CD burners?

[drstawl]

http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com

should give you an idea of what you should pay. A whole lot less than $3 bills.Right now they're pushing a SCSI burner for $249, but if you check out their catalog they've got a Yamaha 4 x 4 x 16 IDE CDR/RW drive bundled with EZ-CD Creator for $199. I paid a lot more for the same drive. It's reliable.

[crazyhorse]

I'm looking to drop around $300 or less but am clueless about these things. I have an old p166 and want to archive some programs, mp3s, and maybe make some audio cds. It doesn't have to be the fastest in the world, mainly just reliable. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Emeric]

Had great luck with the Mitsumi's. The 4W X 2RW X 8R. The sony's seem pretty good to. Only one's I've had bad experience's with are Ricoh and Smart and Friendly.

[crazyhorse]

Thanks a lot gentlemen. You guys really get around here don't you? I've been trying to do some posting lately but I'm going to have to start remixing my CD submission soon. Later

[drstawl]

For those who are wondering why in heck I'm posting post# 1049: it's because of the great information I've received from the questions I've asked. What goes around comes around.
Tonight I tried just letting the digital
"tape" run while I noodled around on my acoustic guitar. If you've got the HD space, it's worth doing this as it relaxes your performance style to the point where it becomes recordable.

[crazyhorse]

I heard that the EIDE drives are too slow and cause glitches (underwriting). I was told to go with a scuzzi adapter card and scuzzi burner. I also heard that Best Buy has some celeron 400Mhz+ computers with cdburner and dvd drives pretty cheap. I'm using a p166 with 16Mram and 3 gigs. It might be more worth my money to get a packaged system instead of building and adding a cd burner.

[Eddie N]

i have a 300 mmx amd-k6 computer with a 4 gig hard drive...its a crapaq..i also have a magicwriter 4x4x24 cd-rw..and have never had a problem with underwriting..and my computer suucckks...

about buying a packaged system , what you get at best buy will prolly be a crapaq or a packerd hell.. dont bother... if you wanted to order from gateway or dell ( who im not too fond of either ) you might get a better computer.. bottom line...they all use genric computer parts..

have fun...
- eddie -

[Jim Marquard]

Check out Staples or Office Depot, too. Look for Hewlett-Packard and IBM. My understanding is that Celleron chips (Intel) work very well. Much cheaper than the PentiumIII, but, hey, those are dropping in price, too. I saw a decent setup for well under a $1000.

Peace, Jim

[drstawl]

Don't get burned by that SCSI propaganda.
Eddie said it right. If a 300MHz CPU with an IDE drive can burn to a 4x4x24 drive with no problem, then a SCSI connection to the CDR drive and/or a SCSI HD to write from is overkill. Of course, for general audio editing nothing beats the fastest drive you can afford, but you already knew that.

[crazyhorse]

The build yer own DAW article at Prorec inspired me. I was gonna build one to the specs in the article (overclocked Celeron 300A @ 450Mhz, etc.) Due to 2 factors

1) want to do around 42 24bit tracks with real time fx, you know, a decent machine.
2) So broke, must buy a piece at a time.

I couldn't afford the removable harddrive setup like he's got so I'd get by with 1 decent sized fixed unit. Maybe another later.

I want to get a cd burner now though cause I need to do some serious archiving quick. I'm trying to get one that runs now on my old p166 16M ram machine (Dell dimension xpsp166s)but will take advantage of my DAW's superior architecture when I build it.
I'm just so ignorant though. I really appreciate everyone's input on this.

[Eddie N]

for the record , my crapaq can burn cd's just fine , but stutters like hell when trying to play back 2 tracks with dx effects and 4 tracks with no effects..god its junk... 300 mmx amd k 666..

building you own computer peice by piece is a good idea , but when buying parts at a time , be sure to buy the cpu , memory , and hard drive LAST.. those are the parts that drop in price most often.. you dont wanna buy a 220 dollar p III 500 processor and let it sit for too long.. the price might be 150 by the time the rig is finished.. but you prolly knew that.. common sense..

starting with an overclocked celeron is a good idea to start with if you cant afford a pentium yet.. but the p III 500 is still best bang for the buck.. you might need it...42 tracks is alot...

- eddie -

[crazyhorse]

Eddie N, wow, I'm using an old Dell p166 now and have gotten 13 tracks (no realtime f/x). I don't see how you're getting much done at all. Thanks for the tips though.

Now I'm wondering hw important various features are. Like, how much RAM is enough? I see pcs out now with ungodley amounts. Is there a limit to how much is usable in a DAW? I plan to make this an dedicated audio handeling machine with nothing else to rob my processing power. I'm also wondering about the soundcard setup. The guy at prorec recomended a MOTU unit. I would like to end up with somekind of breakout box (RCAs, Line, and XLR jacks) but once again, cash is a major factor for me. I also need a mic pre-amp so I'm thinking about going with a small mixer, that'd cover all that. Thanks for your help everybody!