Alright so for the longest time I had this one computer that was pretty crappy, but it had a “beats” integrated sound chip or something, I don’t know really, but the sound on it was pretty decent.
Recently, I bought a brand new computer, and was really going for a gaming/music production tower, but then my budget fell short when it came to a sound card and I had to skimp out on it and just went with the on board sound with the motherboard. Well, upon turning it on and testing out the sound on it, I realize this was a mistake for a producer like myself. The sound’s dinky, hardly any bass, and I have to turn the volume up to 70 to really hear anything.
Anyways, long story short, I need a sound card for my computer, but I have no idea what to buy. I’d rather spend under $200 (maybe even under $100 if possible). Any tips? Thanks!
Be careful, the “beats” sound chip is not actually good but it has bass boost so it’s not that reliable, and as far as I know it’s usually impossible or hard to remove that
For producing you don’t want anything masking your sound, you need to hear exactly what you’re doing
Also, what headphones/speakers are you using? Onboard sound cards are usually fine and it probably won’t change that much if you get a new one.
Without trying to sound elitest, if you cannot tell the difference between the soundcard on the mother board and an interface with high quality conversion, that is also a case in which you should upgrade what you are listening on.
You want a sound card that can push plenty of undistorted signal, otherwise you reach for the volume on your monitors potentially causing those amps to distort. You have now,potentially, distorted your signal twice. I try not to turn anything up more than 75% of the maximum.
I think even a hobby bedroom musician wants a proper interface at some point and focusrite make plenty that help you avoid distortion in your listening signal chain.
Oh yeah, there is a lot of difference, I was wrong in how I worded it
What I wanted to say is that his beats integrated sound card could be reason it was sounding (artificially) good and had bass before , even if he had a bad headphone. If that’s the case then upgrading the sound card might not help him that much
Thanks for the tips guys! Wasn’t expecting that many responses so fast. As for the beats sound, yeah I noticed it was boosting bass as soon as I pulled up the panel and noticed there was a “bass boost” option turned on. Whenever I turned it off there was practically no bass and it bugged me, so I turned it back on and tried basing my stuff off of what other artists bass levels were around.
I’m using AKG K240s for my headphones, not the best but they’re pretty damn decent if you ask me, especially for their price (aside from making my ears hot). With the new computer, it’s got some like “Crystal HD Surround Sound” thing going on, and it’s fine for general stuff like watching netflix and playing games, but when I’m trying to produce I can’t hear certain frequencies as well, and something about the general quality just seems bad, like it’s stuck at 192 kbps or something, and I made sure my computer was playing the best it could play in the sound options.
But ya… thanks again for the links and recommendations. I’ve always been iffy about USB Audio interfaces and all that though, I really have no idea how they work and if it’s as reliable as installing an actual card into my system? I’m generally a newby at this sort of thing, sorry, hope I’m not being a pest lol.
no worries :), ask questions. Focusrite make pretty reliable usb interfaces, they are a budget fav of bedroom musicians. There are always a couple people who have an issue with any piece of gear, just read some reviews from real users before buying
If your prefer an internal card, RME make fantastic ones, but they are more money…
Yeah, the thing I heard about the beats sound card was that there was always a bass boost that you couldnt turn off, good that yours was different tho
But yeah, your headphones are fine, I got the same, they were also really quiet on my onboard sound card but as far as sound quality goes it was fine. On that budget i’m gonna recommend the focusrite also, only heard good things about it, some friends own it and they like it.
Everyone works with outboard cards so you have nothing to worry about there.
The only people I know who work with built in cards use those pcie signal processors
by UAD because they do band mixes with a lot of overdubbing etc…
Tbf, this point came fairly naturally to me. And I did say where he was going wrong too.
I did think that you could re-export 92kbps to 320 and improve the quality for a while though.
I’ve been more focused on the production side of things rather than the hardware side of things for the most part up until recently, so yeah, I am a bit clueless, I didn’t take any offense to that. I’ve always known beats headphones were crap, and the computer with the beats built into it was just a super good deal at the time, that’s why I got it (and I got it before I was really taking producing seriously, too, so there’s that). Anyways, all good suggestions guys, thanks a ton.
I had it for a while too. My uncle got me it as a gift because it was recommended when he told the guy at Best Buy that I make music. The laptop itself was peak though. Somehow the harddrive broke without me ever taking it out of my bedroom. That and it had windows 8.
Unless the HD is solid state the mechanical parts just wear out. Inside a regular hard disk is a bunch if film like in a floppy, somthe physical medium wears out too.
