Upgrade To System - Suggestions?

[mikeh]

Yeah I know this is a loaded question - and I plan to do plenty of reseacrh but....with all the kowledge on this site, this is a good place to start.

I currently have a 5 year old Pentum II 450 CPU with 14 gig drive. I use a Layla 20 bit 128x sampling 8 in - 10 out 1/4' jacks into Cakewalk Pro 9 - within a PC platform. I also have a MQX-32M for additional MIDI. I have an old blackface ADAT that I would like to hook into the system.

I have some decent pre-amps that I rum into the Layla. I use the computer only as a recording medium. 85% MIDI with the majority of A/D being vocals & guitars. I use hardware mixers, synths & effects. I rarely record more than 2 tracks at a time (either voices or stereo guitars) since I don't do much band work (mostly singer songwriter projects) and when I do drums I use V-Drums.

So, if I upgrade I would like 8-10 A/D outs, but could by with 2 ins
(although more than 2 ins are nice - just in case). I use almost all 48 channels of MIDI (lots of synths/effects, etc) I figure $1,000 can get me a decent PC with about 100 gig - but I don't know what A/D converter to use (in particualr if I want to tie in the ADAT).

I don't plan to use plug-ins since I have way too much invested in hardware synths/effects.

So what can you guys (or ladies) suggest??

 

[Stealthtech]

A new system will certainly out perform your current box.
I suggest you or someone you know build a system ground up.
Look into the delta series cards for general info on different interfaces.
www.m-audio.com

 

[photoresistor]

On the PC side of things I would suggest you build it yourself. You can get the best quality for your dollar and decide piece by piece what you want in your machine. You won't have to pay for what you dont need or what might possibly slow your machine down.

I would go with an AMD Athlon 2500+ Barton processor on an Nforce 2 board. The 2500+ can be found for very cheap and is a good deal for its performance. The 2500+ is even notorious for being easily overclocked to 3000+ speeds. Throw in some performance RAM (id say at least 512mb DDR 3200) and a nice big 7200 HDD (would recommend looking at the Barracuda drives from seagate (i believe?) as they have big performance with a focus on being quiet) and you'll be mostly set.

If portability is a factor for you I would recommend you the Shuttle SN45G. It is a cube computer that will allow you the setup i mentioned above (uncompromised performance) in a very tiny package. And dont worry it still has a PCI slot.

Hope this helps you some.

 

[Marquis]

I think that's a good recommendation on the processor (and it's 3200+ speeds the 2500+ is notorious for, even better) photoresistor, but I'm not sure about the Shuttle (not that I have anything against the SFF boxes).

From the sounds of it, he's going to need more than 1 PCI slot (I don't know of any cards that have 3 MIDI interfaces). So you're likely going to need a regular system. I guess the question is whether you actually need a portable system, mikeh. If so, you could research some of the Micro-ATX systems (still small, but more than 1 PCI slot). I'm more of a full-ATX guy, but then I never move PCs all over.

For sound cards, I'm sure there are guys around more equipped to answer that question. I personally use a Terratec Phase 28 (2-in/8-out), and it certainly works for what I do. Terratec also makes the EWS88MT, an 8-in/8-out card.

 

[mikeh]

Thanks for the replys! I was planning on having the computer built for me. My last two were built for me, by a guy who was into computer recording (vs. just computers), so he set me up with a very user friendly configuration - but he got a gig engineering at a radio station, so he doesn't do work on the side anymore.

I found a guy who does custom jobs & repairs who appears very knowledgable - however, he's never put together a "studio computer" so he is not real up on A/D converters.

I don't need portable - once it's in the studio it stays. I agree I'm gonna need enough slots for both an A/D converter and an additional MIDI card.

I'll print out your recommendations and discuss them with my computer guy.