Help Making a Decision

Slippers

HoWdY!! It says I haven't posted for a while so here we go ... this will be a biggie LOL

My main system has been a 1.6Ghrz 1gig with SB0220 + SB4532 + M-Audio 2496 in a Tower case that is kinda rickety and doesn't like travelling. I want to keep using the sound cards (Soundfonts) so I can't use a laptop.

I have a mixer that I feed my vocal and sax mic into the SB4532 LineIn (blue hole) ... then from SB4532 Rear Out (black hole) to the SB0220 LineIn and from the SB0220 Rear Out (black hole) to the M-Audio Input the the M-Audio speaker outputs to my power amp and main speakers. I run the SB0220 Front Out (green hole) to a small power amp and speakers for my monitor
WinAmp plays the music with SoundFonts.
I have two different DSP's for the Live! cards and it all goes out through the M-Audio nicely.

This seems to be ok .. but when online using the cam and whatever, the computer bogs down and freezes a lot.
I needed to "get more horsepower under the hood!"

Sooo ... I've purchased two IBM Think Centers P4 - 3.2Ghrz with 1gig (Tower case for my desk and small desktop case for my gigs) I also bought an Audigy2 card.

I want to use one computer to play my gig music and my mics using WinAmp to play the midi music using some great Soundfonts I've found ...

The other one I want to use as my recording and email and gaming and surfing computer

What would be the best setup to accomplish thes goals?

I was thinking the 3 KX cards in the recording/surfing computer and the M-Audio in the gigging one because I just use the stereo out to my power amp in gigs.

Will 3 KX cards play nice together?
How should I wire them together?
Can I still use all 4 of the synths in the Live! cards?
How many synths does the Audigy card have?
When recording what would be the best way to record up to 16 tracks and be able to separate the Synths on the cards to record them each as their own track without having to record the song 16 times?

AND ... why do I have to disable my ethernet card to have the KX icon show in the tray (bottom right corner) on the screen at boot up? It's a pain having to go hunting for it in a bunch of windows if I don't disable the Ethernet Card and re enable it once the boot is done

I've really became hooked on these KX drivers and I want to keep them. The M-Audio does a great job of VERY CLEAN recording and playback so the music gig computer would probably want that one I'm thinking

I was just looking for some ideas .. does and don'ts and maybe some tips, hints, and/or ideas too.

Thankx

Doug W

Slippers,

First I was wondering if you meant CT4832 instead of SB4532? I haven't heard of that model number.

I don't mess with MIDI much so someone else will have to pop in here to answer those questions. I will answer what I can about multiple kX cards in the same computer:

I had 3 kX cards together in the same computer once. At that time I was using Windows 98SE as my main recording computer. It was a bit unstable with that older computer and W98SE. At different times, when the computer booted up, the various cards would be reassigned new IRQs and sometimes the computer would recognize 2 cards and at other times all 3 cards. But a newer computer will probably do better.

I had 2 kX cards in one computer up until a week ago or so, I just took one of them out to put into a newer computer.

Here are some instructions on hooking 2 kX cards together with SPDIF cables. Written for 98SE or Win ME, but XP is easier so that shouldn't matter.
A-kX an Introduction

Others will hopefully help out with your MIDI / Synth questions.

Slippers

HoWdY!!

[quote=Doug W;1287840]Slippers,

First I was wondering if you meant CT4832 instead of SB4532? I haven't heard of that model number.

Yes .. you are absolutely right! LOL ... oops!

[quote=Doug W;1287840]Slippers,
I don't mess with MIDI much so someone else will have to pop in here to answer those questions. I will answer what I can about multiple kX cards in the same computer:

OK great thankx! I appreciate your help!

[quote=Doug W;1287840]Slippers,
I had 3 kX cards together in the same computer once. At that time I was using Windows 98SE as my main recording computer. It was a bit unstable with that older computer and W98SE. At different times, when the computer booted up, the various cards would be reassigned new IRQs and sometimes the computer would recognize 2 cards and at other times all 3 cards. But a newer computer will probably do better.
I had 2 kX cards in one computer up until a week ago or so, I just took one of them out to put into a newer computer.

Returned the IBM used systems and decided to throw the money into a new system. Now using XP Pro SP3 and am driving a 2.5Ghz dual-core Intel with 4G RAM and 1TByte of storage! ... a BIG step up from what I had )

OK .. Thankx for your help and I appreciate your kind reply.
That link you gave me has a lot of great info in it!
I'll let you know how it works when I get it all connected.