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[Birdman]

I have been away from using midi for many years. I started out on an Amiga 500+ (remember that  ) and then bought a PC in 1998 with a very nice Pinnacle sound card but got totally put off with the OS (Win95) crashing every 5 minutes. My old card was ISA with a game port that was used to connect the midi interface. My current PC will not take ISA cards, and I never did get the Pinnacle to work with linux all of those years ago. I note that linux-sound.org recommend the SB Audigy for general desktop and midi use. I have visited the Creative Labs site and they have the Audigy 2SE. It looks very different to my old card and cannot see where I would connect the midi leads. This is probably a very basic question but I have not kept up to date with these things and would appreciate a prod in the right direction.

Thanks.

[The Headacher]

I don't think it has any midi connectors. Also, I didn't see where linux-sound.org recommends that card for midi use (may have missed it). Clearly, if you need a card with midi outputs that one is not the way to go. I use an (external) USB -> midi device (ESI M4U). I heard good things about the roland/edirol devices as well. 

[Birdman]

I don't think it has any midi connectors. Also, I didn't see where linux-sound.org recommends that card for midi use (may have missed it). Clearly, if you need a card with midi outputs that one is not the way to go. I use an (external) USB -> midi device (ESI M4U). I heard good things about the roland/edirol devices as well. 

Great - thanks. I clearly need to do a bit of research

[Birdman]

The Headteacher,

I have just popped back to the site and this is what it said:

Common desktop sound & MIDI needs are well-served by the Audigy and SBLive! soundcards from Creative Labs.

I guess there are sound samples that are useful with midi software but not the connectivity 

[The Headacher]

I suppose it sort of depends on what you call "common desktop sound & MIDI needs". I suppose what we musicians do is not common what the author meant.

[Birdman]

I recall in days of old i.e. the Pinnacle, that anything audio was very resource hungry and that allocating resources and having the hardware configured so that it would work was quite a black art. If I decide to add say an Audigy and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI card to a two year old tower (Athlon 64 3000) am I likely to encounter any issues or will the kernel do it's magic?

[The Headacher]

If I decide to add say an Audigy and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI card to a two year old tower (Athlon 64 3000) am I likely to encounter any issues or will the kernel do it's magic?

That is always tricky to predict, but there are some places you can look:

To see if the cards are supported, you can have a look here (make sure you read the comments about what does or does not work)
http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Vendor-Creative_Labs
http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Vendor-MAudio

Another good place to look is in linuxquestions.org's "hardware compatibility list":
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showcat.php/cat/81  (creative labs hardware)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showcat.php?cat=all&stype=1&si=m-audio

Is there any reason to use 2 soundcards? It'd probably be a lot easier to just use one, I don't know anything about using 2 soundcards simultaneously, but it's probably gonna be very tricky to set up just right.

That processor should be fast enough for making music.