Suitable computer
- Thread starter GUITAR08
- Start date
danico4not
New member
well mr guitar, you can do some recording with a pentium 3 if you'd like. You'd only be recording in 16 bit quality, with a limited number of tracks- but it is definitely possible. 256 of Ram will suffice for a P3.
If you want to get out of mom's basement though, you might want to consider a pentium 4 or a nice amd-chip pc. 1 gig of ram should be a good amount of memory for starters. Also get an external hard drive (7200 speed) and STAY with Windows XP. Don't mess with Windows Media Center or Vista..
you should be on your way. Just get a decent soundcard, and call it a day.
good luck
If you want to get out of mom's basement though, you might want to consider a pentium 4 or a nice amd-chip pc. 1 gig of ram should be a good amount of memory for starters. Also get an external hard drive (7200 speed) and STAY with Windows XP. Don't mess with Windows Media Center or Vista..
you should be on your way. Just get a decent soundcard, and call it a day.
good luck
suprstar
It aint ez being green
Dont even bother with a sound card. You can get a cheap little USB mixer for $100 that windows detects and considers as a cound card, that'll be MILES ahead of any integrated sound, and way better than almost all aftermarket cards.
Like danico said, you can get started with almost any PC, but you'll hit a practical limit a lot faster with a slower pc. I have a 3 year old P4 with 2gb ram, I've ran 14 or so tracks with a plugin or 2 on each track, it never even blinks, runs perfectly. So I guess what matters is how big you're expecting your projects to be. And I strongly second the 'stick with XP' advice..
Like danico said, you can get started with almost any PC, but you'll hit a practical limit a lot faster with a slower pc. I have a 3 year old P4 with 2gb ram, I've ran 14 or so tracks with a plugin or 2 on each track, it never even blinks, runs perfectly. So I guess what matters is how big you're expecting your projects to be. And I strongly second the 'stick with XP' advice..
suprstar
It aint ez being green
Vista just plain sucks.. It's slow and expensive. It takes a long time to boot. It's a resource PIG, esp. that silly side bar, and the Aero ui.. It's cute, nice to look at, sucks to use. You need a GIG of ram just to boot it?? My P4 xp DAW runs circles around my laptop that came with vista, even tho the laptop has a T9500 Duo and 2x the ram in it! WTF?! I formatted the hd and stuck xp on it instead, now it smokes. 
The new security is overkill, it prompts you so often it becomes habit to just click 'Ok' without even looking at it, which kinda defeats the purpose.. There's a LOT of hardware incompatabilities, esp. with old hardware, but even with new hw. Lots of hardware has no vista drivers. Graphics performance is terrible, WAY worse than xp. I had IE crash so hard you can't even get the task manager up! Firefox seems to work better and faster. That's my short 1st hand experience with it.
Im in the industry, I know a ton of software developers, network engineers, etc. I hear complain they cant get common MS apps running on it to save their lives. wzup wit dat? They aren't morons! Oh ya, they want you to buy all those apps AGAIN, the Vista version! Everyone I know bitches about it.
Then there's cosmetic stuff like the start menu - what bullshit! It's impossible to find what you're looking for. Why should I have to re-learn the entire UI from square one? It's like if your grocery store randomly moved all their stock to diff. aisles.. Pisses me off.. No right-click / run with.. Laptop power options dont take into consideration whether it's plugged in or not. Why the hell not??? XP did! Total step backwards..
Then there's the implications of forcing hw manufacturers to jump thru hoops to obtain a 'Vista certified hardware' certification. In the interest of stopping media piracy, hw manufacturers can no longer use common efficient design methods like using common PCB's in all video cards, because hackers could tap into unpopulated bond pads and traces on the circuit boards and bypass the DRM! Everything has to be custom-designed and laid out so that there are no unnecessary accessible signal links on the board. This means that a low-cost card isn't just a high-cost card with components omitted. This makes the hardware cost MORE! "This increases motherboard design costs, increases lead times, and reduces OEM configuration flexibility. This cost is passed on to purchasers of multimedia PCs and may delay availability of high-performance platforms" — ATI. Non-certified video cards get their outputs disabled, YPbPr always, and sometimes composite tv-out. Same for audio cards, S/PDIF outputs are disabled.
Gates and Ballsack KNOW Vista sucks, they wanted to discontinue xp, but got so much backlash they had to extend the XP life cycle until 2010!
In short,
The new security is overkill, it prompts you so often it becomes habit to just click 'Ok' without even looking at it, which kinda defeats the purpose.. There's a LOT of hardware incompatabilities, esp. with old hardware, but even with new hw. Lots of hardware has no vista drivers. Graphics performance is terrible, WAY worse than xp. I had IE crash so hard you can't even get the task manager up! Firefox seems to work better and faster. That's my short 1st hand experience with it.Im in the industry, I know a ton of software developers, network engineers, etc. I hear complain they cant get common MS apps running on it to save their lives. wzup wit dat? They aren't morons! Oh ya, they want you to buy all those apps AGAIN, the Vista version! Everyone I know bitches about it.
Then there's cosmetic stuff like the start menu - what bullshit! It's impossible to find what you're looking for. Why should I have to re-learn the entire UI from square one? It's like if your grocery store randomly moved all their stock to diff. aisles..
Pisses me off.. No right-click / run with.. Laptop power options dont take into consideration whether it's plugged in or not. Why the hell not??? XP did! Total step backwards..Then there's the implications of forcing hw manufacturers to jump thru hoops to obtain a 'Vista certified hardware' certification. In the interest of stopping media piracy, hw manufacturers can no longer use common efficient design methods like using common PCB's in all video cards, because hackers could tap into unpopulated bond pads and traces on the circuit boards and bypass the DRM! Everything has to be custom-designed and laid out so that there are no unnecessary accessible signal links on the board. This means that a low-cost card isn't just a high-cost card with components omitted. This makes the hardware cost MORE! "This increases motherboard design costs, increases lead times, and reduces OEM configuration flexibility. This cost is passed on to purchasers of multimedia PCs and may delay availability of high-performance platforms" — ATI. Non-certified video cards get their outputs disabled, YPbPr always, and sometimes composite tv-out. Same for audio cards, S/PDIF outputs are disabled.
Gates and Ballsack KNOW Vista sucks, they wanted to discontinue xp, but got so much backlash they had to extend the XP life cycle until 2010!
In short,
Actually most USB Sound Cards/Mixers are pretty awefull.... Most only output a stereo mix of the inputs not to individual severate tracks....
Overall a PCI\PCI-E Sound card will have a much better data transfer rate, are not relegated to a stereo mix of all inputs, and are affordable.....
You actually don"t need a super fast PC to record (you do if you want a lot of plugins and dozzens of tracks)....
I use a cheapo Slow assed 2.4ghz celeron D with 512mb of ram with my Delta 1010/44 and I can record from all 14 inputs and play back though all 14 outputs at the same time without even the slightest hickup , I can also put maybe one or two VST plugins on each track without any problems...
Overall a PCI\PCI-E Sound card will have a much better data transfer rate, are not relegated to a stereo mix of all inputs, and are affordable.....
You actually don"t need a super fast PC to record (you do if you want a lot of plugins and dozzens of tracks)....
I use a cheapo Slow assed 2.4ghz celeron D with 512mb of ram with my Delta 1010/44 and I can record from all 14 inputs and play back though all 14 outputs at the same time without even the slightest hickup , I can also put maybe one or two VST plugins on each track without any problems...
suprstar
It aint ez being green
Yeah true, but your delta cost more than $100 too.. And if all he needs is 2 tracks at a time, then it's perfect. The OP is looking for a 'minimal' setup, this is one spot where a little teeny bit of $ makes a dramatic improvement.. I still have an old Yamaha MW-10 in service cuz it's so damn handy, and it sounds great!