Event released the Darla with two other cards,
the Gina and the Layla. All excellent cards, and all very much in demand. The Darla is the baby of the three, but if you have no need for digital
IO, then I wouldn't hesitate in giving this card a go.
February 25, 1999
The Darla doesn't have anything to do with MIDI, or sound fonts, just audio. It is compatible with Win95, but not with NT or 3.1. Hopefully, if they
can, Event will fix this oversight soon.
Darla supports all the latest PC
Audio Programs, such as Cubase, Cakewalk, Sound Forge, Samplitude
Studio
, SAWPro, and CoolEdit Pro, a special Darla version
of which comes bundled with the card.
As far as effects go, DSP effects
are definitely the way to go with this card. All real-time DSP effects
work a treat with Darla.
The biggest problem with the Darla is that
it doesn't support Direct X. Before the release of the latest driver,
it had troubles with some games because of it.
Event does support their products, and
I know you'll have no problem getting tech support. Their service link
returned a message to me within an hour. I was most impressed! The Event Warranty that comes with the
card covers you for 1 year from the time of purchase.
The Echo reporter software will fill
you in on what your system can handle. The idea is to work out the
best sample rate and bit resolution you can use with the amount of tracks
you can play back at the same time. Very handy tool if you don't always
need eight tracks of playback. My home PC (a Pentium MMX200 with 32 megs of RAM, and Western Digital hard drives) was quite happy at 20bit-48k
with six simultaneous playback tracks. It never let me down.
As well as performance testing it gives you
a summary report giving all the gossip on your computer as well as recommending
and giving performance figures on your hard drives.
Having eight RCA outputs
gives you a number of options. The main use I have is to create headphone
mixes and access to external processors for mixing down.
The latest driver, version 3.05,
supports multiple cards and also has a new control surface that meters,
routes and monitors IOs more accurately than the previous Sndvol32 mixer.
It also gives access to sync and clock options. Well worth downloading.
Driver Version 3.05 Enhancements:
Multiple, mixed cards are now supported.
32kHz playback and record is supported.
Consumer/Professional S/PDIF mode switch works
without having to reboot.
SAW compatibility mode has been added. If this
option is checked, the driver will create a dummy audio input device so
that the number of input and output devices is equal.
You can now monitor via any combination of analog and
digital ports; that is, you can monitor analog to digital, digital to analog,
or even digital to digital. If a Gina is set to use the S/PDIF clock, you
can monitor the S/PDIF input even if you aren't recording.
Loop playback is now supported.
The input gain fader scaling has been changed to allow
access to the full range of the hardware. Previous driver versions didn't
support extreme levels of attenuation.
The default value for input gain is now 0dB (unity gain).
Multiple Darla/Gina devices sharing the same interrupt
is now supported.
Basically, the Darla makes for a good buy.
If you're thinking of a Gina, remember, the only real advantage is that the Gina
comes with Digital IOs, and the price difference could buy you an AWE64
gold card. (Ed. Note: The Gina also comes with a handy breakout box, so you don't have to dig around the back of your CPU trying to hook up connections.) Load it with RAM, run sound fonts from it, use its digital IOs,
and if you can put up with the AWE's audio quality, you can gain another
2 ins and outs!
Running the AWE64 as well as the Darla
also allows you to link all your MIDI hardware, and of course, you can use your joystick...Most important.
For general Multimedia apps and games, the
Darla will not let you down. The ASIO multimedia drivers deliver crystal-clear quality from 20bit-128x oversampling A/D converters in perfect sync
all the time. The signal/noise ratio, >98dB, will blow you away...It's
so quiet!
The Darla doesn't have anything to do with MIDI, or sound fonts, just audio. It is compatible with Win95, but not with NT or 3.1. Hopefully, if they
can, Event will fix this oversight soon.
Having eight RCA outputs
gives you a number of options. The main use I have is to create headphone
mixes and access to external processors for mixing down.
