sound blaster with live drive

kevmeister · 25 Nov 2009 at 13:05

Hi people.

I am wanting to buy my dad a sound card for xmas.

about 6 years ago i bought a sound blaster live platinum 5.1 with "Live Drive" all the rage back then.

is there a new up to date sound card with a similar drive, emphasis being on the MIDI input/outputs as my dad is ideally looking to connect his keyboards to his pc.

Cheers

Kev

Marsman · 25 Nov 2009 at 14:29

I had that very card too! I was somewhat annoyed though after moving to X-Fi that the live drive was not compatible, and that I would have to buy another that does the same thing as the old one, but is compatible with X-Fi. Thought better of that, didn't want to buy a new front bay every time sound card was changed.

Creative don't make those anymore. The last card they had such a front bay for was the Platinum Fatal1ty, but you can only get that 2nd hand now. None of their cards in production support the live drive now, so your only hope would be to get an Xtreme Music, which is the card I have, which has the serial port to connect a live drive. Both would have to be bought from the popular auction site probably.

Alternatively there is the X-Fi Elite Pro, which comes with an external box with all manner of connections and ports, but again Creative don't make this anymore, so the popular auction is the best place to look.

Creative seem to have abandoned the sound card market to an extent, they certainly don't have the choice of sound cards they used to offer.

kevmeister · 25 Nov 2009 at 17:09

ok, great, i'll take a look on the bay for those two that you mentioned and see what prices they're coming up at.

many thanks

Marsman · 25 Nov 2009 at 17:21

Marsman said:
so your only hope would be to get an Xtreme Music, which is the card I have, which has the serial port to connect a live drive.

Sorry I meant your best hope would be get the Xtreme Music and a live drive separate. Packages like the Platinum or Elite pro might be harder to come by. But having said that, there is only one there, which does surprise me a bit.