When you consider all the things multimedia boards are asked to do, it's no wonder they can't measure up to professional equipment in every aspect. Real-time effects, analog-to-digital-to-analog conversions, sound sample libraries for 128+ instruments, SCSI or IDE CD ROM interfaces, and CD audio connections are all commonly found on multimedia boards. That's a lot of work for one board, especially when you figure that it has to cost less than $300 to be competitive in the multimedia market.
Many of the problems I experienced using a multimedia board for production might have been solved given more time and experience. For example, I found that turning off the on-board effects of my multimedia board greatly improved recorded audio quality. Still, I'll stand by this conclusion: multimedia boards may be well suited for reproducing professionally recorded audio, but not for producing it.
Production vs. Reproduction
The key distinction here is between the words production and reproduction. Production is the making of a recording; reproduction is the playback of previously recorded material. Production places different demands on a sound board. Simultaneous play and record are mandatory for professional quality production. My sound card didn't support this feature, so when I overdubbed live guitar and vocals onto existing audio and MIDI tracks, the resulting mix was badly out of sync.
Low noise levels are also more critical in production. If you simply play back a single pre-recorded track, the noise level may seem low, but as you add more tracks to a mix the cumulative noise quickly becomes audible.
External synchronization is also an important feature for music production. If you intend to run a MIDI sound source along with multiple recorded tracks, you need a way to keep them in sync. SMPTE timecode is the most common synchronization mechanism and is widely available on pro systems. MIDI timecode (MTC) is a MIDI representation of SMPTE and is also widely available as a feature in hardware and software products.
Another problem is caused by the General MIDI standard and this problem has been corrected in many of the newer MIDI cards (but not mine). General MIDI allows for only a single volume control per channel. My recording used 15 different percussion instruments but General MIDI assigns all percussion to a single channel, which meant that I could not adjust the levels of each instrument within the percussion channel. The result was an inflexible set of drums and 15 instruments playing at exactly the same sound level.
What can we conclude? The professional gear I used worked right the first time, yet no single component was nearly so flexible as the multimedia sound board. If you're looking for professional sounding production, head straight for the pro gear. Each piece costs more and has fewer functions than a sound card, but performance is greatly enhanced. After all, if you've begged and bribed your favorite guitar player to lay down some tracks, do you really want to take a chance on missing his best performance? Worse yet, do you want to ask him to come back next weekend because your gear wasn't working properly?
Where do we go from here?
There's a great area in the MIDI forum on CompuServe called "Pre-owned Equipment." You'll find me and many others there looking for bargains on used equipment and selling the stuff we no longer need. I've always found it to be a great place to get technical and buying advice as well. Like most of you, I need to keep my costs down, so I do a lot of my shopping research asking questions in the CompuServe vendor forums. Maybe I'll see you there.
Questions or comments? Email b.novak@csi.compuserve.com
