computer requirements for cubase?

[mercuryavenue]

what do i need computerwise to run cubase and not worry about space and speed (while on a budget)? Below are the minimum specs steinberg says ill need, but i want to keep all my song info even after the finished product is burned. I use a lot of tracks per song. Generally, how many songs can i keep?
Windows XP Home or XP Professional (both with Service Pack 1 installed)
Pentium/Athlon 1.4 GHz
512 MB RAM
Windows DirectX compatible audio hardware (ASIO compatible audio hardware recommended for low latency performance)
Display resolution 1024x768
DVD-ROM drive required for installation
USB port required for Steinberg Key (copy protection device)*
Internet connection required for license activation

[suprstar]

[QUOTE=mercuryavenue;2906770]...but i want to keep all my song info even after the finished product is burned. I use a lot of tracks per song. Generally, how many songs can i keep?
QUOTE]

That depends on how big your hard drive is, and the resolution you record in. It has nothing to do with cpu or memory, sound drivers, video properties, nothing. ONLY hard drive space.

Cd quality is 44.1/16bit - that's about 10 megs per track-minute. So a 5 minute song with 12 tracks will be around 600 mb. You can get a 500 gb external drive for about $100, that'd hold 800 or so songs with the above specs.

Change your recording resolution to 44.1/24bit and the track gets 50% larger, that 600 meg song is now 900 megs. You could save ~550 songs on that drive in this resoultion. I beleive 48/24 is dvd quality sound, which is about 10% larger than 44.1/24, the example sound will be about 1gb. (500 on the drive)

You can record in even higher resolutions like 96/24, that 600 mb song will now be something like 2.5 gb, so now only 200 will fit on that drive.

So just get a big fat drive and save away.


Edit - dvd sound quality varies, it can be anything from 44.1/16 to 192/24. 48/24 seems to be a common resolution tho, at least on the discs I looked at...

[meharvan_singh]

I would recomend:
1.at least 1GB RAM(minimum!!!)
2.depending on how many songs youre gonna store, approx. at least 100 GB hard disk.
3.An ASIO compatible sound card, M-Audio,EMU,etc
4.Desktop Monitors(M Audio Studiopro 3)- youre cheap stereo computer speakers which came built-in will give you cheap results!!

[suprstar]

Originally Posted by meharvan_singh

I would recomend:
1.at least 1GB RAM(minimum!!!)
2.depending on how many songs youre gonna store, approx. at least 100 GB hard disk.
3.An ASIO compatible sound card, M-Audio,EMU,etc
4.Desktop Monitors(M Audio Studiopro 3)- youre cheap stereo computer speakers which came built-in will give you cheap results!!

True on all counts, esp. #1. Just to be clear though, (except #2) these points will only affect how well Cubase runs and sounds. The more cpu/memory, the more tracks and plugins you'll be able to get going at once. How many projects / songs / tracks you can save is strictly a function of recording resolution and hard drive space.

[CouncilOfDave]

I wholey agree... I'm running XP home on a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Cubase SE3, and only have 512. I haven't noticed any problems yet, but I'm sure I will. I only have an 80 GB disk, so I bought an external 500GB USB drive and it's working great. Dont RECORD to the external... but use it for backup. I've been creating project folders on the desktop to create the project in, and once I'm done with the recording/mixing, etc I move the folder to the external drive for keeping. A few times I've copied the files back so I could edit them some more, and as long as I drop the files on the desktop it works good. I also highly recommend doing a cleanup to get rid of all the unused audio and other files in the project. That really helps... I didn't do this for my first few projects and ended up with almost 3 gigs of unused crap.

If you make the move to build a dedicated recording computer, or just alter a desktop for good recording... the more memory the better. I would highly recommend a 10,000RPM hard drive, that you only record too. I'm building one with two drives, one to run the software and the computer, and the other just to read from/write to. You'll also benefit from a dual monitor video card.

[NYMorningstar]

Originally Posted by CouncilOfDave

Dont RECORD to the external... but use it for backup.

Recording to the external drive will result in less latency.

When you record to the same drive your programming is running from, you are subject to all the interrupts of the the program and the operating system. You probably wouldn't notice it recording a couple tracks at a time but when you have many tracks with plugins you will notice a considerable difference.

It's best to dedicate the external drive for recording to and use your main drive as a back up. IMHO

[theblackBay]

The two most important things for computer Hardware in terms of performance are: (in order)

1. Processor (I have for the first time in my life found myself looking at the Intel ad and saying , "well they have a point")
(when they crap on about empowering people and such)
I recommend a 6750 or higher.

2. Ram (go 2 gig or more)

Hard drives are now neither here nor there in terms of performance really as if you have a sata Drive it will have more than enough speed your only issue is pure volume or space, a common misconception is that Latency is more related to drive speed, this is really no longer the case because if you have the Processor + Ram the drive speed becomes of negligible importance. (within reason i.e 2008)

Your Latency will be more driven by the soundcard drivers, plus processor + ram.

i have run 30 to 40 tracks off an old 120gig western digital 72000rpm with little to no problems on only 2gig of ram with a intel 6750.

although if you run two drives and mirror them you will have complete reduncency in the event of a hard drive failure. <<important