Planning on upgrading my CPU to eliminate dropouts using Cakewalk HS. What

[C-1st]

is the best processor (Pentium or Athlon) to use? What speed? How much ram do I need? How big a hard drive do I need?

 

[laptoppop]

Lots more info needed to decide this intelligently.

Questions:
Whats your budget?
What are you recording (44.1, 96 kHz?)
What is your (planned) interface to the computer?
How many channels will you be recording/playing back at once?
How many effects?
How long will your recordings be...how much audio do you want to store on the hard disk at one time?
What kind of backup are you planning?

In general, the Athlon processors seem to give more performance for $. I had compatiblity problems with Motu hardware and have ended up with a nice stable P4 based system.

-lee-

 

[James Argo]

What is the best processor (Pentium or Athlon) to use?

I'd rather Pentium (Intel based) processor. Never brings any trouble, since every software & hardware compatibility and performance always be tested first in intel's processor, then they try AMD / VIA.

What speed? How much ram do I need? How big a hard drive do I need?

Fastest you can get, biggest you can get, widest you can get... aything just the best that you can get with your limited budget.

 

[C-1st]

Whats your budget?
$ not an issue.

What are you recording (44.1, 96 kHz?) 96

What is your (planned) interface to the computer? Already have Audiophile 2496

How many channels will you be recording/playing back at once?
Record on standalone. Playback & mix 16 tracks

How many effects? Mainly use outboard effects.

How long will your recordings be...how much audio do you want to store on the hard disk at one time? 200 or 300 songs

What kind of backup are you planning? ??? I have a CD Burner if that is what you are asking?

 

[LEADGTRPLAYR]

recording at 24-bit(HELP)

This would be my first time in here asking for help instead of trying to help others(which i love to do)!!ok now problem,i have a P4system,running raid drives both the Western Digital 120gig., 8 mb buffer drives,a motu896(firewire)..computer smokes so no problems there...But yet there is,whenever i record @24-bit i can only get in about a 3 minutes and then kaput audio dropout occures,now i know a good deal about this bull but whenever i use my other machine which is a 2.2ghzP4 with just one drive it's all good,the other machine btw is a 2.5ghz..so i guess my question would be why would i get an audio dropout with a slower machine???have chacked all my settings they are the same in both machines????

 

[laptoppop]

Whats your budget?
$ not an issue.

Wow - I wish I had your bank account! I'm going to take this with a big grain of salt, because I think what you are really asking about is a dream system, then you'll join the rest of us and build something reasonable.


What are you recording (44.1, 96 kHz?) 96


OK, that's going to produce a lot bigger files on the disk.


What is your (planned) interface to the computer? Already have Audiophile 2496


I don't know much about this particular interface - looks like a reasonable 4 in/4 out interface. I'll assume that this works well with Cakewalk products unless anyone speaks up.


How many channels will you be recording/playing back at once?
Record on standalone. Playback & mix 16 tracks

Sounds like a reasonable expectation in terms of number of tracks. This should be very achievable.


How many effects? Mainly use outboard effects.

This is great news from a CPU loading point of view.


How long will your recordings be...how much audio do you want to store on the hard disk at one time? 200 or 300 songs

Oops! Lets see.... 3 1/2 minute song, 16 tracks, 96 kHz sample rate, 24-bit samples (stored as 32-bit) gives us about 1.3 Gigabytes per song. If your songs are 5 minutes long, thats about 1.8 Gigabytes per song. I find that I usually end up with about 5 copies of each song through the working process (your process could vary, but I'm a big believer in saving my work and backing up -- I've been burned before.) So, figure 10 Gigabytes per song or so. For a 120 Gig hard drive, that gives about 12 songs, or one solid album's worth.


What kind of backup are you planning? ??? I have a CD Burner if that is what you are asking?
Ahhh, another issue. I strongly, highly, intensely recommend you plan on how you want to save and backup your music long term as part of this. A CD burner *can* be used, but its a bit of a pain. Typically, you can write a bundled file, then zip it, then burn a CD. The unzipped bundled file won't fit. A much easier solution these days is a DVD writer. Right now, I'm recommending DVD+R/DVD+RW for speed and compatibility reasons. It looks like that's the DVD variant that is winning in the marketplace.

OK, so for a very very cool system these days:

2.8 gHz Pentium 4
Asus P4B533 motherboard
1 gig DDR RAM

(This combination is a matter of debate. Some folks prefer the higher bandwidth of RDRAM, but for audio applications, I prefer the lower latency of DDR.)

Windows XP Pro (NOT home edition) (Tweaked/minimized for audio)

Seperate hard disks for operating system and audio data. 80 Gigabyte 7200 rpm Western digital with 8 meg buffer for OS, 120 Gigabyte 7200 rpm Western Digital with 8 meg buffer for audio data. Audio drive mounted in Lian-Li removable rack. Use one hard disk per album project.

I'd strongly recommend moving from HS to Sonar XL. If you are spending all this money on a new computer, upgrading the software to take advantage of it is the way to go. Cakewalk has put the most effort into Sonar and it will give you the best professional results.

Matrox G550 video card with dual monitors.

HP DVD+R/DVD+RW 200i DVD burner

Plextor CD burner

Secondary software (such as Cool edit pro, sound forge, Wavelab) for wave file editing

Good luck!
-lee-

 

[laptoppop]

Re: recording at 24-bit(HELP)

This would be my first time in here asking for help instead of trying to help others(which i love to do)!!ok now problem,i have a P4system,running raid drives both the Western Digital 120gig., 8 mb buffer drives,a motu896(firewire)..computer smokes so no problems there...But yet there is,whenever i record @24-bit i can only get in about a 3 minutes and then kaput audio dropout occures,now i know a good deal about this bull but whenever i use my other machine which is a 2.2ghzP4 with just one drive it's all good,the other machine btw is a 2.5ghz..so i guess my question would be why would i get an audio dropout with a slower machine???have chacked all my settings they are the same in both machines????

To me it sounds like you are in the twilight zone of Cakewalk buffering. I expect that you can address this by adjusting your buffer settings. I've had systems that need bigger, or less buffers to work properly. I'd start by trying to enlarge my buffers a bit, then try shrinking them if that didn't work.

One possible problem you may be looking at is PCI bus problems between the RAID controller and the firewire interface. If one or the other is hogging the bus (very easy to have happen), it can really hurt. If you have two drives in a RAID configuration for both operating system and audio, you may well find better performance by dumping the RAID, putting the OS on one disk, and the audio data on the other.

Another issue may be system interrupts. Make sure that every device is on its own interrupt for best performance.

-lee-

 

[James Argo]

...
Windows XP Pro (NOT home edition) (Tweaked/minimized for audio)

...

Do you know the difference between two (Pro and Home) in audio working environment ? I do agree with the rest of your post, they make sense, and reasonable, but "Win XP Pro (NOT Home edition)" ? I didn't think that'll give you any difference... in audio terms, they both do just fine. Unless you will use Double Processor, then use Pro edition. Other way, Home, Pro, or Developer edition will be good.

 

[brzilian]

Do you know the difference between two (Pro and Home) in audio working environment ? I do agree with the rest of your post, they make sense, and reasonable, but "Win XP Pro (NOT Home edition)" ? I didn't think that'll give you any difference... in audio terms, they both do just fine. Unless you will use Double Processor, then use Pro edition. Other way, Home, Pro, or Developer edition will be good.

I agree. There is no difference whatsoever between Pro and Home unless you either have a dual processor system or need more advanced networking functionality.

I have used both with DAW's and there have been do discrepancies or reasons not to just stick with Home. After all, it is almost $100 cheaper than Pro.

Also laptoppop erroneously pointed out that the Audiophile is a 4in/4 out card. It does indeed have 2 stereo inputs and outputs,but one pair is digital/SPDIF so unless you have a device with digital outs and one with analog, you will be recording 2 tracks (or one stereo pair) at a time.

The bigger picture to take into consideration is that HS2002 can only record 2 tracks simultaneously at any time. If you have a card with more inputs and want to record more tracks in one take, you will have to move up to Sonar.

 

[laptoppop]

I agree. There is no difference whatsoever between Pro and Home unless you either have a dual processor system or need more advanced networking functionality.

I have used both with DAW's and there have been do discrepancies or reasons not to just stick with Home. After all, it is almost $100 cheaper than Pro.


Fair enough. I was basing my comments on some device driver/latency issues that I have heard about. I do not have the first hand knowledge of the issues. What I was told was that the kernel was very slightly different at the lowest levels, with XP Pro being better suited to server/audio work. I do trust my sources, but again, I don't have first hand knowledge of the kernel. I do know that if you are setting up multiple users, Pro is nicer with fast user switching, but for an audio machine you'd be wanting to run lean and mean anyway.


Also laptoppop erroneously pointed out that the Audiophile is a 4in/4 out card. It does indeed have 2 stereo inputs and outputs,but one pair is digital/SPDIF so unless you have a device with digital outs and one with analog, you will be recording 2 tracks (or one stereo pair) at a time.


You got me there. :>) I was just going off of a 2 second read from a Google source - which is why I invited others to chime in.


The bigger picture to take into consideration is that HS2002 can only record 2 tracks simultaneously at any time. If you have a card with more inputs and want to record more tracks in one take, you will have to move up to Sonar.

It just doesn't make sense to me to have such a killer computer and NOT use Sonar at the very least.

-lee-

 

[LEADGTRPLAYR]

Well i'd like the chance to respond to James,FIRST OF ALL,Iwas talking about XP PRO,I am no beginner at this and would not even consider suggesting any home version of anything,Second of all I was recommending W2KPRO(that stands for windows 2000 professional)DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE???,AND LAST OF ALL,I have had a shitty time with XP and all it's glitches,bugs,driver issues,etc.Everyone i know who has used XP/PRO has also has a confirmed nothing but problems getting this and that to work,So to all of them i suggest W2K/PRO(WINDOWS 2000 PROFESSIONAL)and would'nt yaknow all of their shitty XP problems went away and instead of them fighting with thier computers,they all now thank me and tell me yeah looks alot like 98,but runs way better,no lockups,no blue screens.........HAVE FUN WITH YOUR XP/PRO/HOME,WHATEVER?? BTW WITH XP/PRO I AM SO SICK OF HEARING YEAH ONCE YOU GET IT ALL SET UP WORX GREAT,WELL YOU GUYS KEEP ON TWEAKING XP,WHILE I KEEP ON RECORDING......Don't want u guys hopping on me cause someone OBVIOUSLY,has mistaken me!!!

 

[brzilian]

Well i'd like the chance to respond to James,FIRST OF ALL,Iwas talking about XP PRO,I am no beginner at this and would not even consider suggesting any home version of anything,Second of all I was recommending W2KPRO(that stands for windows 2000 professional)DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE???,AND LAST OF ALL,I have had a shitty time with XP and all it's glitches,bugs,driver issues,etc.Everyone i know who has used XP/PRO has also has a confirmed nothing but problems getting this and that to work,So to all of them i suggest W2K/PRO(WINDOWS 2000 PROFESSIONAL)and would'nt yaknow all of their shitty XP problems went away and instead of them fighting with thier computers,they all now thank me and tell me yeah looks alot like 98,but runs way better,no lockups,no blue screens.........HAVE FUN WITH YOUR XP/PRO/HOME,WHATEVER?? BTW WITH XP/PRO I AM SO SICK OF HEARING YEAH ONCE YOU GET IT ALL SET UP WORX GREAT,WELL YOU GUYS KEEP ON TWEAKING XP,WHILE I KEEP ON RECORDING......Don't want u guys hopping on me cause someone OBVIOUSLY,has mistaken me!!!

You should try and meet more ppl.

I and other ppl on this forum have had no issues with XP. I installed XP, my Audiophile 2496 and HS2002 without having to do any system tweaks. It has been smooth sailing all along.

On the otherhand, 2000 was giving me problems with dropouts and even complaining about my DSL connection...

 

[laptoppop]

Actually -- come on guys, we can all find lots of posts from folks who are either having troubles or having NO troubles with ANY particular operating system. Personally, I recommend XP for folks because of long term support issues, but if someone is making music with Windows 3.1, that's cool with me. Down deep, after you turn off the UI glitz, 2000 and XP have a LOT in common -- both have solid full multitasking cores.

Bottom line - make music, have fun!
-lee-

 

[James Argo]

Well i'd like the chance to respond to James,FIRST OF ALL,Iwas talking about XP PRO,I am no beginner at this and would not even consider suggesting any home version of anything,Second of all I was recommending W2KPRO(that stands for windows 2000 professional)DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE???,AND LAST OF ALL,I have had a shitty time with XP and all it's glitches,bugs,driver issues,etc.Everyone i know who has used XP/PRO has also has a confirmed nothing but problems getting this and that to work,So to all of them i suggest W2K/PRO(WINDOWS 2000 PROFESSIONAL)and would'nt yaknow all of their shitty XP problems went away and instead of them fighting with thier computers,they all now thank me and tell me yeah looks alot like 98,but runs way better,no lockups,no blue screens.........HAVE FUN WITH YOUR XP/PRO/HOME,WHATEVER?? BTW WITH XP/PRO I AM SO SICK OF HEARING YEAH ONCE YOU GET IT ALL SET UP WORX GREAT,WELL YOU GUYS KEEP ON TWEAKING XP,WHILE I KEEP ON RECORDING......Don't want u guys hopping on me cause someone OBVIOUSLY,has mistaken me!!!

Did you see my last post sugesting any certain OS ? Big NO. I just gave a clue there's three version of XP : Home, Pro, & engineer, and everywhich do just same for audio work.
Simple law in Microsoft's products : There's a different bugs for different farm. 3.1, 95, 98, ME, NT, XP, anything... There's a pros and cons when we had to chose which one is better. Vary subject. Windows XP -as the newes on the ring- at least gives more promise and support for latest technology. Can you tell me WHICH OS maintains and unleash the potential power of Pentium 4 better ? XP does. But if you think you worked just fine in your farm, it's all up to you. You're the farmer. The boss. Just don't get jealous if your neighbour had a better corn in croping season...