[mattyb]

Hey everyone! me again heh.

Ok.. I've continued my research, and continued it, and then continued it some more.. you get the idea.

Incase you guys haven't read my previous post.. I'm building a new rig next week which is going to be a beast that will play games, movies, music, and produce music. It's going to host an internal X-Fi card, in which case I have no choice.

Now out of all the headphones I was researching into.. I became quite content on picking up a pair of the AKG 701 Headphones, but I found out that you need a good quality preamp to power them to get anything decent and worthwhile from them.

As a result, I've been looking into alternatives. I read somewhere that the E-MU 0404 USB has preamps built in, so that you can hook up mid-to-high-range headphones and get fairly decent results, along with very decent quality DACs etc.

Now this would be perfect for me! I'd have to drop the AKG 701's unfortunately because I'd have to pick up the E-mu 0404 usb to power such a device, which has now brought my attention to the Sennheiser HD 595's as they are a cheaper alternative. I know they don't sound as good as the AKG, but that's life. Budget's suck.

Now I basically have the following questions..

My new rig will be an e8400 with 4 gigs of ram. I mainly produce dance/electronic music and use a lot of vsti/vsts in the process. Can the E-mu 0404 usb handle many vsti/vsts at once? I'm aware that vst/vstis are mainly based on the processing power of your computer, but I'm wondering if there are any bandwidth limitations to the usb sound card in result of using so many vsts/vstis?

My plan is to basically setup 2 partitions on my new computer. I pretty much have the same setup now but anyway: Have 1 partition dedicated for gaming/music/movies/everything else with x-fi drivers installed. Have the other partition setup as a dedicated music production os, with the x-fi drivers uninstalled, and plugging the E-mu 0404 USB into this partition when required for producing music.

Both partitions will run Windows XP. Vista is still too ****ty imo, especially for music production from what I've read.

Thanks in advance guys!

Matty B.

 

[billbillw]

I think the bandwidth issues come into play more with respect to the number of channels you are trying to record/playback, and the bitrate/sampling frequency you use. That was one of the problems with the Audiophile USB (which was only 1.1), it couldn't play and record in 24bit at the same time.

 

[mattyb]

Sorry.. I forgot to mention that I'll be using an m-audio oxygen 49 midi keyboard controller hooked up via the E-mu 0404 usb in conjunction with the vsti/vsts. I won't be using anything that will record "directly."

All the recording will be done via a midi keyboard/vstis.

Could this be a problem after using say 5 - 10 vstis at once during playback, and then recording another track with another vsti instance using the keyboard?

 

[mattyb]

Hehe I just realised.. that if my suggested setup does work for producing, the Senny 595's will only work properly when I'm using the E-mu 0404, and will not be adequately drived from the x-fi whilst gaming.

Perhaps I'll have to buy a set of HD 555's as well? I dunno.. After all the reading I've done.. some of this music stuff just feels like one big jigsaw puzzle! hah.

 

[[L]es]

if i were you i'd try to simplify my jigsaw puzzle