so now that i've got everything else figured out.. i went to guitar center and asked the guy and he said i needed to buy an external sound card for my computer in order to properly connect it to a PA. do u guys have any advice for what kind of a card i should buy? do certain kinds work better for music performance/reason? i dont wanna spend more than 100-150 dollars...

You can get an Echo Mia card for around $125.00. It has analog I/O's, spdif and midi I/O's. I like it. Here's a link.

http://www.zzounds.com/prodsearch?q=...ia&form=search

Joe

WHY do you need an external card to connect your computer to the PA? There are many kinds of adapters, which will surely enable you to connect your standard internal soundcard to the PA. As long as you don't have any certain problems with the sound of your internal card, I wouldn't buy anything (except an adapter).

yeah man, sounds like that guy was either trying to rip you off or didn't know his stuff.

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well we tried it and it was really stackity and horrible. he said because sound cards in a laptop is too close to your fan and all your other junk. ?

It's not really near your price range, unfortunately, but the Audio Kontrol from NI is totally the man now that they've updated the firmware and fixed it up nice. I'm getting like <10ms latency in Reason even with a buttload of Thors and crazy CV routings. Same with when I used to rewire FL and Reason, not even a hiccup. Not sure what the price is now but I paid like 299 for it, but man, I tell you it is worth every penny.

I'm sure there are nice external interfaces that work just as good (or maybe even better) for less, just make sure you get something you're comfortable with and if possible test it before bringing it home.

Edit: It's 249.99 now, plus, you get a buttload of software with it (Traktor LE, guitar combos and some Xpress keys stuff I never bothered to set up)

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ducat is awful

Yes, in notebooks EVERY components are located nearby. But this doesn't have to make bad effects everytime. If the notebook manufacturer uses bad quality component, there COULD be noises, but even when there are noises, there are a few tricks, to avoid them (e.g. turning of every unused channels in the windows mixer (like FM-Synthesis, CD-Player, Microfone and so on).
Listen to the sound of your notebook. If it's OK for you, don't waste money for hardware, you don't need. And not least you should consider, that every additional external device is one more potential source of malfunction (and i've HAD problems with USB audio cards).

thank you so much for that cuz i just saved a lot of money. the show is tomorrow and we had our rehearsal tonight and it totally worked fine. just a few times there were a few glitches and things.. where exactly can I find my sound mixer on windows vista? the mixer i have at the bottom right of my toolbar doesnt feature any of the things you said...

here's my advice friend, I had a similar problem with a Dell laptop, terrbile sound, glitches every couple of seconds. eventually the whole earphone jack was destroyed. I tried a USB soundcard but they're way too easy to break and aren't very good for music production because of their size. I went onto ebay and found a creative sound blaster audigy 2 zs notebook soundcard, that you slot into your PCMCIA slot (look closely, most laptops have them), you can turn it into a 7.1 soundstation, it's brilliant. And it was a bargain, you'd usually pay a couple of hundred bucks for those things, I paid 65 euro (including p&Pp from australia).

As for the sound mixer, try clicking on the "advanced" or "properties" buttons. Sorry I can't be of more help, I don't use Vista, but if it's the same as XP, yeah, there should be an "avanced" or "properties" button.

Also, to minimize delays between your keyboard and sound card, get ASIO4ALL. I also reccomend dualbooting with XP if you're having any driver problems, but it sounds like you aren't, so i you're happy with Vista, m'kay.

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regarding the mixer again:
I cannot exactly tell you, because I use XP like titancow. What you should do in principle is, that you get the mixer to show up EVERY available channel (in XP it's with "options"->"properties". There should be a list with all channels. You have to check all and click OK) After this, all channels should be visible in the mixer and you have to check "mute" for all unneeded channels (meaning all except "wave" (or something like this) and the master).

If you have still glitches, but only sometimes and short (like you described above?), check if the soundbuffer is long enough. (see the ASIO controll panel). Maybe there are situations where many sounds and effects are played at the same time and the computer cannot calculate everything in time then.