S
Springo
New member
Hello, first of all I'd like to introduce myself. My handle is Springo (My Harley is a Springer, and my dog's name is Ringo so I'm Springo).
I am new to computer based music creation and recording. I am totally green! However, I have been a musician for 25 years (mostly guitar) and I am employed as a PC systems analyst - so for the purpose of helping me out, my music and computer skills are not lacking. But I am a total newbie with PC based music software. The reason that I decided to start doing it is because I am tired of bands at the moment - and I would like to be able to stay home and create whatever type of music I want and not have to contend with anyone else.
These are the programs that I currently have, to make it easier for you to know what to advise, and let me say that so far I am proficient on NONE of them! But I have been studying and will eventually become proficient. Current software includes
Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro 3
Acid Pro 4.0
Reason 3.0
ReCycle 2.1
Line6 Guitar Port
Line6 Riff Works
Steinberg Cubasis VST
Audacity
Computer Muzys 15
eJay 360 XTreme
Native Instruments Traktor DJ
Wavelab
I have all of these on my PC, but I have been concentrating on the first 6 of them. I figure that once I learn how to use them, I can play around with the other ones.
Anyway, my question is about setting my PC up optimally for music and recording. I built a very stout rig, it's capable of anything. P4 3.0Ghz, 1GB DDR in dual channel, SB Audigy 2 Platinum, etc. The PC is plenty powerful. It currently has two hard drives, and I just got a third. The main drive is a WD Caviar IDE 84 GB 7,200 rpm; and I have a 20GB 7,200 rpm drive for backup. I just purchased a WD Raptor 74GB 10,000 rpm SATA drive. I purchased it to use as a dedicated drive for recording, and also for graphics rendering. Otherwise it will have nothing installed on it, including the OS. That's the plan, anyway.
I want to use the 10,000 rpm drive to do all of the music recording and manipulation (and graphics rendering etc.). This way the software will have a nice, fast HDD with basically unlimited headroom to work. The thing is that I am not sure how to go about doing this and have received a million different answers on what to do. My initial idea was simply to install all of the music programs onto the dedicated drive. Nobody liked that idea. So now I am thinking of keeping the OS and programs where they are and using the dedicated drive to do the heavy work on. How do I go about doing this? My first thought was to redirect the program's cache to the new drive. Is that possible, and if so, do most programs have a place to configure this? Someone had suggested storing my music and projects on the new Raptor drive. If I do that, save my projects to the new drive, will the programs work with them exclusively on the faster drive, even though the program itself is on the 7,200 rpm drive? Or do I need to start over and install my OS and all programs on the new drive (I don't want to do that, butif I have to, I will).
I appreciate any and all answers and opinions. Thanks!
I am new to computer based music creation and recording. I am totally green! However, I have been a musician for 25 years (mostly guitar) and I am employed as a PC systems analyst - so for the purpose of helping me out, my music and computer skills are not lacking. But I am a total newbie with PC based music software. The reason that I decided to start doing it is because I am tired of bands at the moment - and I would like to be able to stay home and create whatever type of music I want and not have to contend with anyone else.
These are the programs that I currently have, to make it easier for you to know what to advise, and let me say that so far I am proficient on NONE of them! But I have been studying and will eventually become proficient. Current software includes
Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro 3
Acid Pro 4.0
Reason 3.0
ReCycle 2.1
Line6 Guitar Port
Line6 Riff Works
Steinberg Cubasis VST
Audacity
Computer Muzys 15
eJay 360 XTreme
Native Instruments Traktor DJ
Wavelab
I have all of these on my PC, but I have been concentrating on the first 6 of them. I figure that once I learn how to use them, I can play around with the other ones.
Anyway, my question is about setting my PC up optimally for music and recording. I built a very stout rig, it's capable of anything. P4 3.0Ghz, 1GB DDR in dual channel, SB Audigy 2 Platinum, etc. The PC is plenty powerful. It currently has two hard drives, and I just got a third. The main drive is a WD Caviar IDE 84 GB 7,200 rpm; and I have a 20GB 7,200 rpm drive for backup. I just purchased a WD Raptor 74GB 10,000 rpm SATA drive. I purchased it to use as a dedicated drive for recording, and also for graphics rendering. Otherwise it will have nothing installed on it, including the OS. That's the plan, anyway.
I want to use the 10,000 rpm drive to do all of the music recording and manipulation (and graphics rendering etc.). This way the software will have a nice, fast HDD with basically unlimited headroom to work. The thing is that I am not sure how to go about doing this and have received a million different answers on what to do. My initial idea was simply to install all of the music programs onto the dedicated drive. Nobody liked that idea. So now I am thinking of keeping the OS and programs where they are and using the dedicated drive to do the heavy work on. How do I go about doing this? My first thought was to redirect the program's cache to the new drive. Is that possible, and if so, do most programs have a place to configure this? Someone had suggested storing my music and projects on the new Raptor drive. If I do that, save my projects to the new drive, will the programs work with them exclusively on the faster drive, even though the program itself is on the 7,200 rpm drive? Or do I need to start over and install my OS and all programs on the new drive (I don't want to do that, butif I have to, I will).
I appreciate any and all answers and opinions. Thanks!
Last edited: