Buying new PC to use with musicscore - sound card question
Hello,
I am trying to buy new PC for my brother who uses MusicScore a lot.
His PC is old and I would like to buy a new PC for him.
He is writing his own music in Music Score for compositions with up to 15 instruments and then produces audio files on the same PC.
My understanding of the process is that his computer uses installed voices to generate audio signal and convert MIDI files to wav or mp3 files. I believe the sound card built in the motherboard is involved in this process. So I think the quality of sound card is important.
I have two questions here:
- Can you recommend any PC model that has a decent sound card that would work for this purposes?
- will the external sound card help anyhow in this conversion? (if so then can you explain how it can help to convert MIDI files to wav /mp3 files WITHIN the computer - I just don't know how). If it can help then can you recommend any external decent sound card below $100?
I would really appreciate your help on this!
Thank you!
Shav
Comments
Perhaps it is not essential a particular sound card if he is not a sound specialist.
MuseScore can export in various audio and image formats:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/saveexportprint#export
More important, probably, find out if other programs are needed, take a look here: https://musescore.org/en/node/118906 for ideas
In reply to Perhaps it is not essential a by Shoichi
Re: MuseScore can export in various audio and image formats...
And these files will be exactly the same no matter what sound hardware is used.
A dedicated sound card will help the system running MuseScore sound better when it is playing music, perhaps. In particular, motherboard based sound circutry usually picks up measurable interference from the close proximity to other circuits on the motherboard. But I suspect the speakers and other audio components have to be high quality to be able to tell the difference. Which would likely blow your budget.
In short, the soundcard doesn't matter.
The soundcard is not involved in the process of converting MIDI to MP3 in MuseScore. It happens entirely in MuseScore and without the help of the soundcard.
In reply to In short, the soundcard by [DELETED] 5
On the other hand, if he ever plans to record an actual instrument into the computer via SPDIF or something like that, the soundcard becomes very important indeed--but so does external equipment such as a mixer, and things get complicated really fast. But IMHO the most important component of all that is the soundcard. Unfortunately, soundcards adequate for the purpose are pretty much aimed at professionals and serious hobbyists willing to shell out lots of cash ($400 and upward, maybe more--it's been a long time since I checked). And those cards are all separate units. Some of them are external, some are internal PCI cards, but none of them will be built into the motherboard.
In reply to On the other hand, if he ever by Ironword
@Shav, about pc (sorry for the OT), if you think to scrap the old pc, consider making a gift to you too;-):
Download and install UBUNTU (in parallel or in place of the old operating system). It could still give some satisfaction.