PC build - Advice Needed

[Rich Smith]

Flying a little blind here… and could use advice on a P.C.

A local guy rebuilds corporate business PC’s for resale. I’m starting to branch out from Analog and want a dedicated PC for analog transfer and digital recording. I don’t know a lot about PC’s. Like most of us, I’m strapped for money. Here’s where I am at the moment:

1. I picked-up a Tascam US-428 interface. ($100 off craigslist)
2. Don’t need more than 4-channel digital input. (2 is probably fine.)
3. I have not yet selected (or inherited) any recording software.
4. I’ll also enjoy using some of my old school outboard rack effects if/when compatible.
5. Pimary use: Acoustic singer/songwriter

The local PC guy will build ($125):

P4, 2.8Ghz, large case vertical desktop, Intel motherboard, 2G Ram (512MB x 4), onboard video, Ethernet and sound, 4 USB ports, and CDRW drive. Hmmm… forgot to ask him the hard drive capacity. Comes with licensed Windows XP Pro.

What else should I ask him to put-in? Leave out?

Thanks in advance,

Rich Smith

 

[Rich Smith]

Anyone have advice?

 

[legionserial]

Sorry, I'd started a post while I was at work yesterday but never got the chance to finish it.

That PC at that price seems pretty reasonable. I can't think of much to add, besides getting some decent monitors.

You'll want to disable the onboard sound as well of course.

 

[Chili]

Some thoughts come to mind....

1) I just upgraded out of the P4 2.8ghz to a Core2Duo. I'll tell ya, the P4 runs hot!! So be sure the guy provides plenty of cooling. But that could lead to problems with room noise when you're trying to record vocals and acoustic and the computer fans are whining away.

2) The faster the hard drive, the better. 2 hard drives is better still, o/s runs off one hard drive and your audio stream gets saved to the second. For tracking 2 channels, probably not a problem, but if you start runnning many tracks at once, you'll want a dedicated drive. You don't want your DAW competing for head access time with the O/S. It will lead to glitches and cut-outs.

Here's a link that can help out.

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ts/detail.php?Index=30058


3) Running your outboard gear may not offer the best quality. Typically, you want to track your instruments without any processing, then add eq, dynamics, et al during the mixing stage. To do this with outboard gear, you have to run out from the computer through your D/A converter to the outboard gear and back in through the A/D converter. This additional converting will degrade your signal unless you have really good converters, which the US-428 does not have.

 

[Rich Smith]

1) ...... I'll tell ya, the P4 runs hot!! So be sure the guy provides plenty of cooling. But that could lead to problems with room noise when you're trying to record vocals and acoustic and the computer fans are whining away.


3) Running your outboard gear may not offer the best quality. Typically, you want to track your instruments without any processing, then add eq, dynamics, et al during the mixing stage. To do this with outboard gear, you have to run out from the computer through your D/A converter to the outboard gear and back in through the A/D converter. This additional converting will degrade your signal unless you have really good converters, which the US-428 does not have.

Chili,

Yeah, the P4 does have a long reputation for running hot. As it happens, my recording room shares a common wall with my garage. I'll probable run a sound baffled duct into the garage and put the fan out there.

Thanks for the sweetwater link. That article will probably save me from posting another hundred questions.

I knew there would be some loss/distortion/hum using outboard effects. But I thought that was the nature of the outboard equipment. Would you please explain the signal degradation through the US-428 a little more? I hadn't heard about that. It's 24-bit and I was comfortable with it's simple controls so I hadn't worried about the interface?

Rich Smith

 

[Chili]

Would you please explain the signal degradation through the US-428 a little more? I hadn't heard about that. It's 24-bit and I was comfortable with it's simple controls so I hadn't worried about the interface?

Rich Smith

Everytime you convert from analog to digital or digital to analog, you lose a little bit of information or it gets distorted. Not only in the sense of clipping, but time domain also. Maybe the converter clocks are not stable or timing is off. Converting once may not be noticeable, but if you have to convert the same data several times, the errors will add up and become noticeable.

Not that the US-428 has bad converters, but they probably aren't anywhere near the best. When pro studios run through outboard gear, they use high end converters like Lavry.

That's about the best explanation I can give in my limited knowledge of the subject. Perhaps others might help out a little. But I hope this helps.