open source drivers
> > in the kernel have worked pretty well for me, I've
> never used alsa on it.
> > I do know that their drivers don't support
> everything on the card, and 3d
> > audio support has been promised for over a year
> without much progress, and
> > when it is released, it will probally not be open
> source as well.
> > Mike
> >
> > On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, DAVID G MATTHEWS wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, 5 Dec 2001, Dave Neuer wrote:
> > >
> > > > Additionally, I plan to use the money to buy a
> Create
> > > > Technology Live!Drive I for use with my
> SBLive! to
> > > > assist w/ my home recording adventures.
> > >
> > > I wouldn't recommend an SBLive! for recording,
> with or without the live
> > > drive.  I have an SBLive and have been
> disappointed. Also, alsa support
> > > for the live drive is kind of sketchy, so if
> you're planning on doing your
> > > recording under Linux, you may in for a
> surprise.  If you want a decent
> > > cheap audio card that works well under Linux,
> the M-Audio and Terratec
> > > cards have gotten pretty good comments on the
> Alsa and Linux Audio
> > > Developers' lists.  These cards run around
> $150-200, and you have to order
> > > them from a music dealer, rather tha a computer
> place.  (Check
> > > www.musiciansfriend.com).  As for software,
> Ardour
> > > (ardour.sourceforge.net) is now in a usable
> state.
> > >
> > > -dgm
> > >
> > > >If anyone has
> > > > one of these and is interested in any of this
> stuff,
> > > > let me know -- perhaps we can work out a deal.
> > > >
> > > >
> __________________________________________________
> > > > Do You Yahoo!?
> > > > Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
> > > > http://greetings.yahoo.com
> > > >
> _______________________________________________
> > > > wplug mailing list
> > > > wplug at wplug.org
> > > > http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
> > > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > wplug mailing list
> > > wplug at wplug.org
> > > http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > wplug mailing list
> > wplug at wplug.org
> > http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> wplug mailing list
> wplug at wplug.org
> http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com