Internal Sound card and saved project quality

Hey EKTers, this is my first question, hopefully I can make it fairly straightforward. I've browsed the forum and found answers for many things, but I haven't quite figured this one out.

I have a laptop with this soundcard and linux OS (ubuntu 11). I'm not recording anything externally, just sequencing with soft synths, digital samples, etc. The plan is to save projects in Reaper for now, which is utilizing WineASIO and itself running in WINE. In a couple of months I hope to buy Reaper, acquire a proper external soundcard/audio interface and decent monitors. Then hopefully a dedicated PC to record audio so I can possibly utilize hardware, MIDI controllers, etc as I see fit. In the meantime of making some extra cash I want to get a headstart on making music "properly," and with that said I'm content and grateful for the resources I do have available. So in other words, I'm hashing out the music now, hoping to properly mix and master the tracks later.

The question is, am I limiting the quality of the music itself by using this soundcard? I'm assuming not, since I'm not yet recording any audio through the soundcard, and that the only limitations I have are in terms of latency when sequencing and editing audio in Reaper. I just want to make sure though.

Yeah you'll be grand, the quality of your rendered file is completely independent of your sound card ...

If I understand your question correctly then no. I wouldn't say so. The soundwaves that are being produced in your DAW will digitally always be the same. But some onboard soundcards, at least in my experience, might digitally amplify your sound which can make it sound like shit and very harsh, so when you finally play it on a real stereo or on a different soundcard it'll sound very different than what you thought it would. Because you compensate for the harsh digital amplification it might end up sounding a bit more muddy on different soundcards. I'm not saying that it will, but it might. But of course, speakers are also an important factor.

  On 11/22/2011 at 5:35 PM, mcbpete said:

Yeah you'll be grand, the quality of your rendered file is completely independent of your sound card ...

This confirmation makes me feel a lot more confident about my conclusion.

  On 11/22/2011 at 5:39 PM, Squee said:

If I understand your question correctly then no. I wouldn't say so. The soundwaves that are being produced in your DAW will digitally always be the same. But some onboard soundcards, at least in my experience, might digitally amplify your sound which can make it sound like shit and very harsh, so when you finally play it on a real stereo or on a different soundcard it'll sound very different than what you thought it would. Because you compensate for the harsh digital amplification it might end up sounding a bit more muddy on different soundcards. I'm not saying that it will, but it might. But of course, speakers are also an important factor.

Gotcha, that's articulating some of the more vague concerns I had, but thankfully the ones I anticipate dealing with. This type of insight on sound card workings is what I was looking for.

Fixing sound levels, EQ, compression, etc is something I'm expecting anyway, especially once I load up and play the project on different speakers with a better soundcard. I just wanted to confirm that I'm not going to somehow lose the bit-rate quality of the audio files themselves, whether it be a .wav sample I edited or a soft synth MIDI pattern, etc, because I've switched to a new input device. Just trying to avoid starting from scratch basically.

yeah, squee's right in theory, but i highly doubt at this point in the game (for you) the soundcard would make much of a difference from a mixing perspective. i mean if you are just using your built in soundcard you probably don't have a decent set of monitors yet, etc. so there are far bigger fish to fry than that. perhaps an asshole hifi nerd who thinks he can hear the difference between 96kHz and 192kHz might have an issue with this, but i doubt your ears are that trained (read "full-of-shit"). getting a new soundcard will improve timing issues like latency, but the biggest thing for you will simply be the additional IO you will get.

i'd say go ahead and produce like crazy with what you've got. of all the potential factors, the soundcard will not be the thing that holds you back right now, unless you are trying to multi-track an 8-mic drum session or something.

  On 11/22/2011 at 7:21 PM, ryanmcallister said:

 

i'd say go ahead and produce like crazy with what you've got. of all the potential factors, the soundcard will not be the thing that holds you back right now, unless you are trying to multi-track an 8-mic drum session or something.

Haha, that's precisely what I'm not doing at this point. Thanks guys, I just wanted to quash the uncertainty I had about how sound card factor into this scenario. Back to work!