The Ultimate Home Recording PC

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johnnyc

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Home Recorders,

I'm working on a story for PC Upgrade. If you could build the ulitmate home recording PC, what would it include? Go nuts. I'll use your suggestions to build and test an incredible system for the mag and use your quotes in the story. Please forward any replies to me directly at jbiggs@bedfordmags.com but feel free to have at it on the boards.

Best,
John
 
johnnyc said:
Home Recorders,

I'm working on a story for PC Upgrade. If you could build the ulitmate home recording PC, what would it include? Go nuts. I'll use your suggestions to build and test an incredible system for the mag and use your quotes in the story. Please forward any replies to me directly at jbiggs@bedfordmags.com but feel free to have at it on the boards.

Best,
John
Click to expand...

techs here love doing users projects for them, ahem...(NOT)

PS... google/DAW/super/etc etc...
 
Ummm...

Huh. Thanks. That's super. I'm a tech and musician myself and I wanted to get this thing out so people could see what goes into a good home recording studio. Ok. I'll try this google thing. I hear its the big thing with home recorders now.
 
I recently put together a darn killer audio system. I bought most of the components from Newegg.com.

The system configuration is:

* Intel P4 3.0 Ghz CPU with the 800 Mhz front side bus
* Gigabyte 8KNXP motherboard with dual channel DDR support (Intel canterwood chipset - over 6 Gigabyte/sec bandwidth to memory), onboard IDE raid (4 seperate IDE connnectors), 8 USB2 channels, Firewire interface, onboard SATA raid, Gigabit ethernet, etc.
* 1 gigabyte of 433 Mhz Crucial DDR memory (2 sticks of 512 Mb each)
* 120 Gig 7200 RPM 8meg buffer Maxtor disk for the OS
* 80 Gig 7200 RPM 8 meg buffer Maxtor disk for scratch data
* 2 removable 80 Gig 7200 RPM 8 meg buffer Maxtor disks for audio data
* Enermax 550 watt power supply
* Plextor Premium CD writer (52x32x52 - also has a special mode where it writes over 900 megs to regular disks)
* Sony DVD writer (supports -R, -RW, +R, and +RW)
* Matrox G550 video card (has two monitor outputs built in)
* US Robotics modem
* 2 NEC 17" monitors
* keyboard, mouse, floppy, cheapo ($19!) case

* UAD-1 card for effects
*Audio interface: two Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 interfaces

Windows XP Pro (tweaked for audio performance)
Sonar 2.2
Cool Edit Pro 2.1
Ozone for final tweaking
Antares Autotune

-lee-
 
Re: Ummm...

johnnyc said:
Huh. Thanks. That's super. I'm a tech and musician myself and I wanted to get this thing out so people could see what goes into a good home recording studio. Ok. I'll try this google thing. I hear its the big thing with home recorders now.
Click to expand...

you'll get more hits through google imho, check "protools" to start, if "super dupper" is what your after...
 
Re: Re: Ummm...

Fusion2 said:
you'll get more hits through google imho, check "protools" to start, if "super dupper" is what your after...
Click to expand...

sweetwater? etc, eh? :D
 
laptop config is pretty much it except the uber daw would be a dual config either Xeon or Athlon MP...but other then that everything else laptop said...! also the sound card to...i'd through a lynxtwo in there....or at least a lynxone
 
Last edited:
laptoppop said:
I recently put together a darn killer audio system. I bought most of the components from Newegg.com.

The system configuration is:

* Intel P4 3.0 Ghz CPU with the 800 Mhz front side bus
* Gigabyte 8KNXP motherboard with dual channel DDR support (Intel canterwood chipset - over 6 Gigabyte/sec bandwidth to memory), onboard IDE raid (4 seperate IDE connnectors), 8 USB2 channels, Firewire interface, onboard SATA raid, Gigabit ethernet, etc.
* 1 gigabyte of 433 Mhz Crucial DDR memory (2 sticks of 512 Mb each)
* 120 Gig 7200 RPM 8meg buffer Maxtor disk for the OS
* 80 Gig 7200 RPM 8 meg buffer Maxtor disk for scratch data
* 2 removable 80 Gig 7200 RPM 8 meg buffer Maxtor disks for audio data
* Enermax 550 watt power supply
* Plextor Premium CD writer (52x32x52 - also has a special mode where it writes over 900 megs to regular disks)
* Sony DVD writer (supports -R, -RW, +R, and +RW)
* Matrox G550 video card (has two monitor outputs built in)
* US Robotics modem
* 2 NEC 17" monitors
* keyboard, mouse, floppy, cheapo ($19!) case

* UAD-1 card for effects
*Audio interface: two Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 interfaces

Windows XP Pro (tweaked for audio performance)
Sonar 2.2
Cool Edit Pro 2.1
Ozone for final tweaking
Antares Autotune

-lee-
Click to expand...


how much did this system cost you, minus the software and cards?
 
johnnyc said:
Home Recorders,

I'm working on a story for PC Upgrade. If you could build the ulitmate home recording PC, what would it include? Go nuts. I'll use your suggestions to build and test an incredible system for the mag and use your quotes in the story. Please forward any replies to me directly at jbiggs@bedfordmags.com but feel free to have at it on the boards.

Best,
John
Click to expand...

Let me day-dream for a second...ah...

I would get the fastest Intel chip(s), as much DDR as the mobo holds(forgot the name of that real expensive ram company), an Apogee AD/DA would be nice, TC's powercore (I would prefer the new firewire one cuz it's more portable, and you can actually show it off in studio!) Oh, another super fast PC running Giga Studio and VST instruments/samplers and sync the two PCs. Nice graphics card, well, Nvidia GF4600 is already an overkill, with 2 19"+ LCDs. Quiet fans, PC iso-box, 2 big Seagate HD plus an external HD. 2 printer ports would be nice, as many USB 2.0 as possible. Win XP home...the list goes on and on

All that or....

give the PC 2 legs, a pair of green shorts and make him dance


Al
 
Computer One

P4 3.2Ghz 800FSB
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
1gig O' DDR400 Mushkin RAM
Lian Li case, with Zalman 400w silent PS
Pioneer AVR-06 DVD-R/W/+R/+RW
Lite-On 52x24x52
2 36gig WD SATA Raptors, 10K rpm
1 250gig WD, 7200rpm EIDE
Sapphire Radeon Pro 9600 Ultimate, w/heatsink instead of fan
2 Aardvark Q10's
Adobe Audition
Mackie HUI
2 19" LCD monitors
2 TC Powercore Firewire units

Computer Two, w/digital out to Computer One

P4 3.2Ghz 800FSB
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
1gig O' DDR400 Mushkin RAM
Lian Li case, with Zalman 400w silent PS
CD-ROM
Seagate SATA 120gig 7200rpm HD
Sapphire 9000 64MB DDR AGP
RME Hammerfall LE 9636
VST Host of some sort
Kontakt
Halion
Battery
Reason
Absynth
M Audio Radium 61 key midi controller
Roland SPD20 drum pad, w/kick and hihat pedal
19" LCD monitor
Really, really nice monitors for all this stuff
Skills to use all this shit.
 
foreverain4 said:
how much did this system cost you, minus the software and cards?
Click to expand...

About $2600. I have to say that the service I got from Newegg.com was amazing. Big complicated order, they shipped the same day, got it all right. It shipped Fed Ex super saver, but I live in So. Cal. like they are -- it got to me the next day.

Normally I wouldn't order monitors by mail -- too heavy -- but in this case they shipped the monitors for free, so I went with them.

The one thing they didn't have when I got this was the Plextor drive - I got that from Plextor directly.

-lee-
 
Oh no -- another "build your own music pc" article is coming up! As if the zillions of articles in all recording magazines over the last few months weren't enough. I hate it when one magazine starts with an innovative article and all the others try to duplicate their success. What you see next is that all articles seem to be the same for a few months.
[Feel free to quote me in your article] ;)

If I had to get my "dream machine", I'd get the dual-processor G5 and Logic 6 pre-installed. I guess nothing can beat that (and I'm saying that even though I never had a MAC and never wanted one).
 
laptoppop said:
About $2600. I have to say that the service I got from Newegg.com was amazing.
-lee-
Click to expand...
how do you think your machine compares to the G5, which is about the same investment?
 
Polaris20 said:

Skills to use all this shit.
Click to expand...

Point taken. We had a yamaha CD-R recorder in here a little while back and it was about as user-friendly as the altair. I'm trying to make this a powerful system that someone can do it all without confusing those who are new to home recording.
 
I thought you would say that -- despite Apple's claim that it is the fastest "home computer" ever ;)
 
I could imagine that the pc is faster.

It's not all about the speed, though. I have a pretty damn fast Win XP pc as well, running Logic 5.5. The thing is, though, that it crashes ALL the time! The tips Emagic tech supports give me are useless, so I have no idea how to make it run more stable. I could see that this is were the real advantage of OSX is: more stability!

Also, I've read that Logic 6 is specially optimized for the G5 machines. That must be a killer combination, waddayathink?
 
well supposedly the s/w has to be coding to take advantage of the G5 'special powers'...but right now no s/w is coded to take advantage of it...so that MAY be the reason the pc's are still faster....I.e more tracks and plugs
 
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