IMac integrated sound card

[cadillandy]

Hi there,

I am thinking of purchasing Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 for use on my iMac. My question is: will the software work with the integrated sound card? It says on the website that the sound card needs to be compatible with either ASIO, DirectSound or MME. Does anyone know if it is?

I have an iMac OS X 10.6.8, 4GB RAM, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

Thanks,
Andy

[rbowser-]

You really need to get a dedicated external audio interface which replaces a computer's soundcard. Some people have some degree of success using motherboard cards, but I never have. The interface will have ASIO drivers and make working with GPO smooth sailing.

Randy

[cadillandy]

Thanks Randy,

I do have a Line 6 Toneport UX2 which acts as an external audio interface so I can plug keyboards, guitar and microphones into, do you think this would suffice or do you think I need an actual dedicated soundcard?

Andy

[rbowser-]

Thanks Randy,

I do have a Line 6 Toneport UX2 which acts as an external audio interface so I can plug keyboards, guitar and microphones into, do you think this would suffice or do you think I need an actual dedicated soundcard?

Andy

That IS an actual dedicated soundcard. That Toneport looks like a good unit, with all the features I'd want on an interface. Those kind of interfaces are considered "soundcards" since they replace the standard motherboard kind. You're good to go!

Randy

[gruvsyco]

The internal card on your iMac will work perfectly fine. I use the internal on my Macbook Pro all the time. CoreAudio (mac audio driver) is amazing for this. You can however achieve better performance and quality using an external audio interface, not sure the Toneport would be much of an improvement over the internal card other than better audio inputs. ASIO, DirectSound and MME are all MS Windows concerns.

What's actually kind of funny is that the same audio chipset (Cirrus Logic) on my Macbook performs substantially better under MacOS than under Windows.