Bunch of questions on what to get?

  • Thread starter Thread starter holvick
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holvick

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I am in the market for a new computer. I am fairly new to computer recording and I need some help. First I will let you know what I use now. I Have an HP 500 that is five years old. I use Acid Pro 4 to record and my soundcard is an SB Audigy Platnium. I use Fruity Loops 3 to create most of my beats, but I do use some Acid Loop discs. I use an EPS 16 for keys. (I am very unhappy with my selection of sounds in Audigy currently).
I run all my instruments and mikes through a 6 channel Mackie mixer that I believe was a bad purchase because I think it is more for live applications. I use a line 6 Pod and modeling guitar as well.

I would like to buy a new computer, but I have made some stupid purchases in the past and I would like to do this one right. I have gotten lots of advice from build your own computer to buy the biggest thing you can find. I am confused. I would like to put together a set up that makes sence. From a quiet computer to the right amount of equiptment and memory and speed. I am really not a computer wiz so I really don't want to put a computer together, but I will if I have to. Could someone help me? I need help with everything from the computer to the soundcard and interface. Everybody always asks me about my budget so I will say $2000 but I could be convinced to spend more if it was truely worth it. Thanks for the help in advance.
 
My next purchase will be
Asus P4P800 MB
P4 2.6ish GHz hyperthreading
1G DDR400 dual channel ram
2 120GB HDs 8MB cache
17" flat screen

In your case I would also replace the sound card with an M Audio card, either a delta410 for 2 analog ins, or an audiophile if you want midi, or a delta 44 if you want 4 analog ins.

If your Mackie has preamps you should be good to go
 
follow up questions

So you are talking about building your own computer? I have a couple of question about your reply. What is Hyperthreading? What is dual channel ram? Is the second hard drive just for data backup? In respect to your sound card comments, I would would like to do both midi and analog ins. What is the best all around recording interface for the money? I would hate to get something that doesn't allow me to do as much or more than what I can do currently. What are the big advantages of M-Audio? Thanks for the help!
 
one more dumb question?

What does it mean to have preamps and how would I know?
 
Yep I'm planning on building my own machine. If you don't want to do that you can take your specs to any reputable computer retailer and they will build a machine for you.

Hyperthreading is the latest Intel technology that allows the P4 cpu to do 2 things at once, almost like having 2 cpus in your case. I'm still not sure how well this will work in a DAW, but I'm getting it anyway.

Dual channel ram allows the cpu to read and write data to ram via 2 pathways instead of one, effectively doubling the throughput of the ram bus and so improving performance.

The 2nd hard drive will be primarily for audio data, but I plan to partition both drives for backup purposes as well.

If you want midi, and you don't need to record more than 2 analog inputs at once, then the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 would be a good bet. It's the quality of the A/D D/A converters that make the M Audio cards stand out from ordinary comsumer cards.

Has you mixer got gain controls? If so then it's got preamps
 
my recommendation

value for money
amd 2500+
two fast 7200 rpm harddrives , make sure builder enables DMA.
Very important for audio !
512 ddr ram.
an audiophile sound card or mia. just make sure chipset of motherboard is compatible.
and all the other stuff like mouse, screen etc.
software , check out n track, powertracks, magix audio studio,
traktion, multitrack studio and the freebie audacity and muzys.
all good stuff.
by the by i'm a computer engineer and a songwriter / musician.
DONT SPEND A LOT ! because even higher ghz PC's are coming down the pike in the next few years. thats why i like the amd solution. it will do the job very well at a cheap price till the 5 to 8 ghz systems come as i'm sure they will.
 
it is the way some computer systems allow data to be sent directly from an attached device (such as a disk drive) to the memory on the computer's motherboard. The microprocessor is freed from involvement with the data transfer, thus speeding up overall computer operation.

mo better....
 
DMA IS VERY IMPORTANT

ive lost count the number of newbie friends studios ive gone into
who were complaining of recording problems. 9 times out of ten it was not installing the hard drives correctly. other reasons,
underrspecd power supplies, dodgy memory etc.
you can cgheck if dma is enabled by clicking on the properties of your hard drive in device manager. theres also a utility you
can find on the internet called diskbench.exe that will tell you
how your system will perform in terms of hard drive throughput eg: 35 megabytes per second.
 
holvick

if you want a cheap high quality sound card, sell the audigy and get a audiophile or echo mia . MAKE SURE THE AUDIO CARD IS COMPATIBLE WITH THE MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET. by checking with the audio card vendor.
 
MORE ADVICE

where people go wrong with a lot of PC's for DAW /
multitrack recording also is, and this applies to a lot of
shall we say younger members of the recording fraternity,,,,,,
they try and use the PC as well as a gaming machine so they put very advanced graphics cards in PCI slots. NOW - heres the PROBLEM. SOME of these advanced video cards, NOT ALL ,
lock out the PCI bus from audio streams to/from the sound card. hence the old pop /click problems. my solution. i use standard on board motherboard video thus freeing up the PCI bus.
i have no PCI slots filled EXCEPT the audio card in a slot.
 
that brings up another?

I do not use my computer for video games. Are you saying that I don't need a video card at all? My goal is to have a computer dedicated to music. No other frills other than a conection to the internet. That brings up the question of what operating system to use and how to make it the most efficient. Right now I use windows XP pro.
 
regarding the soundcard

my only fear I have about the new soundcard is the interface. I use the audigy box to connect everything to my computer. Is the audiophile going to hinder me in that respect. I look at it on the net and it doesn't look like it has a box to interface. This is fine as long as I can still connect everything. I realize that SB is not the soundcard of choice, but one thing it is is user friendly. That is valuable to a beginner.
 
Re: MORE ADVICE

manning1 said:
they try and use the PC as well as a gaming machine so they put very advanced graphics cards in PCI slots. NOW - heres the PROBLEM.
Click to expand...
The era of PCI add-on cards to improve gaming graphics is way behind us. Nobody does that anymore.

Stick a decent videocard in the AGP slot. No onboard video. That's the way to do it. Nothing more, nothing less.

holvick,
What do you connect to your computer that you need the audigy for? BTW, an audiophile is VERY user friendly in my opinion. The Delta control panel works well.
 
more questions?

What is onboard video?

You asked what I connect to audigy. I connect to the midi inputs from a eps 16 plus. Everything else I do is regular audio. (guitars, mikes, ect..) I rarely record more than one thing at a time. The only programs that I use that are Creative are the sb audigy which supplies the sounds for my controller. From what I have read that is an easy problem to fix. I am just trying to make extra sure that I take a step forward and not backward.
 
One more thing

When I look at product descriptions of the audiophile 2496 there appears to be a couple different versions. One looks like an external midi interface and the other is an internal pci audio interface. Which model should I be looking at?
 
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