EMU 0404 PCI Sound Card

I have been thinking about buying a decent sound card for the past several months. I have been extremely discouraged by latency issues with my current sound card that was so bad that if I recorded while listening to a digital track on my computer I was half a beat off.

I had to decide what I really needed first. Since I only record track at a time I figured that if I had 2 audio inputs (Left and Right) that would be fine. Additionally I wanted to have 2 speaker outputs (left and Right). As for my digital needs I wanted to make sure I had MIDI capabilities and S/PDIF coaxial for a device I had. I have fought with a latency in the past so it had to have low latency, and be windows compatible.

I did some looking on several different sites. I first went to online computer hardware retailers, like www.newegg.com and looked at what they had to offer. They really did not have much to choose from. Most of what they carried was for typical user sound cards that a gamer might require. I could either choose a consumer grade sound card which is something I wanted to shy away form or go after something a little more professional. My current sound card is a consuer grade and has caused the pains of lantacy. I found an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card I though would be really nice and cost about $149 plus shipping. Another card I found was the E-MU 0404 for about $99. I decided to steer away from USB cards because of the limited bandwidth and the way my chipset on my motherboard dealt with USB versus PCI. Since I do not have a fire wire interface I choose to stay away form that as well.

I wound up choosing the E-MU 0404 mainly because of price, and a review off of Toms Hardware.http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/04/creative/index.html. Now that I’m ready to buy, I log into new egg and they were sold out. I decided to check out some other retailer that would be local. I did some searching and guitar center shows that they have it online, and I could have ordered it. I called up the store that was local here and they did carry it in stock. So I stopped by there and picked it up that night for the same price Newegg had it for.

Before I could really get started I had to buy some adapters and made a stop at the local radio shack. To start out with I’m just going to use a 3 piece speaker system for monitors until I get some decent monitors, and because of that had to combine dual mono ¼ inch jack into 1/8 inch stereo. Radio Shack did not have what I was looking for and I wound up butchering a couple of other cables I had at home to create what I wanted.

Installation was very easy, as long as you are comfortable with computer parts. The EMU had 2 different dongles that plugged into 2 separate DB connecters on the back of the card. Both the analog in and out were red and white for left and right and were clearly marked either in or out.

The EMU also came with quite the collection of software and tools including; Cakewalk SONAR LE, Steinberg Cubase LE, Ableton Live Lite, Steinberg Wavelab lite, IK Multimedia AmpliTube LE, Minnetonka DiscWelder Bronze Trial Edition, and SFX Machine LT. There was also a mixer application that has several different options and effects that starts with windows. There is a lot of configuration with the mixer but right now I’m not sure how helpful it really is. Most of the software that came bundled would be good for someone really new to pc recording but I found that it did not have all the features that I required.

As for the card’s performance it is exactly what I was expecting. When I recorded I did not experience any latency issues like I had in the past. I’ll update this article with more information about this card in the future but as of right now I’m very happy I made this purchase.