Audiotrak Maya 44 MKII
 

Has anyone used the Audiotrak Maya 44 MKII soundcard? I checked to see if it was supported by Alsa, and though I didn't find this card in particular, I found that there was supported for two other cards the company makes. Anyone had any luck with it? I couldn't find anything about what chipset it uses.

You can try compiling all ALSA modules (drivers) and load a module that works best. Module ICE1712 or ICE1724 might work. Sometimes LINUX is smart enough to give you hints what module will work with your devices. Try typing cat /proc/pci at the console.

Thanks, I suppose I'll give that a try. I'm really still shopping around for a multichannel sound card (haven't actually got this particular one yet). Any other suggestions as to something similar to this, with at least 4 ins and outs? If not I'll play with this card.

I tried Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1. It works only for audio. With video programs like mplayer it stalls the video but the audio keeps going. If you don't mind changing some configs for several hours, you could get it to work. I wish I have more time to get it to work because it sounds so much better than my Creative Labs Soundblaster LIVE and my computer seems to be more reliable with the Prodigy.

You can try Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. It has the ability to change its outputs to inputs and inputs to outputs. Again you have to do some heavy config editing. Its not as good sounding as the Maya or Prodigy but its still better than Creative Labs sound cards.

If you have the money, you can try to get LynxTwo from Lynx Studio Technology.

So with the Santa Cruz, could I simply use two stereo outs as four inputs then for, say, Ardour? I really only need the four ins and outs. What's involved with getting it to work on Linux?

If you go to Turtle Beach site and read through the manual for Santa Cruz. You will see that the top connector can be change to digital output, a second line in, a headphone connector, and a analog output to center and subwoofer channel. You have to play with alsa mixer to get what you wanted. I do not have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz yet but planning on buying one to replace the crappy Creative Labs Soundblaster LIVE. If alsamixer is giving you a hard time capturing from both Line ins, you can buy two Santa Cruzs. Then have two recording going. You may want to use two seperate hard drives to do this. When it is time to edit, try to sync both sound files in your mixer program.

Just to warn you. The sound quality of the Santa Cruz is not as good quality as the Audiotrak Maya 44MKII or the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1. Many people think the Audigy2 sounds great but people who bought Santa Cruz to replace their Audigy2 say Santa Cruz is much better.

If you want to get an idea of the quality of the Santa Cruz to other sound cards go to
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm

Thanks; I'll keep you guys posted on this. It's looking like I'll just go with the Santa Cruz right now.