Please help a dinosaur upgrade

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mikeh

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Can anyone offer suggestions, thoughts or comments?

I'm currently recording using a 5 year old PC (with pentium) into Cakewalk Pro 9. My A/D is an original 8 in 10 out Layla (Layla must be about 7 years old).

I'm ready to upgrade and will likely go to Sonar (I think they're at Sonar 5 now). I'm sure I'll have someone build a computer for me and candidly cost is not a big issue - but with all the new A/D interfaces I'm lost.

Here is my general application: Only vocals and guitars (electric and accoustic) are A/D, everything else is MIDI, including V-Drums. I rarely record more than 1 or 2 A/D tracks at the same time (I don't record bands - only singer songwriters). I don't use virtual sounds or effects (I have a ton of harware units) and I use an external board (Mackie) to run several modules and effects (as well as the outs from Layla).

I want to keep using my outboard gear (it's already bought and paid for and I know I won't get enough if I sell of trade) so the computer will be a glorified 2" recording machine (with faster shuttle, easier editing and MIDI). Ince I'm not using the computer for smapling, sound generation, mastering, etc. I won't be maxing out the processing ability. I currently mix 2 track down to DAT - however I'm open to better ideas. If things need to be mastered - they go to an off site location.

I already have some decent mic pres (PreSonus, Focusright, etc) so I don't "need" pres on the A/D (thus I've kept the Layla for so long) - but it seems all the A/D's now come with multiple pres, etc.

While I want to stay with Sonar (since I know my way around the Cakewalk format) I'm lost with all the new A/D units. The PreSonus Firepod looks nice, Mackie Onyx looks good, MOTU Traveler looks cool - they all look good.
I'm more concerned with the number of outs than the number of ins on the A/D and naturally I want the converters to sound good. Since I'm using modules, the computer doesn't need a "sound card". And since I don't plan to run numerous software applications I anticipate only one 19" flat screen monitor.

So - want can you folks suggest regarding the type of computer (what componants are better than others, etc. What A/D would make the most sense. Help an old dinosaur into the new generation of hard disk recording.

For what it's worth the Technology Manager at the local GC has a "side business" building music computers - and I will likely hire him to build my new system - but I need to be educated or he will sell me stuff that makes him commissions, vs. what I need.
 
mikeh said:
I want to keep using my outboard gear (it's already bought and paid for and I know I won't get enough if I sell of trade) so the computer will be a glorified 2" recording machine (with faster shuttle, easier editing and MIDI). Ince I'm not using the computer for smapling, sound generation, mastering, etc. I won't be maxing out the processing ability. I currently mix 2 track down to DAT - however I'm open to better ideas. If things need to be mastered - they go to an off site location.

I already have some decent mic pres (PreSonus, Focusright, etc) so I don't "need" pres on the A/D (thus I've kept the Layla for so long) - but it seems all the A/D's now come with multiple pres, etc.
Click to expand...


Ahhhh...a man after my own heart.
MIDI composer
Small home studio for vocals and guitar (though you have trounced me with the V-drums!) ;)
Mixes down to DAT

[insert sound of 0.02c hitting table]
Mike, if you're happy with the preamps you have in the Focusrite and PreSonus gear, you don't necessarily *need* to buy a multi in/out device with preamps.

I'm using a Delta1010 and have various preamps patched into it (and they do not come out) for tracking vocals or guitar (or both). I also use the subgroup outs on the desk to route sound from my MIDI hardware into two of the 1010's ins...I only ever record one 'instrument' at a time unless I just need a rough backing track to sing over, so separation on the fly not required.
The 1010 is just there to capture whatever sound I throw at it, and I rely on the clean preamps in the dedicated outboard gear to power the mics.

The multiple outs in the 1010 are handy for routing sound from the Mac into these channel strips in case they have been recorded elsewhere and need a little bit of 'polish'. The 1010 is quiet (waaaaaay quieter than the windtunnel Mac's popcorn soundcard) and very low latency.

Of course there are other devices out there other than the 1010, but what I guess I'm trying to get through is that buying a new bit of gear just to get something with 8 preamps when you don't really need to track more than a couple of mics at a time (and you already have enough preamps for that, yeah?) may not be a good use of your budget.

I can't really help with the PC side of things except for the basic, maximum RAM, two fast (7200RPM or faster) drives (programs on one, audio projects on the other) and chunky processors. Someone else can take up the AMD vs Intel argument ;)

BTW - keeping the programs separate from your audio prevents the heads from having to shift around all the time reading the program then reading the audio, then the program again, etc off the same disk. Just keeps things running smoothly inside the box.

You might also consider bouncing your tracks down to HD inside the PC and burning them onto CD rather than mixing down to DAT (as I now do) as a potential step forward into using current technology.....so a CD/DVD burner would also be advantageous.
You can still take the CDs to be mastered at the proper place
...you might be able to leave the audio as 24bit wav files so that the engineers have the full spread of bits to deal with [anyone out there in mastering land care to let us know if this is preferred to 16bit audio files?? Have I just opened up a can of worms??]

Good luck!
Dags
 
Here's an idea for a PC spec :)

Abit AN8 mainboard
Cheap gfx card (make sure it'll do 100Hz at your chosen resolution though). If you want output over dual or triple screens, Matrox and ATi do good solutions.
AMD X2 3800+ CPU
2GB RAM (Corsiar and OCZ are good brands that I have tried - do *not* get 'value' RAM from any brand though, no matter how tempting).
2 250GB Seagate SATA hard drives. Anything larger than 250GB equals more noise right now.
Antec Phantom 350 (or 500 if you can afford it) Power Supply.
Biggest appropriate Zalman CPU cooler you can afford - probably the CNPS7700-Cu.

Hope that helps get you started :D
 
Dags & Codgate

Thank you both for your time and knowledge. I'm planning to print out responses and read up on the recommended products etc. The computer specs will be helpful to hand to the computer guy. I was thinking about going to CD vs. DAT so your suggestion is well timed.

I think buying my new car was easier to decide than trying to upgrade my recording system - I guess a car is just a car, but my studio is my baby!!!!
 
I second Codmate's recommendation minus the comment about "value" ram, which is fine, as long as you aren't trying to run it outside of its printed specs (overclocking the processor/memory bus, reducing cas latency or precharge times...).
I would also highly recommend the Antec Sonata I or II case, it is very solid, has a beautiful piano black finish, and is built for silent operation.
2GB of ram should be plenty, and that can be installed as 4 x 512MB sticks or 2 x 1024MB sticks, either way you'll still reap the benefits of dual channel simultaneous access.
I would pay special attention to the video card you purchase, I suggest something along the lines of an ATI x600pro, which works wonderfully to me, or a GeForce 6600gt or equivalent.
The reason I would avoid lower end video cards, even for an audio workstation, is that with the advent of the pci-express x16 interface for video, many manufacturers are back to their old tricks of trying to leach system memory to make up for a lack of very much onboard memory.
Also, the screen redraws inside your audio application can begin to tax the cpu if your video card isn't up to snuff.
as for a/d, I use delta 1010's and they work quite well for me, their drivers are very well maintained and low-latency. But I have also heard great things about the interfaces utilizing MOTU's new pci-424 cards, such as the 2408mk3.
 
I built a killer system for a client using the following components. It is hard to believe this is an "entry" system, but it is.

Board: EpoX EP-9NPA+ Ultra
CPU: AMD/64 3000+
RAM: 1024mb Corsair XMS Dual-Channel PC3200 as (2) 512mb sticks
Disk: Seagate 7200.9 SATA-II

The above system was a gaming machine, so I used the Chaintech SE6600GT which is not appropriate for a DAW.

Look for an old Matrox G450 dual-head card. Rock solid, quite fast.

Sonar 5 is a 64-bit platform, and I understand it will make use of 64-bit processor functions. IMO, the Windows 64-bit operating system is to be avoided for quite awhile. Some of my bleeding edge clients have it, and are unhappy with the huge lack of driver support for it.

The above system runs WinXP (32-bit) perfectly and without a performance penalty. The AMD is miles ahead of the 64-bit Intel hardware in this respect.
 
Snazzy & Bgavin

Thanks for the additional comments - I heard the same general comment about the 64 bit platform from one of the IT people at work. He suggested putting one in, but not plan on utizing 64 bit at this time (but at least it's there for the future).

Everyone has given me some great info and plenty of things to read up on!!

Thanks so much to you all - I've been on this site for several years and I continue to be humbled by the knowledge people have and appreciative for the willingness of people to share that knowledge.
 
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