DSP or sound card?

[ramin]

Hi everybody, great forum btw.

I need some advice about what I should do to make my music sound better and commercial, I know that is what everybody is looking for so I'm gonna be more specific.

I have been working on a song for months where all the sounds are from softwares like Quantum Leap's Colossus, Stylus RMX, Hypersonic e.t.c. and arranged in Cubase SX.

I think that it sounds really good for being produced and mixed in a home studio but I also believe that it could sound much better and "commercial".

I've been researching to find out if I should invest money in buying a dsp card ,like uad 2 or powercore, in order to be able to use better mixing plugins or invest the money to buy a better sound card, like RME fireface or one of MOTU's cards since I'm using a $200 sound card right now, the Delta 1010LT.

I have to say that I'm now using Waves plugins wich also are really high quality plugins but I just can't get it to sound as good as my reference songs.

I really appreciate any help.

Thanks

_________________
Pentium 3.0 Ghz, 3G ram, Cubase SX, M-Audio Delta 1010LT, Samson Resolv A5, RODE NT1-A, Samson C-Valve, Yamaha MG102c...

[tacman7]

I went for a UAD-1 a few months ago and have been very happy with it.

I find it to be a commitment. When you spend a bunch of money on a processor or other pro audio equipment you have to spend the time to understand the product and get it to work right, then learn how to use it and integrate it into your workflow. I spent a lot of time reading the UA boards, website and Utube videos, lots of info on UAD on the web, before purchasing.

I was also thinking about upgrading my soundcard, I was talking to different people about if you get any improvement in sound quality with a new soundcard if you create the music in the digital domain(VSTi), and export it in the digital domain (CD,mp3) You never use the cards converters so I don't know about that, certainly it might sound better on your monitors if you got a lynx card or whatever, that's what they say but I don't know if it would make your music any better.

[brandondrury]

There are two questions that you are asking here.

1) Is the UAD-1 DSP stuff good?

The answer to that is yes. I've heard many samples and demos of the UAD-1 stuff and I've been impressed.

2) Is the UAD-1 stuff going to solve your audio problems?

The answer to that is probably not. Very rarely does buying new recording gear solve inherent problems with sounding pro vs non-pro. The gear upgrades are what you do for fun once the mix sounds pretty damn great already.

I was also thinking about upgrading my soundcard, I was talking to different people about if you get any improvement in sound quality with a new soundcard if you create the music in the digital domain(VSTi), and export it in the digital domain (CD,mp3) You never use the cards converters so I don't know about that, certainly it might sound better on your monitors if you got a lynx card or whatever, that's what they say but I don't know if it would make your music any better.

Listen to this.
AD Converter Shootout: Mytek AD96 vs Presonus Firestudio

or

this

Recording Gear Quiz - Vintech, Trident, Mytek, Royer, Shure, and Presonus

I think you are asking entirely the wrong questions. Instead of asking what you should buy, you should put a song in Bash This Recording and ask "How can this be improved?".

Brandon

[ramin]

Thank you guys, I really appretiat your comments and what I see here and from other forums is that it is not always about the gear, maybe I should keep trying and explore more and try to get more experienced.

Thanks

[brandondrury]

maybe I should keep trying and explore more and try to get more experienced.

Only if you want to get good at this!

Brandon

[ramin]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

Only if you want to get good at this!

Brandon

That is my goal...

[nate509]

lol brandon i took that quiz you posted about and i aced it, got them all right was clearly one sounded good one sounded crap. was fun though was nice knowing what im doin.

[nate509]

hey "RAMIN" i so understand what your sayin about the quality it's same situation as me but dont spend your money on plugins waves is good enough. ive tookin commercial raw vocal recordings and mixed them as i would with my vocal signal and the difference was so big i wanted to punch myself. it's the gear man... get decent gear then hear the difference in the raw vocal and its way more dynamically better. its like with crappier gear the vocal is there but its missing stuff even no you cant notice it and it sounds normal its wierd to me too i no. but its there and theres differences and only way to fix this is by biting the bullet puttin money into what you love "music" i hear brandon saying all this stuff about its not the gear and its you. i dunno why he judges people like this its clearly a fact of what you need and what you dont got.

[ramin]

Nate509, thank you for your respons.

Right now I'm usin a RODE NT1-A for my vocal track and that is a very good mic, but the preamp is weak, it's a Samson C-Valve. But it is not only the vocal that sound not good enough it's the whole song and all the other track are from well known vsti's so maybe I should change the sound card to something better.

[tacman7]

Originally Posted by ramin

all the other track are from well known vsti's so maybe I should change the sound card to something better.

I was talking about this the other day, If you create something in the digital domain, you process it in the digital domain, and you export it in the digital domain (CD, MP3) then it doesn't go through your soundcard at all except to listen to your music. So if you send a track to a friend and it sounds good there but not on your system then maybe a sound card or monitors would help.