Processor love

  • Thread starter Thread starter friendlybeard
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friendlybeard

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Hi,

Just started to create a lo-fi recording setup cos I'm broke, and I need advice!

I've nabbed me mum's old computer which has a rather crap AMD-k6 3D 501Mhz processor, 64 MB RAM.

2 hard drives 72000rpm. I plan to run logic (XP professional) off one, whilst using the other for audio files.

I've purchased an M-Audio Delta 1010 lt, which I'm waiting to arrive.

Is the processor too crap for recording 8 tracks? If so what's the cheapest one I could buy?

Cheers, hope someone can help!

Rob
 
you can try Kristal Audio Engine recording software, very low on the CPU requirements. 64K is pretty frkn low dewd?
Maybe you can sell some aluminum cans and "up" this system a bit.

I did a fine track on a 700Mhz 128Kram....probably 8 to 10 tracks.
Nothing fancy....a few plug-ins, and that was that. it was great fun.

the plug-ins, by adding more and more, is what crashed my system.

good luck. you might have to just try it to see if it freezes after your first tracking job.
 
:eek: That's a pretty nice dinosaur you got there. I'm not sure you could get a decent 8 tracks out of it. It would be hurting that's for sure. You could easily upgrade the CPU, but you'll want to up the RAM along with it. Like coolcat said, try it out and see how far you can push it.
 
64meg is the bare minimum needed to run XP. You won't have any ram left to handle audio. Good luck trying to find memory to upgrade. It's been my experience that the old stuff gets real expensive because it's not manufactured anymore.

Peace,
 
Rob,
I see this is your 1st post with us. Welcome to HomeRecording - it's a great place. I'm no audio expert, but I've been into computers off and on since I was a kid...(i.e. checking out my Dad's original XT w/ 10MB HDD that cost him over $1k extra!) ;-)

Three things. One: I'm going to assume that when you mean broke, it means not much money at all - so I will not suggest a new computer as others might. I am positive you can get this to work - but it may be slow.

Two: The suggestion to use Kristal as your sequencing software is a good one. It has a small footprint (the entire app is only like 3.5MB download!), is free, and actually pretty good w/ low resource usage. You can download it here: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/index.php?section=download

Three: Your hardware - you might like to know some of this.
Others may disagree, but I feel the K6 back in 1997, was AMD's first real push at Intel. Sure, I remember seeing AMD 386 chips and such back in the day, but the K6 really marks some decent X86 architecture from a competitor, not just a copied chip. For the first time, an AMD "in house" design could actually compete w/ an Intel design...thus the beginnning of the good old fashioned rivalry. :-)
If yours is runing at 500MHz, I think you have a K6-III+ cpu. That's a good thing - it's similar to a low end Pentium III. It will run XP just fine.

What is limiting you here is your RAM. Big time. You want at least 256MB to do anything really smoothly. Some of us freak out if we use a machine w/ less than 2GB ram these days. :-) But I think you could score some really cheap, used of course. Please let me know 2 things when you reply:

1. Where do you live? Do you have a Craigslist or Ebay type thing open to you?
2. Please go here http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php and download the CPU-Z 1.49 file (it is small and won't install anything on your computer, it will just run a quick utility). Once CPU-Z has loaded, see exactly which processor you have, and then click the tab for RAM. Please report back with the RAM type, speed, how much is in each slot and if you have any slots free. I am sure for less than the cost of a couple burgers you can get some more, but we need to know specifics.

There is hope...let us know,
Jed
 
If it's possible, find out what motherboard you have, too. You're system might only support a small amount of RAM.
 
Cheers!

Jeese! Thank for all the advice, especially the very detailed Jedman!

I'm thinking that I definatley need a new motherboard/processor!!

Jedman, what do you think of this: (you'll have to copy & paste and add h t t p : / / w w w . without spaces, as I'm not allowed yet to post links)

maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=221373#checkstore

Do ya think it'll do?

Cheers bud,

Rob

Sorry I haven't answered your questions Jedman, but since I'm giving up on the K6, I thought it best not too. Oh, But I'm in England!
 
Rob, I'm at work, so don't have a lot of time to be detailed, but will get back to you this afternoon with more options.

Nice to see you're in UK. I respect Britain a lot. Good people. Good place. I'd love to come over and do a photography trip one of these days!

That would work, of course, but now we're spending money and that's an old socket with no upgrade path, and then you'd be buying old tech RAM (DDR instead of DDR2). It's ok, but I'd hate to see you spend money on something that wasn't a good upgrade path. Let's think about this together.

I think the best way to look at this would be give us a bottom line $ (er...pound) that you can spend on three things: Motherboard, CPU and RAM. When we have that number, we can figure out best bang for your buck.

Sincerely,
Jed
 
For all the nay sayers, I used to run a slower K6-2 than this and typically recorded about 12 tracks, not simultaneously tho! However I did try running two sound cards and puling in 4 tracks at once at one point.

The computer I had was great and I would still be running it but it blew up!

HOWEVER! I was running windows 98 and an ancient copy of cooledit.
I also had 128mb of ram.

A new m/b cpu etc is a great option as long as you have an ATX case. MIne was AT style so I couldn't drop in a new motherboard.

For my "new" computer I bought a Pentium III motherboard off e-bay it came with a graphics card and ram and I had a pentium III 800 cpu I fished out of a skip. It came to £10 but the case and PSU cost me a lot more.

love

Freya
 
That is a good point...your Case and power supply may be old enough that they will be incompatible with the newer mobo...perhaps not worth it. I know you could get the K6-III+ to do 8 track -there's enough power there, as long as you could get a hold of more RAM. I'm sure you could on the used market for a few pounds.

Jed
 
Cheers Jed!

Dear all, especially Jed,

Right, Blow the money, I'm buying a pc for £100 off my friend who's made it for editing film, so it should be fine! Pentium 4, can't remember the spec.

Thanks for all your advice, and faith in the good old K6, but I do want to recording 8 tracks symaltaniously comfortably.

Well, if anyone wants a K6, let me know!!

Thanks Jed, I'd like to visit the US sometime, thanks for all your help.

Regards,

Rob

P.S. I'll probably be back with more questions once I put the new pc together! See ya ;)
 
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