newbie questions on sound card & ram & hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter luke14
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luke14

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i am pretty new to this whole thing of making music & recording music using my pc.
i have decided its time to do a bit of shopping for my pc.
firstly i am thinking of getting a sound card made bye RME. anybody know anything about these cards? are they any good?

i currently have a pentium 3 600mhz with 64 mgs ram & a 10 gb hard drive
i am thinking of upgrading to 20 gb hard drive & 128 mg s ram.
any comments or suggestions?

i basically need my pc to record my dj sets or mix's to pc to burn onto cd & i have started messing around with a few sound programs
will all of this be enough for my requirements?
i would appreciate all the help i can get.
thanks, :)
luke
 
Yeah, the RME soundcards are very nice indeed. You shouldn't be disappointed.

128 mb RAM would be OK but get 256 if you can - RAM is dirt cheap right now.

The HDD upgrade is a good idea. Many people will tell you it's a good idea to have two drives on your computer - one for system data and one dedicated to audio data - this is means that you will experience better performance as a single drive having to perform multiple tasks will noticeably affect your recording performance.
Also, try to make the drive a 7200rpm model.
The Seagate and Quantam brands are good.
 
thanks for the help
although splitting the hdd. when i send my pc in for the up grade do i just ask the guy to do 2 sepereate hdd's?
& what happens when i start my pc up, do i have to choose between drives?
sorry if these q's sem stoopid but i am like a caveman when it comes to pc stuff :)
thanks again,
luke
 
No worries, matey.
What happens is that they will install two hard drives - the first being your 'Master/boot-up drive' (maybe go for a 20GB 5400rpm Seagate), which will have your operating system (ie Windows) installed on it. The second drive (maybe a 20GB 7200rpm Seagate) will act as the 'Slave' drive. This might sound a little complicated but the computer store should configure it all for you so that you can choose what drive to install and save your data to in Windows.
 
Am I understanding that you are just going into the PC with amix thats already done and you wanna burn it?...If so, you have enough computer to do that, no upgrade necessay....a good soundcard would help.....If you will be multitrackin on the computer, then upgrading is a good idea....
 
Yeah, luke 14 is going to put his mixes (2 turntables and a dj mixer) onto his hard drive.

You will want to upgrade your RAM to at least 128, but I would suggest 256, and if it is in your budget, go up to 512 :D .

Make sure your hard drive is 7200 rpm's.

If you are just putting MIXTAPES on the hard drive you will not necessarily need 2 hard drives.

Also, make sure you buy a CDRW.

Also, an audio editor... i.e. Sound Forge

http://www.sonicfoundry.com

and a program to track into i.e.

Cakewalk
Sonar
Vegas
N-track
etc...


:)...

spin
 
hey spinsterwun,
thanks for the help
what do i get first, what is more important the RAM or th HDD?
hopefully i will only have to buy 1 of the 2 % then i will have some spare cash to buy the new vestax pdx-2000 turntable :D
i have a CDRW it a HP 9200 series & i have sound forge,samplitude, cool edit pro & a few other programs to mess around with.
but if you were in my position what would you get first? the RAM or HDD & if you got the ram first would you spend a bit more in getting more say like 265 mb?
thanks for all the help,
luke
 
If you're only planning on recording two channels, i.e. the stereo out from your dj mixer, then your HDD is enough. So, a bit more RAM is the first thing to get. A 128 stick is enough for now. When you're planning on making music on your PC and will use more tracks, then you'll need a bigger and faster HDD.

/Ola
 
Spin, because RAM is so cheap, Ill go with that...128mb is fine....another 64mb would even be fine...but why another hard drive?...he has cd burning capabilities for storage...and ifs it just a mix and not a multitrack, then 7200rpm drives really arent necessay....

Now that Im up on the soapbox, the first thing to buy is a GOOD soundcard....the best hard drive and the most ram and blah blah wont help much if a cheap soundcard is butchering your sound......

And he mentioned another turntable or two...since that is the heart of his sound, go for that first....maybe even before the soundcard......

luke, how many inputs/outputs on this soundcard will you need?....
 
my basic setup will be three turnatables plus maybe a cd player hooked up to my mixer( pioneer djm-500) then the master will run to my amp & speakers & then i will be running the booth or monitor out from the mixer to my pc to record.& maybe hooking my pc back into the mixer to maybe mix in a few mp3's & stuff but the nthat will have to be to tape if i use th epc for mp3's?
so my 10GB HDD will be enough for now? i am only using like 45% of it as is.

soundcard wise i went into a pc music type shop & i will probably be buying this "project pack" which will save me alot of money leaving me with more money for records :)
the sound card included in the pack is a RME,
are these any good?

another question- would my money be better spent on a good pair of monitors instead of the HDD for now?

by the way u differentiated between my mix's & a mulitrack, what is a multitrack?

i will also be messing around with rebirth & soundforge & fruityloops & other like programs to start off making a few tracks
will the sound card & RAM be enough for the mix's & programs?
the mix's will be 74-80mins in length
all your help is most appreciated
thanks,
luke
 
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