Can I hook a guitar to X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion? It's easy with X-Fi Elite Pro

U

Undercover_Man

[H]ard Surgeon
Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
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Hello, I am building a new PC. The PC I use now I bought the X-Fi Elite
Pro. I am wanting to buy the X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series. I want it because it would provide better audio for my gaming.

I, however, also play a guitar. I bought the X-Fi Elite Pro so I could simply use my guitar cord and plug it into the "Shared line in / Hi-Z in (1/4-inch / 6.35 mm stereo jack)"
on the I/O box.

The X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series has only "two
RCA 3.50 mm (1/8-inch) stereo jacks" on the I/O box.

Can I still play my guitar the same way by getting a jack adapter? I've seen, and have, a
3.50 mm to 6.35 mm jack, but not the other way around.

I asked this question to Creative and this is what they said:

With regards to your enquiry, please be informed that Auxiliary Line In
jacks on the X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card's I/O
Drive are not a Hi-Z jack. You will need to get pre-amp equipment for
your guitar. The sound quality will be distorted or soft if you
connected your guitar directly to the Auxiliary Line In jacks via a jack
adapter.

OMG, and they still advertise recording music and stuff with ease. Has anyone else had any luck hooking up your guitar to a X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound card? Why did they change the two plugs? That's so retarded!!! :mad:

Any help would be awesome.

THANX
~ Undercover_Man
 
You can get 1 of these

http://www.alesis.com/guitarlink

"The AudioLink Series USB-audio cable outputs studio quality 16-bit, 44.1 kHz digital audio thanks to its internal analog-to-digital conversion system."

I've seen others by different manufacturer's, but not tailered to a guitar as this 1 is,

don't know if that makes a difference..

check out the other products on the site, alot of cool stuff
 
Alright, but what about sound delay? Isn't that what ASIO corrects? Isn't that why I was told to plug it into the HI-Z input so it would play with unaltered sound and no delay? I'm confused. :confused:
 
I use an Alesis I|O2 USB for recording and with the ASIO drivers i get no delay (well obv going to be some but not noticable in the slightest to anyone)
 
from what I read, these products use a simple inline USB codec circut board, probably sourced from a few major manufacturer's

but You have to research these products to find out if they meet Your needs,

gotta do Your own legwork

You also might check out products that are tailered for this pupose like posibly the

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile192.html

edit, looks like Rossi~'s got you covered
 
Hmmm....ok, I'm still confused about something. Is there anything special about the 1/4" jack found on my X-Fi Elite Pro and the 1/4" jack on the JamLab? Creative made it sound like I would need pre-amp equipment to hook up my guitar since there is no 1/4" Hi-Z input found on the X-Fi Fatal1ty Champion. I don't know much about pre-amps or amp or anything like that, BUT I *DO* use Peavey's ReValver MKIII which is a virtual guitar amplifier modeling software.

I love that program but it seems to be a bit glitchy with the sound card. I start it up and when I load /create a setup, there will be static. I have to close ReValver, change audio modes off of Audio Creation and back and open ReValver again. It's not too bad really once it works. I love it.

I guess I'm under the impression that I will get a sound delay or altered sound (or not the true sound, maybe?) or static if I don't use a Hi-Z input. I think this way because I asked Creative if I just got a (found on X-Fi Elite Pro -->) 1/4" to 1/8" (<-- found on X-Fi Fatal1ty Champion) adapter and they seemed to say that it wouldn't work that way. They brought of pre-amp stuff. I don't understand why I can't use the 1/8" input. Does it have something to do with Hi-Z? ASIO? Pre-amps?

Can someone clarify this for me plz.

THANX
 
the X-Fi Titanium cannot do what the Elite Pro can, it doesn't have the instrument/mic preamp, so it can't be used in the same way, as far as Creative being "retarded", they haven't falsely advertised a thing (so please just stop), the board still has Audio Creation mode which is a kiddie-pool versions of PatchBay, it still supports ASIO and all the other fun toys, and so on, furthermore, the plug size means dick in terms of what equipment can connect, your guitar is a hi-z (or high impedance) device, and why you can't just accept that Creative is telling you the truth "THIS DOESNT WORK" is beyond me

the Elite Pro however DOES have a few preamps in the external box, and CAN connect to things like studio mics, guitars, and turntables, and do just fine without any more external equipment, why you aren't using this hardware is beyond me as well; the Titanium has zero advantage over the Elite Pro in any regard, there is no "better gaming sound" from the Titanium, where you got this notion is also beyond me

some other fallacies you brought up to just blast terms out:

ASIO - this is a software feature that has no bearing on anything relevant to this thread, given that you seem to have no idea what it is or what its used for, I'd just ignore it
ReValver DSP - this is a software feature that has no bearing on anything relevant to this thread, its a DSP designed to emulate/simulate having a valve preamp for your guitar, it cannot replace a proper preamp, just change the sound

as far as a "for dummies" explanation of why this isn't "retarded" and why it "makes sense":
all transducers require an amplifier, be it a speaker, a guitar pick-up, a CRT, whatever
this amplifier must be suitable for the load it has to drive
in the case of your guitar, it must be able to handle the impedance load presented by your guitar, so you need an instrument pre-amp, the Elite Pro has one, the Titanium doesn't, again, the size of the plug means nothing, and has no bearing on this reality

if for whatever reason you're convinced that you need to waste ~$200 and buy the Titanium (which I assure you has no advantages), you will also need to purchase an instrument pre-amp, either one of the USB devices suggested in this thread (I wouldn't go this route due to latency), or a line output pre-amp which you can get from M-Audio, PreSonus, ART, Grace, Manley, SSL, etc
 
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I think your best bet is to get a USB device like the Alesis I|O2, i've been using one for over a year now and it's brilliant.

My setup for guitar is

Guitar --> Amp --> Mic --> Mixer --> I|O2 --> PC

This is pretty much the best way of setting it up, i have little latency, no lag what so ever since the ASIO drivers run really well for the I|O2
For you starting off you could run your guitar through whatever pedals you're using and then straight into the I|O2 if you want, obviously wont sound anywhere near as good, but it will work.
 
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