What would YOU do if you were this guy?

[riccol]

O.K. one of those age old advice questions.

Let's say you were a guy that just recorded audio. No real need for midi exept to plug a J-station into to control it from the computer
You record simple songwriter stuff a track at a time.
Record acoustic guitar, electric guitar .. amp miced and and with the J-station
Bass DI .. have a VTB1, DMP3, Joe Meek, VC3, a RNC compressor
Drums -- use loops with Acid
simple sofware, N-track and Multitrack studio. Want to stay with a computer based system.

Now! You want to buy a new computer and soundcard to put in your new little room dedicated to your hobby. Sound quality of course is important but no need for lots of I/O's. Just a simple stable system. Not a real tight budget.

Advice????
To the person giving the best advice I will give a free guitar pick! (slightly used with only a few bite marks)

 

[minofifa]

what kind of computer and sound card do you have now?

i have an AMD based system (athlon 3200+). they are a bit older now but more than capable. in fact i think anything more really would be overkill and a waste of money. as fora soundcard: can't go wrong with something triend and tested like an audiophilie.

 

[riccol]

I have a Dell system that is over 4 year old. It's a Pentium 4 1.6 Ghz
with 256 of ram. running the Audiophile 24/96 card.
This system has served me very well... considering the simple audio stuff I do.

but now have to add another computer.
Good point about overkill, don't want to waste money.
Heard good things abou the new Athlon's
Some old story... looking for most bang for the buck

 

[RedStone]

For a computer .... well if you stay PC based, then you have access to all of the Acidized drum loops you can shake a stick at (does N-tracks support Mac?)

Anyway, I am pleased with my Dell PC and xp pro - but I shouldn't have gotten a laptop. Go Desktop all the way if you choose the PC route. AMDs used to be generally faster than Pentium processors, but the dual core P4s are pretty great! Whatever you decide, stack it with *good quality* ram and a *good quality* 7200rpm hard drive or two, and a nice video card (128MB or better) - dual monitor support is always handy - but not a necessity.

If a budget is your concern, you can get a pretty smokin' computer specs wise from dell with a 17" flat screen monitor for a decent price. If you want good quality in a sound card for a not bank busting price, try m-audio's line of 24-bit sound cards (both internal and external) - they have some great 2 channel interfaces for simple recording and they have others like the 10/10LT that aren't too expensive, and will let you expand in the future. I have a mobile pre, and I'm happy with it except that it's only 16-bit - I also have an 18/14 with which I am well pleased, but it was expensive. Another bonus for m-audio is that should you decide to go industry standard at any point, you can ... (Pro tools m-powered) ...
I hear Motu has some nice interfaces as well but I am not familiar with them

I only have one warning: STAY AWAY FROM CREATIVE LABS PRODUCTS - and I mean everything ... speakers, sound cards, and whatever else they sell in their crappy line ...