Q. Which soundcard will accommodate my record decks?

I need a recommendation, or advice at least on choosing a soundcard. I want to work with both audio and MIDI. At some point I want to use a keyboard, but what I mainly want to do at this time is run my two turntables (four phono leads altogether) through the soundcard. My PC has a internal CDR, so would I be right in saying that I do not need another I/O in order to accommodate my CD player?

Also, can any soundcard go with any software, and vice versa, or are there specific software requirements for certain soundcards?

Harry Michaels

Assistant Editor Sam Inglis replies: If you're taking the outputs directly from the turntable, rather than via a DJ mixer, you'll need to put them through RIAA preamps to equalise them correctly before you can get the sound into the analogue input of a soundcard, unless you can find a soundcard with an RIAA preamp built in. Swissonic's USB Studio D rackmount recording interface, reviewed SOS March 2000, is not a soundcard, but it does have an RIAA preamp and can substitute for a soundcard. However, it only has one stereo phono connection. Terratec's £149 EWX24/96 2‑in/2‑out soundcard also has an optional RIAA preamp, which costs extra. However, it may be more flexible for you to get a separate RIAA preamp (Maplin and Studiospares both sell them), or take the signal from an amp/mixer, in which case any four–input soundcard should be fine. Incidentally, Steinberg's Clean Plus audio restoration program, which costs £79, comes with a little RIAA stereo preamp (which makes sense, as one of the program's main uses is probably for cleaning up audio off vinyl records). The record deck connects to the preamp's phono inputs, and the preamp then connects to a soundcard by way of a mini–jack.

Regarding the CDR: it depends what you want to do with it, really. If you just want to extract audio from CDs, the CD‑ROM should be fine. And to answer your last question, there are various driver formats (MME, ASIO, DirectX, EASI and so forth), and you need to make sure that both the software and soundcard you choose support at least one of the same driver formats. ASIO is usually the best one for serious music recording.