Music Resources

Pro Tips: Buying Your First Sound Card

Are you looking for an audio recording sound card, but have no idea where to start looking? Finding your first audio interface can be a tricky business, but if you work through this article, you’ll soon be better equipped when you make your choice.

Your Computer

Before you can consider an audio interface, you first need to decide what you’ll be using to record onto. If, for example, you’re wanting to work on your ten-year-old laptop that’s still running Windows XP, you’re going to be in for a bad time.

That doesn’t mean that you need the latest gen i7 with hundreds of gigs of RAM to run a home studio either. The most relevant point to consider is what you’ll be recording. If you just want to do some basic recording, a simple i3 laptop with 8gigs of RAM and an SSD will be more than sufficient.

If however you’re in a prog band, and you want to record a million guitar tracks and a 64-piece choir simultaneously, you’re going to want something a bit more robust.

What Sound Card is Ideal?

The simple truth is that there is no ideal sound card to fit all purposes. Think about cars; a delivery van is ideal if you need to move furniture, but it would make a rubbish Formula 1 car.

So before you can find the perfect sound card, you must first decide what you’re wanting to use it for.

Need some professional advice?

What are you going to use it for?

The first thing to identify is how many inputs you will need. While in most professional settings musicians are recorded individually, that doesn’t always mean that they are using one microphone.

Drum kits, for example, could use 8 (or more!) microphones when recording. So if you have a single input sound card, you are going to struggle to mic your kit.

If on the other hand, you’re a classical guitarist, you can get away with a single microphone and a decent quality line out signal from the pre-amp on the guitar.

Quality and Budget

The next element to consider is your desired quality.

You might be thinking to yourself at this point, “Shouldn’t I always use the best quality?”. And the truth is that yes, generally it’s better to get the best you can afford. But, in some circumstances that extra money might not be worth it.

Music teachers who want to record their students during class time to demonstrate technique would only need a simple sound card. That is because in this case, you won’t need a top-shelf sound card. If you did buy a top-shelf sound card, you would get a ton of feature you’d never use. In this case, spending the extra money would be a waste.

Someone who is wanting to make money from their music, and get radio play time, would, of course, need a sound card that can record at broadcast quality. If you want your music to be listened to, then you should always get the best sound card you can afford.

Once you’ve decided on whether or not you’re going to release your music, and how many inputs you need, and your budget, you are finally ready to buy your first sound card!