worth a try

turtlishous

turtlishous

seconds please!
:rolleyes:

i suppose this is a dumb Q but thats what i do................

by chance...would anyone have a computer they would part with?
something with a p4? all i got is this damn p3 and this thing has finally got me at my wits end..

and when i say part with you know i mean, real cheap....

anything that would get the job done so to speak......i feel like a real bum even postin this, but....it's worth a try :)
 
come on gear heads.....i know you just upgraded your pc's....

i need a hot date with your used pc :)

i know your thinking(go find one on e-bay)...so heres the deal

i am not entirely sure what i need....so i figured if it came from a home studio previously it will be better than what i have.

strange logic, but might just be the ticket!
 
hey turtle,
i hit this wall too when i wanted to start using sonar 4. i was using a p3 with cakewalk home studio (2002) for a long time, and then got a p4 desktop and a turion 64 laptop. honestly, it looks nicer, but for my purposes, where i seldom record more than 4-5 (or more than 2 more often) tracks at a time, but i couldn't find a whole lot of difference between the two. admittedly, i didn't start using higher sample rates (even on the desktop) until i got the laptop.
you might want to do a little more research (google searches essentially should do it) to see if there are any compatibilty issues with your interface and whatever computer you look to buy (processor and especially chipsets). i have this mackie onyx 1220 that works great with this laptop, but has all sorts of problems with my p4 desktop.
also, maybe look at craigslist too-- shipping costs for computers can be pretty unreasonable.
 
There right, I have a p3 500 and celeron 1.8.
I havent noticed a difference recording except when im running 5 or 6 plug ins with mutilple tracks.
So I moved the p3 into the studio and let the family use the celeron.
Games is whole different story.
Worry about ram and drive space, I dont think there would be a big difference with sonar 4 anyway.
 
i'll do that......and have done the search, but i'm really illiterate when it comes to DAW, and spelling for that matter.

i guess i'm just stuck on were to go on this issue.

i guess thats why i was hoping that someone would just want to unload a pc that they had used for this purpose, and would be idiot proof.
 
turtlishous said:
i'll do that......and have done the search, but i'm really illiterate when it comes to DAW, and spelling for that matter.

i guess i'm just stuck on were to go on this issue.

i guess thats why i was hoping that someone would just want to unload a pc that they had used for this purpose, and would be idiot proof.
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i hear you on that....the prob. is that it's gonna cost just as much to upgrade my ram and drive as it would to buy a used pc thats got the goods already right...

heres what i have

930MHz
128MB ram
10 GB HD
 
Is that pc100? if so how many free slots do you have?
I have pc100 128 mb ram for sale 10 bucks.
If u have a few slots youll be good,
256 would be low shoot for the 512-1 gb range.
Check newegg,pricewatch for drives you should be able to find something cheap.
You should be able to find a 80gb drive for around $40.

You could go the new pc route chances are youll have to buy memory anyway since they rip you off in packages.
I was looking at new pcs [barebones), I found one and they were charging 40 for 128 ram, I did a 5 minute search and found 256mb for 30.
If you buy a harddrive you can use it in any pc, the ram is limited.
So it might be better to just upgrade, so you dont waist money in the long run.
 
i don't have any idea what you mean when you ask if its pc100...what is that?

i have a dell dimension if thats what your askin.....and yes to the ram if you think it would work,,,,or better yet how do i find out?

i was checkin out hard drives and wasn't sure if there was a certian brand to get.

i'm totally in the wrong thread for this.
 
it would say on your ram (pc100,133,2700, and how many empty slots is next to it. Just open the case and look you should know this.
Brand of harddrive shouldnt matter look for speed 7400, and size.
 
trust me -----i know nothing,

but i did take this sucker apart with afriend of mine when i got it, i have one more spot for ram. this i do know.

and for hard drive---there is no compatability issue for those?
 
http://www.crucial.com/store/listProductLine.asp?cat=RAM&mfr=Dell&submit=Go

This will tell us what RAM you need. Weather it be PC100, PC133, etc.

If that link doesn't work just go to http://www.crucial.com. And start inputting what your computer is from the pull down menus.

Anyways, for hard drives go to www.newegg.com, probably look for 80-200GB, 7200RPM, 8-16meg cache, should be under $100. And unless you have one of those real mini, mini, mini towers that dell has sold in the past there should be a connector and mounting location for the new hard drive. Use your 10GB for just your OS, and then use the new hard drive for your recordings.
 
turtlishous said:
its pc133 ,and i opened the case and i only have one space left



btw you guys rock!!!!
Click to expand...

You might want to get a couple of new ones rather than just adding another 128. If you can get it up to 512, you'll get a noticeable difference in performance.
If you're using Windows XP remember that the nice graphics and interface come at the expense of program-related performance, and there's a bunch of tweaks-- changing settings, memory allocations, etc. (I just saw some here somewhere) that can optimize the system for audio. There's also tweaks you can do for Windows 2000. If you can't find them here, you can probably find them with a Google search.

Edit: I made a lot of good (in my estimation at least) music for several years on a P3 700 Mhz with 512 MB of ram recording at 24 bit 44.1khz in Cakewalk HS. I had to make some compromises like "freezing tracks" (processing them with compression, eq, reverb, etc. once I got the settings I liked and then importing them into the DAW or mixing program-- a lot of programs make this really easy to do now), and I didn't record more than stereo tracks at once, but I was able to do a lot with that setup.
 
SRR said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010170147+1052107967&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=147

Your motherboard may have a upper limit on how much ram it supports, so either buy a stick of 256megs or buy two 256megs, or you could try 512meg sticks. Did the crucial site tell you how much ram your computer supports???
Click to expand...


yeah i just checked it again and it will support 512 thats good news.

when you say tweek my op...would that have anything to do with changing my windows back to classic?
 
SRR said:
Just don't buy a SATA or Serial ATA.
Click to expand...

Also it's generally not a good idea to record directly onto your boot drive if you can avoid it. If your computer will support two drives, you may want to add a second drive for audio and route your DAW software to record to that. Make sure you defrag your audio drive (or whatever you're using now) often as audio recording puts huge chunks of data, moves them around, deletes them (e.g. "undo recording") and which puts much more of a strain on the hard drive than every day uses.
 
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