Need help building/ or ordering a DAW.

T

tcap429

New member
The more I read on the subject of DAWs the more confused I get. Right now I am planing on recording to an Alesis ADAT 8 track. What I would like to be able to do is to then download all eight 20 bit tracks onto the hard drive using a "Dakota" I/O card along with "CakeWalk ProAudio 9"
After mastering I will be either burning CDs or recording 24 bit to a DAT. What I'm looking for is recomendations on hardware makes and configuations. My budgit is in the $2000 to $2500 range.
I realize that I will be relying on the expertise of those on this BBS and for that reason I would like to thank you in advance for any help you can offer.
 
Here's a link to another post on the BBS with a good DAW article if you are in to building the machine yourself. You'll probably find lots of other good info on this subject using the BBS search feature. If you have specific questions that you can't find an answer to in a previously posted thread, fire away.

And welcome, :).
https://homerecording.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/001073.html



[This message has been edited by Jon X (edited 06-19-2000).]
 
Hey, thanks "Jon X" and "ola". I am now convinced that I should build my oun box, especially if I want a DAW that will run rock solid. I must admit, my preconcived notions of what would be required to build a fast DAW have been altered here. I had been led to belive that a PIII, 128mb of sdram and a couple of 9G 7200 rpm SCSI drives was the hot setup. Was I wrong or could I still hand build a good DAW going the SCSI route? Would there be any advantages or world the disadvanages warrent going with the IDE HD?
"ola" Yes I already oun an Alesis ADAT. I intend to do live recordings and then dump all eight tracks onto the hard drive for mastering.
Once again, thanks to you both and if you can pass along any other bits of wisdom, please feel free. I can use the help.
 
How many tracks do you think that you'll be using? A maximum of eight or so or are you aiming for a lot more?

Does the ADAT have S/PDIF out? If so, you'll get away with less money for the soundcard as 8 channels S/PDIF is cheaper than 8 good A/D converters.

SCSI vs. IDE - The eternal battle. SCSI is far superiour in som applications. For example in a server setup where you have tens of thousands of small reads and writes from different users. However, this is the opposite of a DAW situation where you read and write a few huge files. IDE can perform as good a SCSI in a DAW and at a much lower price. The conclusion is that you could have had a just as good DAW with SCSI but at twice the price.

/Ola
 
Hi again, ola. the Alesis has a digital optical in and out that will tie directly into the Dakota card. Once I have a performance on tape there will be no need to leave the digital realm.
I would like to be able to dump 8 tracks at once to the dard drive. However, in the editing process I could see myself generating copy tracks to add punch or effects to the mix. With that in mind I could probebly be looking at ending up with as many as 25 tracks before mixdown.
I do have plans to add a second ADAT in the future, (Knock on wood) so at that point I might be wanting to be able to stream nearly 50 tracks. I need to be build my DAW to handle the 50 tracks and yet still be ready for upgrades when nessesary.
Are the IDE drives still the way to go if I want to stream 50 tracks at once?

As ever:
T.C.A.
 
You don't need SCSI Hard drives to have 25 tracks of audio. I have a 20 gig IDE hard disk, and one one song, I have 37 continuous tracks going, and my computer hasn't burped yet. The chief advantage (IMHO) over SCSI that IDE has is price. There are many posts on this list that discuss the virtues of SCSI or IDE. While you can chain many drives from one SCSI card, someone tell me who on this list can't do what they need to do with a couple large IDE hard drives (in the 20+ gig range)?

I'm not saying that SCSI is obselete. If I had all the money in the world, I'd go that way, but since I don't, 40+ tracks on an IDE drive is good enough for me. Just something to think about. BTW, I have a friend who has gotten 60+ tracks with his 7200 RPM IDE drive.

Rev E
 
hey, rev... whats your specs.. my box gets pissed after 25 or so tracks....

xoxox
 
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