pc notebook rta

[alenoiz]

I will use my notebook like a Real Time Analyzer.What type of pc sound card I could use to connect a dynamic or condenser microphone with phantom,like the behringer ecm8000?

[mvaldes]

there are a lot of options

1. if you just want to connect the phantom powered mic to the sound card of your laptop, you just need to buy a MIC preamp with phantom power. In this case you can use the laptop soundcard and a software and you can have a low entry RTA system
2. if you want better and more precise result, you can use an external USB audio card (like this one http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html ) but still need a MIC preamp with phantom power. The result will be better, because the laptop sound card normally is not so "good". Of course you still need the software too.
3. if you really wan to use your laptop as high level RTA, it's better that you consider some dedicated solution like the CLIO. It's a good software that came with a dedicated hardware and also with calibrated mic. To be used with a laptop, however, you also need to use a Cardbus to PCI adapter (quite expensive) or the USB sound card mentioned above



Anyway, the key point is what you intend to do with the RTA and how much you want to invest on it. Here there are a lot of other person that can give you a lot of suggestion on computer based RTA

Make a search on the forum and you will find many interesting threads

[Don Mascali]

This is a USB powered device that will provide phantom powered XLR Mic inputs. With the right software it may be what you need.



http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=275195&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

[boputnam]

This is an astonishingly powerful outboard device.

http://www.usbpre.com/

It handles two separate input signals (into the PC, reference and measured signals), and output (Pink Noise) simultaneously. Wonderful flexibility of input/output impedances, and connector types.