I am setting up a DAW that will be shared with other non-audio functions. I would like to get people's comments on the nature and efficacy of my proposed hardware setup.
I am going with IDE (rather than SCSI) so the four channels I have will be filled in the following way:
1) Win98SE hard drive for all non-audio applications
2) Win98SElite drive for audio (drive partitioned so audio data can be on the outside of the disk)
3) CD-RW
4) a few options for the last channel
I have a Dell computer running at 400MHz with 128k of RAM. I am planning on recording at 24bits/96kHz. Some questions I have about the setup of the above system are:
1) I'm planning on having two operating systems (Win98SE and Win98SElite), so I will need to buy a 3rd-party program like Masterbooter to select which drive to boot from. Has anyone tried this before? Can I set up the second HD to be totally independent of the first, and tell the 98lite OS to ignore the devices that are hooked up to the computer? Would there be any reason in this setup that I can't decouple IE, etc., from the OS on the audio HD? In effect I am trying to get the benefits of a stand-alone DAW in a shared computer.
2) For recording at 24/96 should I automatically just go to 256k of RAM, or will 128k be good enough until I start increasing the number of tracks beyond about 10. I understand from the Cardenas/Catena articles that in a properly configured system "...over 24 solid tracks at 24/96 in Cakewalk 9.03 using a 7200 RPM Maxtor on a UDMA 33 bus" can be obtained. This statement is like beautiful music to my ears. Incidently, the Cardenas/Catena articles are a goldmine of useful information and a must-read for anyone setting up a DAW.
3) Any suggestions on how to fill the last channel? I could keep my current Zip drive, but it will not be of much use with an extra HD and a CD-RW. My current CD drive will be useles as well, as long as a CD-RW drive can read "normal" CDs. Can the currently manufactured CD-RW drives read all three kinds of CDs, as well as write CD-Rs? Another option for the last channel is to follow the conventional wisdom and get two HDs dedicated to audio. I think I'd prefer to skip the extra $200, at least for now.
Any comments are certainly appreciated,
Les
I am going with IDE (rather than SCSI) so the four channels I have will be filled in the following way:
1) Win98SE hard drive for all non-audio applications
2) Win98SElite drive for audio (drive partitioned so audio data can be on the outside of the disk)
3) CD-RW
4) a few options for the last channel
I have a Dell computer running at 400MHz with 128k of RAM. I am planning on recording at 24bits/96kHz. Some questions I have about the setup of the above system are:
1) I'm planning on having two operating systems (Win98SE and Win98SElite), so I will need to buy a 3rd-party program like Masterbooter to select which drive to boot from. Has anyone tried this before? Can I set up the second HD to be totally independent of the first, and tell the 98lite OS to ignore the devices that are hooked up to the computer? Would there be any reason in this setup that I can't decouple IE, etc., from the OS on the audio HD? In effect I am trying to get the benefits of a stand-alone DAW in a shared computer.
2) For recording at 24/96 should I automatically just go to 256k of RAM, or will 128k be good enough until I start increasing the number of tracks beyond about 10. I understand from the Cardenas/Catena articles that in a properly configured system "...over 24 solid tracks at 24/96 in Cakewalk 9.03 using a 7200 RPM Maxtor on a UDMA 33 bus" can be obtained. This statement is like beautiful music to my ears. Incidently, the Cardenas/Catena articles are a goldmine of useful information and a must-read for anyone setting up a DAW.
3) Any suggestions on how to fill the last channel? I could keep my current Zip drive, but it will not be of much use with an extra HD and a CD-RW. My current CD drive will be useles as well, as long as a CD-RW drive can read "normal" CDs. Can the currently manufactured CD-RW drives read all three kinds of CDs, as well as write CD-Rs? Another option for the last channel is to follow the conventional wisdom and get two HDs dedicated to audio. I think I'd prefer to skip the extra $200, at least for now.
Any comments are certainly appreciated,
Les
. Since your using a PII 400 I'd forget about 96KHz and stick with 24/44 (unless you don't need a whole lot of tracks, again testing it will tell the limitation). Even 24bit is going to be a stretch for your system regardless of whether you go 128MB or 256MB. You will need more CPU horsepower if you plan to use a lot of plugin effects. Not sure what track count you will get on your system, I will guess 12 - 16 @ 24/44 with a few directX plugin's running.