Xeron Brigs

[quote name='jmccabe' post='239559' date='Jul 14 2008, 03:55 PM']How much do you want to spend? I've been looking for something recently but for a desktop box. As far as I can tell, you can have either good games/entertainment performance or good audiophile performance but it's not easy to get both, at least not for a reasonable price. A friend of mine has an E-MU systems 1616M PC Card version, but that's mainly for recording. What sound device does your laptop have? Does it have ASIO drivers? If not, have you tried ASIO4ALL on it?[/quote] For me, I don't want to spend a whole lot of money, as I am not all that serious about recording yet. (My skill level isn't where I think it should be, I'm not in a band, etc). I would say that $300 would probably be the max that I would want to spend, although I would prefer to spend less if possible. My Laptop has the basic "Realtek HD Audio Manager" that comes standard with every copy of Windows Vista. I tried using ASIO4ALL, and it didn't work as intended: it would only play out of my Laptop's default speakers, and not the ones that I have plugged into the thing, although the latency did decrease somewhat (but not to a level as low as my desktop.) Still, it is a good temporary fix, so thanks for pointing that out. The Sound Card doesn't have to be a Video Gaming powerhouse, just something to improve sound quality, and possibly take some strain off of my CPU when running something like Crysis. Having a Sound Card with the equivilent of Creative's "What U Hear" would be really nice. Hope this information helps. Edit: After tweaking with it some, sound now plays out of my regular speakers. This should hold me over until I get a new card. Thanks for telling me about it.

I downloaded a copy of Guitar Rig 3 the other day (its a really cool program) but there is one problem with it: my latency is absolutely terrible due to the fact that my Laptop does not have a dedicated sound card. I tried the same program on my older Desktop (which has a Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio) and using the card's support for ASIO, I was able to get my latency down to a respectable 9ms. To do any recording on my Laptop, I am going to need to get a Sound Card. The only question is, what kind should I get? The only one that I have found that would work with my laptop so far is this: [url="http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=16642"]Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook[/url]. I would like to get a Sound Card that is connected by either USB or Smart Bay, works well with both Video Games and Recording, and is affordable. Something similar to [url="http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=audiokontrol1&L=1"]this[/url] would be ideal. Thanks!

Thanks for the responses, all of them were really helpful. Its good that so many of you are willing to help a new bass player with some of the most basic questions.

I definitely agree with it being light-weight: I picked up a much cheaper Squier and the thing felt like a lead-weight, although the larger neck didn’t bother me too much (I have large hands.) I am probably going to go ahead and get the Ibanez SR500, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t making a bad decision or that there weren’t better options available for a similar price. The Roland Cube 30 Bass Amp sounds like a good buy, although I was also considering a Warwick Blue Cab 30. Any more input on this?

I have decided to start playing the Bass Guitar, so I took the advice of the "Buying your first bass" thread and went to a local music store to try some out. While there, I picked up an [url="http://www.ibanez.com/bass/guitar.aspx?m=SR500"]Ibanez SR500[/url], plugged it into a random amp, and started playing it. The bottom line: I really liked that Bass: everything from the fret length to the sound it made when I played it was exactly what I was looking for. Before I bought it, I wanted to get some advice on the matter from people who know a whole lot more about the Bass than I do. I have two questions: 1. Is there a Bass Guitar that might be of better quality than this one and not cost too much more? 2. What is a good Amplifier that I can purchase to get the most out of a Bass? (My Roland Micro Cube is probably not going to work ) Thanks in advance!