Drawing the line between Desktop and DAW computer

LRosario

New member
Hi my name is Lee and I'm new to the site. I've been having a good time answering some questions I've seen on here.

Of course this is the internet, so I have no idea who is pro or who is just an enthusiast, but I figure this can benefit some.

There was one thing that caught my attention more than a few times-"What equipment do I need to get good results?"

Thats where DAWs or Digital Audio Workstations are going to propel you out of that home quality to entry level professional and beyond. DAWs are just beefed up Desktop computers and they are designed especially for the rigors of professional recording.

But to help out those in the consumer range, sometimes things like dual hard drives, Processors and/or memory can give you that added push into a better sound. And for pretty cheap. I think the mistake I've seen here is the belief that Manufactured computers (such as Dell or HP) are designed for multi-track recording and the like...not usually the case.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that, if you can afford it and know what to look for, a DAW can really change the way you record over regular PCs.

Any thoughts or things to add?

Forgive me if this topic is taboo.


Lee
 
one mantra that i've adopted is too keep your DAW as clean and tidy as possible. Filling your PC with junk like printer drivers, unecessar windows services, registry files that weren't deleted when programs weren't installed, spyware, other internet crap, etc... eventually leads to problems for me. That is why, when i get my new computer, i am going to get 3 harddrives: one will be 80 gigs adn will be partitioned. One partition will boot windows with normal settings and all the crap i mentioned above, the other will boot a tweaked witndows with audio related crap only. The other hard drives ill be used for current audio work (80 gig) and general storage (120 gig).
 
I am running a P3 with over 1 gig of RAM. I have SAW installed for recording, nero for burning and a drum program for demo'ing drum beats. Thats it. It's not online, no other junk installed. With 3 removable drives. 1 for the operating system and 2 for projects. 1 of the drives is just a backup incase something goes wrong. Lost a drive before and that was no good.

I can't believe the results I get with it either, I am only using an M-audio 44 for a soundcard.

It's not a pro studio, but VERY compatible with the one I usually record my records in. So I can mix my records and also Demo songs at home.
 
Dual drives, large amounts of RAM, good chipset on the mobo and you're gold.

Best recomendation: NO GAMES. Keep the games off your PC (the programmers do lots of nasty things to get game performance that'll muck up your high-performance applications.)
 
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