sound card

Can anyone offer their suggestions for a low cost sound card to drive external speakers on my G5?

I got a set of LogicTek 5.1 speakers that have the green, orange and black mini's...

Not a big audiophile setting, just something that will preserve 5.1 .



Independent photographer, film maker and Producer. In the wonderful UK.

damn good question : )

to my knowledge, there really arent any low cost "sound cards" for the mac at all...
most surround sound solutions that im aware of are either super high dollar, pro-tools type stuff, OR lower cost usb/firewire solutions - and im not aware that any of those address true 5.1 - but then again, im not the authority of "home theater" on a mac...

id imagine the best way to get there would be to use the optical out (depending on the age and model of your machine) but that wouldnt make use of your logitech connectors...

Hi Wayne -

Because you're an active trader and frequent flyer here, I wanted to give you a progress report.

Your "tip" regarding the USB device prompted me to dig thru my parts box and find my Philips Aurilium USB external audio interface circa 2003.

I researched the web and user forums stated that the Aurilium will work on USB without special drivers, and/or with a BETA driver circa 2004.

Both are true... however withOUT the driver, the mute switch and the volume knob on the Philips box do remotely control the volume and mute controls in System Preferences > Sound > USB Philips.

With the driver, those onboard controls do not control System Preferences > Sound > USB Philips. Also with the driver installed, a periodic "beep" occurs, not unlike the "beep" we pleasantly hear in FCP when we have unrendered audio.

So with the green, orange and black mini's of my LogiTek plugged in correspondingly to the jacks on the Philips Aurilium, I do get audio from the green (front) speakers. Not the rear or center.

There was an old thread on one or more sound forums that questioned whether Panther or Tiger passed 5.1 sound on USB/USB2.

I might have a hardware problem with the Philips. When I unplug all the minis, then plug only the orange mini into the green jack, I get sound... same for the black mini in the green jack... but no sound on orange or black when plugged correctly to match colors.

So either Tiger is not passing 5.1 to the Philips Aurilium on the USB bus, and the Aurilium is not manufacturing sound for the orange and black feeds, OR my Aurilium has bad channels for the orange and black.

I next need to try the Optical port, but I need to find an/the Optical cable. The user forums that questioned 5.1 on USB, suggested that 5.1 was passed on the Optical port of the G5.

It's not that I'm an audiophile (afterall I did work in radio and niteclub audo), but I'm thinking that if I'm going to spend anytime working with FCP and SoundTrack Pro, I'd at least like the hardware to support 5.1, whether I use it or design for it, or not.



Independent photographer, film maker and Producer. In the wonderful UK.

And there might be an issue if the Aurilium is USB 1 and the G5 is USB 2.



Independent photographer, film maker and Producer. In the wonderful UK.

M-Audio Revolution 5.1

USD 99.95 MSRP



[www.m-audio.com]

I can't vouch for it as I've never used it. It's nothing obscure though.



- Justin Barham -

at$99, that looks great - id love to test it out...

I am hoping to find an External, to save on opening the G5.

I did pick up an inexpensive Creative Live 24 USB external. All the drivers and software are for Win XP... Went to Circuit City across the street from KCET. Isn't that the old ABC-TV building where Bandstand aired?

The G5 plays sweet sound thru it, just like the Philips, without drivers, but not 5.1 . Soundtrack says there aren't anough jacks, so it isn't utilizing the card fully without drivers.


I made an awesome 1 minute composition in SoundTrack. Am experimenting with ST now, what a pain application in terms of Exporting out. Export Using Compressor half the time does not launch Compressor, so I have to quit ST and re-launch.

My next door neighbor does network Post sound... he says in ProTools you export the channels seperately... I don't think it did. Headache time. Apple needs to do better on these.

Apple needs to make sure there's cards and drivers for 5.1, playback 5.1 in ST and FCP, ease the design of the exporting process for assigning which tracks go to which (Front L, Front Right, Rear L, Rear R, Center, and interoperability of files created in ST and FCP with each other.

Not that I'm using all of 5.1, but sheesh, its not rocket science: all 5.1 is, is 6 output jacks, and you assign a track to an output jack.

I did that 30 years ago with my SONY mic mixer.



Independent photographer, film maker and Producer. In the wonderful UK.

M-Audio Revolution 5.1 USD 99.95 MSRP

Out of Stock

But the 7.1 is in stock at $120.


ps -M Audio is "a part of AVID". In case someone was about to tell me that Apple need not be concerned about sound cards

=



Post Edited (05-07-06 21:06)

Independent photographer, film maker and Producer. In the wonderful UK.

[www.audiomidi.com]

$79



- Justin Barham -

""ps -M Audio is "a part of AVID". In case someone was about to tell me that Apple need not be concerned about sound cards "


M-Audio has been solid with the Mac world even after they were bought by Avid.

There are a ton of audio options for Macs as sound guys love the low-latency, and simplicity.



- Justin Barham -

I got the M-Audio 7.1 card today from AVID/DigiDesign. (The 5.1 card was discontinued on some sites, so for a few $$'s more, I got the 7.1).

It is awesome!

For $120, plus the $85 for the LogiTech 5.1 speakers, I got 5.1 surround sound!

The application has a visual interface to the speakers, where you can send test signals, and choose from 3-4 industry styles of surround sound.

But that brings us to FCP Studio and SoundTrack. Way, way out of date.

QuickTime supports 5.1 playback... but in FCP and STP you can't even assign tracks to Outputs to listen to your sound design (Front Left & Right, Rear left & Right, Center) in basic timeline "play".


Now, I need to decide between SoundTrack Pro, Logic or ProTools to make music themes and design scenes. I dabbled with STP, but got a huge headache! Now if Apple is going to include STP with FCP Studio, it sould be more intuitive... e.g. "down arrow" in FCP takes you to the next clip, "down arrow" in STP zooms in!

Copy a clip on a track, and hit paste, and it pastes the clip on another track.

GOOFY!



Independent photographer, film maker and Producer. In the wonderful UK.

I'm glad it worked out for you nick. That card looks pretty neat. Enjoy.

Apple gives us STP with FCP now, so that would be the place to do a surround mix. But they also sell Logic which does 5.1, so it would eat at their sales. Still, the option to be able to do some kind of rudimentary surround mixing in STP would be pretty darn cool.



- Justin Barham -

I went to Sam Ash on Sunset Blvd today.

Needed and wanted to see, feel and touch the hardware and software in person to decide what to do next.

FCP and STP are useless for designing anything more than L+R stereo.

Next step up seemed to me would be ProTools... went on AVID/DigiDesign/ProTools site, and you can't buy ProTools withOUT also buying a hardware interface.

Thus off to Sam Ash I went.

A FCP sound designer was there. We went over the options of ProTools, Logic, and a couple of others.

I went home with Digital Performer! In the same price bracket as Logic. Grown up version of "Performer" that I had originally bought in 1990. The company "Mark Of The Unicorn" has been abbreviated to MOTU, thus MOTU Digital Performer.

Out of the box, Digital Performer worked perfectly with the AVID M-Audio 7.1 card (with 5.1 speaker hardware). Nice WYSIWYG control panel showing assignment of the 8 channels to which output, plus basic stereo.

Digital Performer also works with it's optional 8-port speaker breakout box... Firewire from the G5 to the breakout box, and then 8 audio ports on the box to drive 6 (for 5.1) or up to 8 (7.1) self-powered speakers.

(Why do they call it 5.1 and 7.1 when it is really 5+1 and 7+1 ?)

So where I stand now:

5.1 Speakers...........$ 85.00
7.1 M Audio Card......120.00
Digital Performer.......529.00

Plan B - (If and when)
Bridge Box............................$549.00
6 Self Powered spkrs.............300.00

Pretty huge day!



Post Edited (05-12-06 20:56)

Independent photographer, film maker and Producer. In the wonderful UK.

"I went home with Digital Performer! In the same price bracket as Logic.
Grown up version of "Performer" that I had originally bought in 1990. The
company "Mark Of The Unicorn" has been abbreviated to MOTU, thus MOTU
Digital Performer."


People like MOTU. I've heard good things.

"(Why do they call it 5.1 and 7.1 when it is really 5+1 and 7+1 ?)"


I'n no audio guy, but.. I'll guess: While the LFE channel is discreet in all HT systems, in cinema (at least with DTS) it's simply pushing bass from other channels. Also it has a limited range and isn't directional like the other 5 (7.)



- Justin Barham -