PCI Soundcard or USB/Firewire?

[Lydzor]

I can't decide which will suit my needs better. I'm a Sound Engineering student and really need a decent soundcard to do some recording. I always hear that the E-mu 0404 USB is recommended, so i've been eyeing it up, i still have some doubts though.

I'm not 100% sure whether a soundcard will fit inside my computer, i want to keep the heat down in there too. If i did have one i wouldn't be able to use it on other computers (quite unlikely i would though to be honest), but on the plus side they are cheaper than external soundcards, neater and faster i assume.

I have a 'cracking' problem with my current onboard sound, it can usually be fixed by restarting the computer, however it will return after the computer has been off a long time, i'm guessing this is something to do with the buffer time, anyway, would having a USB/Firewire soundcard fix this or would it have to be an internal card?

Can you use a USB/Firewire soundcard like a normal soundcard? i.e. You can listen to various sound based applications through it at once - i heard you can only use them through one application at a time.

Concerning internal cards, the ones which have a drive bay extension for plugging various input sources in seem like a nice idea. Any recommendations for a decent music soundcard outlining the above with capabilities for gaming too?

Cheers, sorry for the long post.

 

[Lydzor]

The soundcard would be primarily for music, but obviously i would want the quality to be better than my current onboard sound for gaming! I'm sure there'd be no problem there. I also forgot to mention in my first post that i'd be running it on Vista x64 which is important for compatibility issues.

I'd be hoping to plug in a line input as you say for a guitar/keyboard, one should be sufficient. In the future i may well need MIDI (i currently have a keyboard which i believe can be used as a MIDI controller but it uses USB anyway) and microphone sources too with the ability to plug a mixer in. We currently use Cubase exclusively, i know it's not generally accepted as the 'best' sequencer, however it is one i'm comfortable with, so preferably i'd like to use it to start off with then maybe dabble with other sequencers in the future.

I'm hitting myself now, i almost bought a macbook a year or so ago.