Request - a brief explanation of audio cards, what do they do exactly? Options

[kinben]

Can someone please provide a brief explanation as to what exactly audio cards do within a project studio setup? I have been doing audio for awhile now on my Powermac (7300/166) and have been just using the line-in on the orginal built in soundcard. What does an audio card provide? How is it integrated? Does it hook up to scsi or is it simply an interface between my mixer and the the present line-in on my soundcard? (i.e. - does the out on the audio card simply go in to the current line-in?) I am certainly up for adding one to my setup as I know they are essential for bringing one's recording 'to the next level' so to speak, but I just want to be clear on what it will do for me - this will help me figure out which one to buy as well! Any suggestions as to the latter are appreciated as well... digidesign? midiman? etc? i hope to spend under 250 US/200 quid.. (maybe used?).  Thanks for any help provided!!!

[lepetitmartien]

hhhh… mmmmm

Excuse me I've got to go back tu university to answer to ALL that…

(it seems to be quite confused also)

An audio card provides ins and/or outs for audio (anlaogic or digital), sometime other services like clocks for accurate timing between the devices (digital mixer, tape racorder, HD recorder, my granma)

On the 7300, there is no soundcard, it is integrated on the mother card as in all the macs. recently Apple dropped the analog ins (boooooooh).
It is a 16 bits /44,1 KHz converter, not that good (but if you have only that, it can still be usable)

Real sound cards are at the moment in the PCI format (a bus female big plug on the motherboard) which provide access to the computer processor and memory.

Nothing to do with SCSI… (Small Computer Serial Interface) used for hard disk, scanners… (peripherals)

Your next question should be ok in its own topic… (which one ?)

here…

http://www.macmusic.org/forums/topic.cgi?f...rum=1&topic=607