calling all geeks! (computer shopping)

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foreverain4

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the wife has finally given the ok for me to get a new compy... lets go shoping boys (and girls). ;) i record with an alesis hd24, so i am looking for an editing powerhouse.. here is what i already have to incorporate in the new system..


motu 2408mk3 pci 424
firewire card with

(3) external firewire drives
alesis fireport
universal audio uad-1 pci dsp card

pioneer dvd rw
LG cdrw
software

win xp pro
sony vegas
sony acid
sony sound forge
waves plugins
uad-1 plugins (pci card)


go ahead, shop on my dollar, i get the computer though. lol
your ideas are appreciated....

lynn
 
oh yeah, budget.... uuuh lets say $2000. but not if i dont have to spend that. i will be putting it together myself...
 
Go Mac and Logic pro.
I was a PC dude for decades. Switched some months ago to Mac. Since then my problems went out the window and I´m happily just letting my creativity flow - now without pops, clicks and countless hours fixing problems.
It wouldn´t be possible to explain how great the mac/logic platform works for me.
I think that budget might cover it. Ain´t sure.
 
Emusic said:
Go Mac and Logic pro.
I was a PC dude for decades. Switched some months ago to Mac. Since then my problems went out the window and I´m happily just letting my creativity flow - now without pops, clicks and countless hours fixing problems.
It wouldn´t be possible to explain how great the mac/logic platform works for me.
I think that budget might cover it. Ain´t sure.
Click to expand...


happy for you man, really, i am...
 
I'm an AMD guy myself, but that is mainly to be anti-establishment :D When I built mine a year and a half ago I went the economical route and got a vanilla AMD board (Shuttle brand) that had lots of slots (I can't remember the chipset). I think I wound up with an Athlon 2500XP with 512Mb RAM. This past weekend I finally hit a limit with my RAM so I picked up another 512 stick to put in (that limit was about 40 tracks with TONS of plugins simultaneously active in Cubase). I've actually mixed a 45 minute/24 track live set with a moderate number of plugins without a hiccup.

But, for the sake of discussion, if I were doing it with your budget, I'd go for an Athlon 64 with 2Gb RAM as a basic unit. Get a mother board that does NOT have video built in so you can get a dual output video card to drive 2 monitors. Check out the MOTU website to see if there are any compatibility issues before making your final decision.

You've already got firewire, so make sure you've got some USB 2.0 slots. Buy the largest case you can find with the biggest power supply you can find. I typically have 2 internal hard drives (system drive and data drive), so get the biggest you can afford for both of those. Since I have a Mackie MDR HD recorder, I am able to pull out my removable drive and just pop it into a drive slot in my PC, turn on power, and "voila" I have a 3rd active hard drive. The only thing I need now is a DVD recorder for backups (which you've got already). Since you have to go through the Fireport, you don't need to dedicate a drive bay for this, obviously.

I guess the only other thing I'd throw in would be dual LCD monitors. I'd love to have a set of 17 inchers myself, but 19 inchers would be even sweeter.

Oh, yeah, one other thing. I absolutely refuse to have my studio PC connected to the internet. My OS is a stripped down version of Windows 2000 and I have never had a lockup, slowdown or any issues (well, except for running out of memory last Sunday).

I don't have any specific manufacturer recommendations other than noted above, but I have had great success with mine. I already had a video card, CDRW drive, firewire card, and a 30 GB hard drive, so my total cost to construct what I would up with was close to $300 including motherboard, processor, memory, 120 Gb data hard drive, and case. I bought everything local so I could have shaved a few $$ by going over the web but I was trying to buy things piece by piece so my wife wouldn't know about it (it was actually 6 months before she noticed!!).

Anyway, good luck. It is a gratifying project once you get it powered up and running and it doesn't really take that long to assemble one.

Darryl.....
 
i do have a 22" LCD screen already. probably wont go for the dual any time soon. this thing already surrounds my head. lol thanks for the input though. very helpful. i am, by no means, computer illiterate. that is why i have not gone mac. lol just hoping to pick up some ideas on what works... and what doesnt....
 
22" huh? That would be sweet. What resolution do you run it at? I don't think I've ever sat in front of one of those before, but I think I could get used to it :D

Darryl.....
 
sounds like you have an old computer already with most of the common parts. if i were you i think i would put my money fully towards a new upgrade for the motherboard, cpu and RAM. Can't go wrong with the most current ASUS board ( i use the K8N-E with nforce chipset and have never had a problem). Then i would grab decent speed RAM 1 gig worth, or 2 if you are feeling bold. I would put the rest towards the fast processor i could justify. Definately AMD, perhaps an athlon 64 4000+ or something. I think the X2 is overpriced right now and I don't think you sould see a big performance increase with it over a single core processor. They are generally geared towards multitasking
 
i have a 23'' CRT display (school gave it too me free), i use it in combination with a 17 inch CRT. The viewing area is pretty sweet but the 23 inch monitor takes up about half of my room, and heats it up plenty too.
 
Emusic said:
Go Mac and Logic pro.
I was a PC dude for decades. Switched some months ago to Mac. Since then my problems went out the window and I´m happily just letting my creativity flow - now without pops, clicks and countless hours fixing problems.
It wouldn´t be possible to explain how great the mac/logic platform works for me.
I think that budget might cover it. Ain´t sure.
Click to expand...

That's weird...my creativity can flow using my PC DAW as well. A little research can go a long way.
 
warble said:
That's weird...my creativity can flow using my PC DAW as well. A little research can go a long way.
Click to expand...
Feel free as long as u dont force me back to a PC DAW :) Weird or not weird, I tell u man - my PC DAW´s has been spooky :eek:
 
Guys take it easy on Emusic he was just giving the poster another idea of what he can do. I had my first daw on a pc and it was a nightmare. I admit I'm not a computer geek and that probably hurt a lot but seriously things were getting messed up every day and with a mac its no headache everything works like it did the day before. So lighten up the guy asked for advice emusic offered some up.
 
I recommend an AMD Athlon64 X2 (dual core CPU) 3800+ with 2 GB of ram and a fast HDD. Working wonders over here...
 
wouldnt pentium m make sense as it can run cooler and therefore more quietly, it has the power usage about a quarter of the other processors mentioned here. Couple that with a low powered graphics card and it should run nice and cool in a Antec Sonata case (or similar)

Surely noise is a factor?
 
Multimedia is not the Pentium M's forte due to its short-pipelined architecture, althought the low heat output would be nice.
Plus, a faster Pentium M (2.0 GHz+) CPU is fairly hard to find.
 
I just transformed my older computer into a new beast based on not quite top-of-the-line technology. I decided to go and grab a deal that netted me a Socket 754 Athlon 64 3000+ processor and an nForce3 board for 120 bucks. Trailing edge of newer technology, but it's speedy as heck and I'm not going over 50% CPU even in my most insane projects. Ask yourself if you really need the processing power for plugins and whatnot or if your dollar can go further by getting hard drives, a RAID setup, or more memory.

(I fall in the hard drive and memory side of things because I use gigs and gigs of sound libraries...what a great time to be a soft synth user...)
 
I now have an AMD X2 3800+ on an Abit AV8 mainboard with 2GB of RAM and a Delta66 for the recording.

Highly recommended.
I can't describe how much better this dual core chip performs in Cubase than single-cpu machines.

The board is fast too - but you need really good RAM to go in it, Corsair TwinMX is fine.
 
jonnyc said:
Guys take it easy on Emusic he was just giving the poster another idea of what he can do. I had my first daw on a pc and it was a nightmare. I admit I'm not a computer geek and that probably hurt a lot but seriously things were getting messed up every day and with a mac its no headache everything works like it did the day before. So lighten up the guy asked for advice emusic offered some up.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize I was being that hard on him. I've been running a PC DAW just fine for well over a year now - and there any plenty of others doing the same thing I'm doing around here. I did my research, payed attention here since 1999, and it worked out for me. That's why I stated "a little research goes a long way" - that wasn't meant in a condescending way, it's just the truth. I've seen too many times where people come in here and state "PC's suck, go with a Mac." Well, PC's don't suck and I've been successfully running Windows XP Pro with zero major crashes for the time I've been using it for music. I'm not against Macs either as I've worked with someone who uses one for music - so this isn't a PC vs. Mac rant either.

My two cents have been spent...
 
plonkersaurus said:
wouldnt pentium m make sense as it can run cooler and therefore more quietly, it has the power usage about a quarter of the other processors mentioned here. Couple that with a low powered graphics card and it should run nice and cool in a Antec Sonata case (or similar)

Surely noise is a factor?
Click to expand...

Cooler and less noise if of course great, but I don't feel that Pent. M would provide super processing power for a DAW. There are effective and "virtually" silent cooling solutions by Zalman (to name one) and many others. I'm using an Athlon XP3000+ with a Barton core and a cool wide spread fin heat sink with a really quiet, varible speed fan for cooling. I've had zero problems and although the processor isn't running at 10c, it does it for me at about 40-45c.
 
and you know what would really be tite, a video card trhat supports 2 monitors. and then, get 2 monitors (duh, ha.).

I'll agree to AMD over intel (cost), and I've foudn little difference, at least on my pc, between 1gig and 1.5gig of ram on my audio adventures- don't know if 2gig would do anything else either.

Very noticable speed increases, esp. with Vegas 6, is 2 proccessors - so maybe you should look into that.
 
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