E-MU 0404 review

That beige box under your desk may not look musically that inspiring, but slot in E-MU's new 0404 sound card, add a dash of talent and you can turn it into a music production studio.

If you already have a sound card in your PC, or it has an audio chipset built into its motherboard, you may be wondering why you need a new one. Well, to make the most of serious music production software such as Cubase, you need a sound card that supports Audio Stream Input/Output (ASIO). This is a special type of driver that allows music software to communicate directly with the sound card, keeping your PC's processor free for other tasks. If you have a bog-standard sound card and you try to use a software synthesiser, you'll experience a delay between pressing the note and hearing the sound. An ASIO-compatible sound card allows you to play the keyboard and hear the note at the same time.

Installing the 0404 is easy. Plug it into a spare PCI slot, attach the cables and off you go! To get you started, E-MU has supplied a modest but solid selection of software. A full version of Steinberg's versatile Cubasis VST 4 is a welcome surprise and provides everything a budding musician needs. The copy of Wavelab Lite supplied allows you to record and edit audio samples. Even niftier is the trial version of Minnetonka's Discwelder Bronze, a DVD burning program that lets you burn your very own DVD-Audio discs. The sound quality of DVD-Audio is much higher than that of CDs, so they're perfect for backing up your masterpieces. Sadly, you have to buy the full version after burning your first five discs!

The E-MU has a generous array of inputs and outputs. The analog inputs and outputs use quarter-inch jacks, making them friendly for hooking up music equipment, but if you're plugging the card straight into a hi-fi amp, you'll need to buy a phono lead-to-jack cable from an electrical store. MIDI ports allow you to connect external synthesisers or keyboards so that you can play the notes yourself rather than clicking the little virtual ones on screen. There are digital inputs and outputs too, for both the coaxial and optical leads. Best of all is the E-MU's PatchMix DSP program, which acts like an audio mixer, enabling you to send audio from any input to any output you desire. The PatchMixDSP program may be a little daunting for the beginner, but its ability to send audio exactly where you want it is worth all the hassle.

If you're interested in recording real instruments, you'll need to splash out on a microphone and a suitable mixer, but as an easy step into the world of PC music production the E-MU 0404 is an absolute steal.

Author: Sasha Muller