Lightsnake, the Soundcard in a Cable
If you do any digital recording, you know the pain of the soundcard. Ever since the dawn of digital music, recording buffs have struggled with the soundcard in its various incarnations: ISA and PCI cards, USB- or FireWire-based external modules of all shapes and sizes…it's a pain to deal with and more importantly, it's expensive when all you want to do is plug and play, literally. A company called SoundTech is trying to cut away the hardware as much as possible with a product they call the Lightsnake. It's a really simple idea: put an XLR or TRS jack on one of a cable and put a USB plug on the other end. Plug the XLR/TRS end into a microphone, guitar or keyboard and plug the other end into a computer, opening your favorite sound editing program and let the cable take care of the rest with its built-in analog-to-digital converters. Pretty cool, huh?
The Lightsnake takes its name from the "Live When Lit" technology that SoundTech built into both ends of the cable – the plugs give off a green glow when the cable is transmitting information. The system is entirely plug-and-play, working off drivers included in Windows and Mac OS and SoundTech promises an ASIO driver for compatible recording programs. The only downside I can see at the moment is the bit-depth of the recording: even though the industry standard has gone to 24-bit, the Lightsnake tops out at 16-bit, the same quality as your standard CD. Still, for people who do a lot of work online (I'm looking at you, podcasters), the $70 may be a godsend.
Via Gizmodo
