audio interface ECHO Layla3G PCI

[Colin Nicholls]

I use a venerable ECHO Layla3G PCI card in my DAW. The ASIO drivers are version 8.6, released for Windows 7 "back in the day", but work fine in my Windows 10 system.

Related to PCI cards, is the description of how I managed to install it into a new computer with only smaller PCIe slots.

Edited March 9, 2021 by Colin Nicholls

[Simeon Amburgey]

My first "real" audio interface was the Echo GINA.
I was so sorry to hear that they went out of making interfaces a few years ago.
I also had a killer firewire interface I used for my MacBook but the driver support disappeared and so did the interface.
Glad to hear your Layla is still going strong.

[DeeringAmps]

3 hours ago, Simeon Amburgey said:

first "real" audio interface was the Echo GINA

ditto that, I loved it...

t

[Michael Fogarty]

I had a Gina. 

[Bapu]

On 3/9/2021 at 3:21 PM, Simeon Amburgey said:

My first "real" audio interface was the Echo GINA.

 

On 3/9/2021 at 6:43 PM, DeeringAmps said:

ditto that, I loved it...

t

 

On 3/10/2021 at 2:16 AM, Michael Fogarty said:

I had a Gina. 

Me four. Still have it but not connected to anything.

[DeeringAmps]

3 hours ago, Bapu said:

Still have it but not connected to anything

Yup!

What Am it good four?.....

t

see what i did there?

Edited March 11, 2021 by DeeringAmps

[John Vere]

I have this Card deluxe PCI interface I keep in a old 2010 computer and it still runs fine with latest Cakewalk and W10. I think it was made in 2001.  It's RTL is about the same as any of my newer interfaces. 

 

 

[User 905133]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

I have this Card deluxe PCI interface I keep in a old 2010 computer and it still runs fine with latest Cakewalk and W10.

Just want to clarify: you are referring to the latest Cakewalk and the latest version of W10? Thanks.

[John Vere]

Yes I just used it yesterday. Of course the old computer is completely compatible and once it dies the card will be useless. I think it’s more about the MOBO than the OS.
The driver was last updated for W7 64 bit. 
 But as you see in the screen capture it’s perfectly fine. Only does 48/ 24 but so do I. It was from a radio station set up. 

I was hesitant about updating the computer to W10 but it’s a home built system and I didn’t have a W7 disk anymore. The OS drive died.   My son had one of those $30 Amazon W10 pro licenses and I had a 120 SSD drive so all was good  

I used  the analog in/ out for the loop back test but I have it hooked up to my Yamaha 01v via SPDIF. Rock solid vintage system that performs as good as anything new. It is too bad that nobody makes these cards like that anymore. 

Edited March 20, 2021 by John Vere

[Starship Krupa]

My first PCi interface was a Soundblaster Live that I got for my pre-SONAR Cakewalk rig back in 2001. I was all excited about it, sprung for a 3rd-party daughterboard so that I could S/PDIF in and out from my DAT machine, yada yada.

Then I found out about bit perfect audio processing (as opposed to the Soundblaster, which resampled everything even if you ran it at its native 48K), bought an $12 CMedia 8734-based cheapo card, and made a little daughterboard on perfboard to enable the S/PDIF. The difference it made on transfers from the DAT literally brought tears to both my eyes and those of my girlfriend, whose album I was transferring from a DAT to the computer for CD burning.

She had heard the result through the SB Live and was sort of happy with it, but when I played the non-resampled version, she started crying and said that it was the first time she had heard the album sound like that since they did the final mastering. Ever since then I have been a fiend about not having my digital audio go through needless resampling. I know that the algorithms have improved over the last 2 decades, but you're still at the mercy of the CODEC. Even the media players on my computers use either WASAPI or ASIO so as to bypass as much of the Windows mixer as possible. And I hold the opinion that Creative Labs deserved to go the way of the dodo after what they did with the Live. The main chip on it was an excellent hunk of LSI, and if they hadn't crippled it with carp like that resampling business, it would have become legendary.

About 15 years ago a friend gave me an old Echo Darla rig, the one with 2 line ins and (I think) 8 outs, because, y'know, everyone would much rather have multiple output channels than input channels. I got it going on a hand-me-down blue Power Mac running Ubuntu Studio. My current computers have PCi slots, so I could try it out, but I'm fine with my Firewire interfaces. I still believe that Firewire was/is a superior technology for A/V use due to the fact that it can transfer and receive simultaneously rather than relying on raw speed. I can monitor through Cakewalk just fine while I'm tracking as long as I disable FX, and you can see in my sig that my DAW system is not the latest rocket sled. I have an old M-Audio Audiophile Firewire interface on my shop computer, a Core 2 Quad, and it keeps up just fine. I have to crank the latency up to be able to mix on it, but it's still holding its own. I suspect that its USB 2 ports wouldn't do as well.

I got into Yamaha YMF744-based cards for a while, due to the fact that you could get them to support Yamaha's (also mostly squandered) excellent Sondius physical modeling technology. They could be had just as cheaply as my generic CMedia card and also didn't resample 44.1 streams. A reed player friend of mine was blown (ha ha) away by how good the onboard XG wind sounds were when I played them from my keyboard. The way they articulated with changes in velocity and aftertouch was amazing.