On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 11:13:06 -0700, Paul wrote:

I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 Khz
and possibly 24/96 audio. I am an experienced sound technician who
plans to do content creation (as I now do) and not merely make mix
CDs.

Most commercial PC's seem to be designed to run AOL, MSIE and
Microsoft Word. Most of the computing forums I've seen seem to
concentrate on hardware experimentation or gaming equipment. I would
like to know what kind of hardware - motherboards, sound interfaces,
power supplies, hard drives, CD and DVD burners, system cooling
devices, etc. that audio professionals and serious amateurs recommend
(or steer clear of). I know that good equipment isn't cheap. Just the
same, I do have to live within a moderate budget (i.e. I won't be
buying an Echo Layla, even though it's an excellent sound interface
which I have had occasion to use).

Also, are there any web sites, on-line forums, articles, reviews or
other resources that you would recommend?

Thank you in advance.

Here are some totally biased opinions.

Motherboard - server boards. Dont get one with on-board sound or graphics.

Power supply - the bigger and quieter the better.

CD/DVD - Plextor

Sound card - m-audio audiophile is a good budget choice.

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

Graphics card - most anything will do.

CPU - I like AMD. Try to get a quiet fan.

Memory - as much as possible. Branded is good.

If you have not built a load of computers before, consider getting a
purpose built music computer from a company like Carillon. It's easy
enough to get a load of parts that 'should' work, it's another thing to
spend the next few months making it work.

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 11:13:06 -0700, Paul wrote:

I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 Khz
and possibly 24/96 audio. I am an experienced sound technician who
plans to do content creation (as I now do) and not merely make mix
CDs.

Most commercial PC's seem to be designed to run AOL, MSIE and
Microsoft Word. Most of the computing forums I've seen seem to
concentrate on hardware experimentation or gaming equipment. I would
like to know what kind of hardware - motherboards, sound interfaces,
power supplies, hard drives, CD and DVD burners, system cooling
devices, etc. that audio professionals and serious amateurs recommend
(or steer clear of). I know that good equipment isn't cheap. Just the
same, I do have to live within a moderate budget (i.e. I won't be
buying an Echo Layla, even though it's an excellent sound interface
which I have had occasion to use).

Also, are there any web sites, on-line forums, articles, reviews or
other resources that you would recommend?

Thank you in advance.

Here are some totally biased opinions.

Motherboard - server boards. Dont get one with on-board sound or graphics.

Power supply - the bigger and quieter the better.

CD/DVD - Plextor

Sound card - m-audio audiophile is a good budget choice.

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

Graphics card - most anything will do.

CPU - I like AMD. Try to get a quiet fan.

Memory - as much as possible. Branded is good.

If you have not built a load of computers before, consider getting a
purpose built music computer from a company like Carillon. It's easy
enough to get a load of parts that 'should' work, it's another thing to
spend the next few months making it work.

I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 Khz
and possibly 24/96 audio. I am an experienced sound technician who
plans to do content creation (as I now do) and not merely make mix
CDs.

Most commercial PC's seem to be designed to run AOL, MSIE and
Microsoft Word. Most of the computing forums I've seen seem to
concentrate on hardware experimentation or gaming equipment. I would
like to know what kind of hardware - motherboards, sound interfaces,
power supplies, hard drives, CD and DVD burners, system cooling
devices, etc. that audio professionals and serious amateurs recommend
(or steer clear of). I know that good equipment isn't cheap. Just the
same, I do have to live within a moderate budget (i.e. I won't be
buying an Echo Layla, even though it's an excellent sound interface
which I have had occasion to use).

Also, are there any web sites, on-line forums, articles, reviews or
other resources that you would recommend?

Thank you in advance.

"Paul" wrote in message
om...
I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 Khz
and possibly 24/96 audio. I am an experienced sound technician who
plans to do content creation (as I now do) and not merely make mix
CDs.

Most commercial PC's seem to be designed to run AOL, MSIE and
Microsoft Word. Most of the computing forums I've seen seem to
concentrate on hardware experimentation or gaming equipment. I would
like to know what kind of hardware - motherboards, sound interfaces,
power supplies, hard drives, CD and DVD burners, system cooling
devices, etc. that audio professionals and serious amateurs recommend
(or steer clear of). I know that good equipment isn't cheap. Just the
same, I do have to live within a moderate budget (i.e. I won't be
buying an Echo Layla, even though it's an excellent sound interface
which I have had occasion to use).

Also, are there any web sites, on-line forums, articles, reviews or
other resources that you would recommend?

Thank you in advance.


Heh.. It's pretty much the case of 'sort yourself out with a dual G4 apple
mac' kinda thing!

"Paul" wrote in message
om...
I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 Khz
and possibly 24/96 audio. I am an experienced sound technician who
plans to do content creation (as I now do) and not merely make mix
CDs.

Most commercial PC's seem to be designed to run AOL, MSIE and
Microsoft Word. Most of the computing forums I've seen seem to
concentrate on hardware experimentation or gaming equipment. I would
like to know what kind of hardware - motherboards, sound interfaces,
power supplies, hard drives, CD and DVD burners, system cooling
devices, etc. that audio professionals and serious amateurs recommend
(or steer clear of). I know that good equipment isn't cheap. Just the
same, I do have to live within a moderate budget (i.e. I won't be
buying an Echo Layla, even though it's an excellent sound interface
which I have had occasion to use).

Also, are there any web sites, on-line forums, articles, reviews or
other resources that you would recommend?

Thank you in advance.


Heh.. It's pretty much the case of 'sort yourself out with a dual G4 apple
mac' kinda thing!

philicorda wrote
Motherboard - server boards. Dont get one with on-board sound or graphics.

OK

Power supply - the bigger and quieter the better.

I'd say the more reliable the better, for real pro use, put all that noisy
stuff in a different room then where you'll be doing critical listening.

CD/DVD - Plextor

Yes I have a Plextor in my Dell for normal everyday use but I have a
Tascam/Teac hooked to my Mac DAW.

Sound card - m-audio audiophile is a good budget choice.

OK again but what is the budget? MOTU is what I'd look at for lower cost gear.

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.


CPU - I like AMD. Try to get a quiet fan.

Memory - as much as possible. Branded is good.

If you have not built a load of computers before, consider getting a
purpose built music computer from a company like Carillon. It's easy
enough to get a load of parts that 'should' work, it's another thing to
spend the next few months making it work.

Again I agree with RAM and finding someone you can trust to set you up if you
can't do it on your own, fans will be not an issue if you put all the loud
stuff someplace away from your controle room.

philicorda wrote
Motherboard - server boards. Dont get one with on-board sound or graphics.

OK

Power supply - the bigger and quieter the better.

I'd say the more reliable the better, for real pro use, put all that noisy
stuff in a different room then where you'll be doing critical listening.

CD/DVD - Plextor

Yes I have a Plextor in my Dell for normal everyday use but I have a
Tascam/Teac hooked to my Mac DAW.

Sound card - m-audio audiophile is a good budget choice.

OK again but what is the budget? MOTU is what I'd look at for lower cost gear.

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.


CPU - I like AMD. Try to get a quiet fan.

Memory - as much as possible. Branded is good.

If you have not built a load of computers before, consider getting a
purpose built music computer from a company like Carillon. It's easy
enough to get a load of parts that 'should' work, it's another thing to
spend the next few months making it work.

Again I agree with RAM and finding someone you can trust to set you up if you
can't do it on your own, fans will be not an issue if you put all the loud
stuff someplace away from your controle room.

"Paul" wrote in message
om
I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 KHz
and possibly 24/96 audio. I am an experienced sound technician who
plans to do content creation (as I now do) and not merely make mix
CDs.

Most commercial PC's seem to be designed to run AOL, MSIE and
Microsoft Word. Most of the computing forums I've seen seem to
concentrate on hardware experimentation or gaming equipment. I would
like to know what kind of hardware - motherboards, sound interfaces,
power supplies, hard drives, CD and DVD burners, system cooling
devices, etc. that audio professionals and serious amateurs recommend
(or steer clear of). I know that good equipment isn't cheap. Just the
same, I do have to live within a moderate budget (i.e. I won't be
buying an Echo Layla, even though it's an excellent sound interface
which I have had occasion to use).

Well, running 16/44 isn't much of a load unless you run a lot (more than 16)
channels concurrently for recording. I do most of my live recording and
mixing at 32/44, and that ups the ante a little, but my 2 GHz 2-hard drive
system runs like a clock while making 12 track recordings that run 30-90
minutes.. If you want to run 64 channels concurrently then you are going to
need a heavy-duty PC. If you are only going to run 4, then just about
anything can be made to work.

If you want to run a lot of EFX in real time, then you are going to be
interested in having lots of CPU power. Just recording high-resolution
tracks is not much of a drag unless you want to record a lot of them at the
same time. People still do lots of audio on 800 mHz machines!

IME the most important areas of a DAW are the audio interface, the hard
drive array, and backup. This presumes reasonable (2 GHz or more) CPU and
RAM (512 meg - 1 GB).

In audio interfaces, the LynxTWO is one of the finest. Slip down a notch,
and there is the Card Deluxe. Another notch down, but still very usable
cards are the Delta 1010 multichannel interfaces. Of course there are fine
competitive cards at every price and performance point, but these are the
ones I have lots of experience with.

Audio processing involves a lot of sequential hard drive I/O. Depending on
which software you use, up to 3 independent logical disks can give improved
performance. Those logical discs can be striped for consistent speed or
mirrored for reliability, or both.

Audio files are large, often need to be moved around, and can contain work
that is hard to duplicate. I favor using DVD-R for backup, large scale data
transport (such as from a remote recording site to a mixdown location), and
archiving. The good news is that the price of DVD drives that are good for
these purposes has slipped quite a bit. The media has also come down a lot.

Ironically, depending on what you want to do, an off-the-shelf low-end
web-runner from Dell can be reconfigured to be a good simple audio machine.
These days even cheap machines are pretty competent in the CPU department.
Of course you have to strip off some of the garbage software that Dell
preloads.

OTOH, if you go for lots of channels, high quality interfaces, and a
heavy-duty disk subsystem, you're going to need lots of slots and a
motherboard that can support heavy-duty loads in every slot.

"Paul" wrote in message
om
I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 KHz
and possibly 24/96 audio. I am an experienced sound technician who
plans to do content creation (as I now do) and not merely make mix
CDs.

Most commercial PC's seem to be designed to run AOL, MSIE and
Microsoft Word. Most of the computing forums I've seen seem to
concentrate on hardware experimentation or gaming equipment. I would
like to know what kind of hardware - motherboards, sound interfaces,
power supplies, hard drives, CD and DVD burners, system cooling
devices, etc. that audio professionals and serious amateurs recommend
(or steer clear of). I know that good equipment isn't cheap. Just the
same, I do have to live within a moderate budget (i.e. I won't be
buying an Echo Layla, even though it's an excellent sound interface
which I have had occasion to use).

Well, running 16/44 isn't much of a load unless you run a lot (more than 16)
channels concurrently for recording. I do most of my live recording and
mixing at 32/44, and that ups the ante a little, but my 2 GHz 2-hard drive
system runs like a clock while making 12 track recordings that run 30-90
minutes.. If you want to run 64 channels concurrently then you are going to
need a heavy-duty PC. If you are only going to run 4, then just about
anything can be made to work.

If you want to run a lot of EFX in real time, then you are going to be
interested in having lots of CPU power. Just recording high-resolution
tracks is not much of a drag unless you want to record a lot of them at the
same time. People still do lots of audio on 800 mHz machines!

IME the most important areas of a DAW are the audio interface, the hard
drive array, and backup. This presumes reasonable (2 GHz or more) CPU and
RAM (512 meg - 1 GB).

In audio interfaces, the LynxTWO is one of the finest. Slip down a notch,
and there is the Card Deluxe. Another notch down, but still very usable
cards are the Delta 1010 multichannel interfaces. Of course there are fine
competitive cards at every price and performance point, but these are the
ones I have lots of experience with.

Audio processing involves a lot of sequential hard drive I/O. Depending on
which software you use, up to 3 independent logical disks can give improved
performance. Those logical discs can be striped for consistent speed or
mirrored for reliability, or both.

Audio files are large, often need to be moved around, and can contain work
that is hard to duplicate. I favor using DVD-R for backup, large scale data
transport (such as from a remote recording site to a mixdown location), and
archiving. The good news is that the price of DVD drives that are good for
these purposes has slipped quite a bit. The media has also come down a lot.

Ironically, depending on what you want to do, an off-the-shelf low-end
web-runner from Dell can be reconfigured to be a good simple audio machine.
These days even cheap machines are pretty competent in the CPU department.
Of course you have to strip off some of the garbage software that Dell
preloads.

OTOH, if you go for lots of channels, high quality interfaces, and a
heavy-duty disk subsystem, you're going to need lots of slots and a
motherboard that can support heavy-duty loads in every slot.

"Paul" wrote:
Also, are there any web sites, on-line forums, articles, reviews or
other resources that you would recommend?

Thank you in advance.

I just did a quick Google search and found these:

http://www.soniccontrol.com/tech/mid...0101/daw.shtml

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/sho...d.php?t=121977

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1150197,00.asp

I just looked to try to find the site that I had used last December to build
an old technology DAW. It's not there any more. It was a great page that
basically discussed what users were having good luck with back in 2001.
They were all liking the Northwood P4 .13 micron CPU and the ASUS P4B600
motherboard, with Corsair XDR RAM. At the time, I did searches, and, to my
amazement, found 1 of each piece up on ebay. After the build was complete,
because I went with old technology, and I already owned my RME audio card, I
got all the rest of the hardware together and working for about $330.
That's a P4 1.6GHz Northwood on an Asus P4B266 P4 mainboard, a 1.6 GB 7200
RPM HD, a generic 52x CD Burner, and 512 MB of Corsair XDR DDR cas-2 RAM,
Matrox G450 Dual Head 32MB AGP Video Card. This thing screams for a
musicians private "Scratchpad" type DAW, which is my purpose. I'm sure I
could probably produce full projects on it if I needed to. I can record 8
tracks at once, and I've never topped it out yet, 40 tracks. The best
part is that I haven't even tried overclocking yet, which I should be able
to do to 2.1 GHz without any issues.

My suggestion is to go with technology that is a year or two old, slower
CPU's, but try to get a Motherboard and Chipset that are *known to already
work with the CPU for recording AUDIO*. I went with an intel Pentium, Intel
chipset (i845) and as a bonus, I go an Intel Hard Disk controller driver,
called Intel Application Accelerator with my motherboard, and that speeds up
the communication with the hard drive.

Now, I'm sure I paid slightly inflated prices last fall, when I was buying
the pieces, because I was bidding on them on ebay. But, they went together
flawlessly, and I could have run into all sorts of trouble piecing it
together with out of warranty pieces. I took a chance, and got a great DAW
PC in the process. Your mileage may vary.

My advice would be to start doing searches, read about all the best, almost
best, and mediocre hardware, and familiarize yourself with how all the
latest and greatest stuff works together. If you are going with MOTU audio
cards, find forums where those audio cards are working for real DAW users,
and try to network with them and find out what they did right, what they
would do differently if they were building a DAW right now, etc. I already
had an RME card, so I went to their site and consulted their PC DAW pages
and their forum, and found out what I could do. At the time, I had planned
on just getting a barebones PC to use for, you guessed it: MSIE and
Microsoft Word. (I will never run AOL again). For a little more cash, and
some work, I ended up with a nice little DAW in the process.

Rick

"Paul" wrote:
Also, are there any web sites, on-line forums, articles, reviews or
other resources that you would recommend?

Thank you in advance.

I just did a quick Google search and found these:

http://www.soniccontrol.com/tech/mid...0101/daw.shtml

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/sho...d.php?t=121977

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1150197,00.asp

I just looked to try to find the site that I had used last December to build
an old technology DAW. It's not there any more. It was a great page that
basically discussed what users were having good luck with back in 2001.
They were all liking the Northwood P4 .13 micron CPU and the ASUS P4B600
motherboard, with Corsair XDR RAM. At the time, I did searches, and, to my
amazement, found 1 of each piece up on ebay. After the build was complete,
because I went with old technology, and I already owned my RME audio card, I
got all the rest of the hardware together and working for about $330.
That's a P4 1.6GHz Northwood on an Asus P4B266 P4 mainboard, a 1.6 GB 7200
RPM HD, a generic 52x CD Burner, and 512 MB of Corsair XDR DDR cas-2 RAM,
Matrox G450 Dual Head 32MB AGP Video Card. This thing screams for a
musicians private "Scratchpad" type DAW, which is my purpose. I'm sure I
could probably produce full projects on it if I needed to. I can record 8
tracks at once, and I've never topped it out yet, 40 tracks. The best
part is that I haven't even tried overclocking yet, which I should be able
to do to 2.1 GHz without any issues.

My suggestion is to go with technology that is a year or two old, slower
CPU's, but try to get a Motherboard and Chipset that are *known to already
work with the CPU for recording AUDIO*. I went with an intel Pentium, Intel
chipset (i845) and as a bonus, I go an Intel Hard Disk controller driver,
called Intel Application Accelerator with my motherboard, and that speeds up
the communication with the hard drive.

Now, I'm sure I paid slightly inflated prices last fall, when I was buying
the pieces, because I was bidding on them on ebay. But, they went together
flawlessly, and I could have run into all sorts of trouble piecing it
together with out of warranty pieces. I took a chance, and got a great DAW
PC in the process. Your mileage may vary.

My advice would be to start doing searches, read about all the best, almost
best, and mediocre hardware, and familiarize yourself with how all the
latest and greatest stuff works together. If you are going with MOTU audio
cards, find forums where those audio cards are working for real DAW users,
and try to network with them and find out what they did right, what they
would do differently if they were building a DAW right now, etc. I already
had an RME card, so I went to their site and consulted their PC DAW pages
and their forum, and found out what I could do. At the time, I had planned
on just getting a barebones PC to use for, you guessed it: MSIE and
Microsoft Word. (I will never run AOL again). For a little more cash, and
some work, I ended up with a nice little DAW in the process.

Rick

In article writes:

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

20 Gigabyte drives? Aren't they getting kind of hard to find these
days unless you go to the OEM suppliers that can be found at
pricewatch.com? It's rare that I see anything smaller than 40 GB on
the shelf these days. Are the common Maxtor (for example) drives that
I buy on sale with rebates at places like Office Depot and use in my
Mackie hard disk recorder just plain junk? Is there a "really great"
IDE drive that we should all know about?

Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.

DAW software has little in the way of challanging real time graphics.
If you're going to be doing audio-for-video and need to watch movies
while your audio is running, then a faster card is better. The really
hot-rod graphics boards are optimized for extreme games and are
overkill for straightforward audio production work. High performance
graphics cards often have cooling fans on them which adds to the noise
sources. (good reason to get the computer out of the room or at least
buttoned up in a sound-reducing external box) But then you might
be doing audio for some of those games and need to seem them as the
users see them. It all depends on the application.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

20 Gigabyte drives? Aren't they getting kind of hard to find these
days unless you go to the OEM suppliers that can be found at
pricewatch.com? It's rare that I see anything smaller than 40 GB on
the shelf these days. Are the common Maxtor (for example) drives that
I buy on sale with rebates at places like Office Depot and use in my
Mackie hard disk recorder just plain junk? Is there a "really great"
IDE drive that we should all know about?

Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.

DAW software has little in the way of challanging real time graphics.
If you're going to be doing audio-for-video and need to watch movies
while your audio is running, then a faster card is better. The really
hot-rod graphics boards are optimized for extreme games and are
overkill for straightforward audio production work. High performance
graphics cards often have cooling fans on them which adds to the noise
sources. (good reason to get the computer out of the room or at least
buttoned up in a sound-reducing external box) But then you might
be doing audio for some of those games and need to seem them as the
users see them. It all depends on the application.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

On 26 Jun 2004 08:15:49 GMT, (Raymond) wrote:

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

Sure you don't mean 200GB? :-) I actually built a computer
yesterday. When pricing components a few days previously I found the
pricing "sweet spot" was at 160GB. Sure, put two in :-)


Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.

Well, almost true. You don't need a high-performance card. No-one
does except gamers.

We really need to know how you're going to work. Audio recording
only? Or midi as well, with the plethora of plug-in software
synthesisers and samplers now available? How many inputs/outputs
required? The Layla was mentioned, but discounted. Why? If you
need that number of audio ports it (or the M-Audio 1010) is a good
choice. If two in/two out will do, you can go down the range from
either brand.

If you want this machine to be fireproof, I continue to recommend an
Intel chipset and a Pentium cpu. The 3GHz P4 chips aren't too pricey
now. Windows XP requires 512MB RAM. If you're doing audio only,
any more won't be used. If you're going to run softsynths and
samplers, stuff in all the memory you can. Don't save pennies on
unbranded memory. Get from Crucial, or another premium supplier.

Record 24-bit. Why not? Note that if you decide to go 96Khz, this
stresses the computer much more than 44.1KHz. Make sure it has a real
advantage for you. (Not that it's a once-and-for-all decision. You
can constantly switch of course.)

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

On 26 Jun 2004 08:15:49 GMT, (Raymond) wrote:

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

Sure you don't mean 200GB? :-) I actually built a computer
yesterday. When pricing components a few days previously I found the
pricing "sweet spot" was at 160GB. Sure, put two in :-)


Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.

Well, almost true. You don't need a high-performance card. No-one
does except gamers.

We really need to know how you're going to work. Audio recording
only? Or midi as well, with the plethora of plug-in software
synthesisers and samplers now available? How many inputs/outputs
required? The Layla was mentioned, but discounted. Why? If you
need that number of audio ports it (or the M-Audio 1010) is a good
choice. If two in/two out will do, you can go down the range from
either brand.

If you want this machine to be fireproof, I continue to recommend an
Intel chipset and a Pentium cpu. The 3GHz P4 chips aren't too pricey
now. Windows XP requires 512MB RAM. If you're doing audio only,
any more won't be used. If you're going to run softsynths and
samplers, stuff in all the memory you can. Don't save pennies on
unbranded memory. Get from Crucial, or another premium supplier.

Record 24-bit. Why not? Note that if you decide to go 96Khz, this
stresses the computer much more than 44.1KHz. Make sure it has a real
advantage for you. (Not that it's a once-and-for-all decision. You
can constantly switch of course.)

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

On 26 Jun 2004 08:15:49 GMT, (Raymond) wrote:

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

Sure you don't mean 200GB? :-) I actually built a computer
yesterday. When pricing components a few days previously I found the
pricing "sweet spot" was at 160GB. Sure, put two in :-)


I mint no smaller than a 20 Gig you would consider.

Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.

Well, almost true. You don't need a high-performance card. No-one
does except gamers.

As I said it will depend on the software, when I got DP the tech suggested that
the stock card will cause problems with my G4. I'm only reflecting on my past
expirence.

On 28 Jun 2004 15:24:04 GMT, (Raymond) wrote:

Sure you don't mean 200GB? :-) I actually built a computer
yesterday. When pricing components a few days previously I found the
pricing "sweet spot" was at 160GB. Sure, put two in :-)


I mint no smaller than a 20 Gig you would consider.

Do they MAKE drives that small nowadays? :-)


Graphics card - most anything will do.

No! Not true...This will all depend on what software and system you will be
using.

Well, almost true. You don't need a high-performance card. No-one
does except gamers.

As I said it will depend on the software, when I got DP the tech suggested that
the stock card will cause problems with my G4. I'm only reflecting on my past
expirence.

What's a G4 got to do with building a PC? But it's interesting that
the standard graphics on a G4 aren't considered adequate for running a
music application. How times change! Weren't Macs meant to be GOOD
for media stuff? :-)

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

Laurence
What's a G4 got to do with building a PC? But it's interesting that
the standard graphics on a G4 aren't considered adequate for running a
music application. How times change! Weren't Macs meant to be GOOD
for media stuff? :-)


Mac, PC..what ever, different but still Personal Computers at heart (if got off
the shelf). Yes, I would not trade my G4 for any Windows unit for a pro
recording production application, but the company that sold me the rig (don't
deal with them anymore) receives the standard off the shelf gear. And for the
year this one was made (with sound in mind) personal computers had been made
not for the recording pro but for the everyday consumer so, if I had much more
cash (or picked a different provider) I could have snagged a Silly G or
something custom made.

In article writes:

I mint no smaller than a 20 Gig you would consider.

Do they MAKE drives that small nowadays? :-)

I was surprised to see a stack of 20 GB Maxtor drives on the shelf at
CompUSA just this week. But the stack of 200 GB Maxtor drives was much
larger, and they only cost about $30 more.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:
In article
writes:

I mint no smaller than a 20 Gig you would consider.

Do they MAKE drives that small nowadays? :-)

I was surprised to see a stack of 20 GB Maxtor drives on the shelf at
CompUSA just this week. But the stack of 200 GB Maxtor drives was much
larger, and they only cost about $30 more.

I remember paying more than10 times that for a whopping 5MB hard drive....


geoff

In article ,
says...

I'm looking for advice as to what hardware would be best for
constructing a computer system which is to be used for 16 bit/44.1 Khz
and possibly 24/96 audio.

I have been researching this extensively for the past couple of weeks,
and will be picking this one up from a local custom shop today:

2.8 GHz Pentium 4 CPU with 1 MB cache
Asus P4C800(e) Deluxe motherboard
Matrox P-650 video card
1 GB Corsair TwinX1024-3200C2 Pro Memory
1 40 GB Western Digital ATA hard drive (system & apps)
1 160 GB Western Digital SATA hard drivfe (audio files)
1 RME Digi 96/8 PAD sound card

Windows XP Pro

I decided against twin SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration because of
cost, but that would provide a further performance gain. At any rate,
I'll report back regarding problems (or lack thereof).

jim andrews
austin, tx

In article -nospam writes:

I remember paying more than10 times that for a whopping 5MB hard drive....

I looked into getting a Turtle Beach 56K system to edit DAT recordings
back when it was new. I figured I'd need to get a new computer (I had
only a PC XT at the time) but the real killer was a 500 MB disk drive
that was big enough to handle one side of an LP with a bit of
overhead. That was $2500.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 12:51:45 GMT, jim andrews
wrote:

I decided against twin SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration because of
cost, but that would provide a further performance gain. At any rate,
I'll report back regarding problems (or lack thereof).

I wouldn't worry about RAID for performance. You'll run out of other
resources before disk speed causes a bottleneck these days.

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

Hi,

In message , Geoff Wood
-nospam writes
Mike Rivers wrote:

I was surprised to see a stack of 20 GB Maxtor drives on the shelf at
CompUSA just this week. But the stack of 200 GB Maxtor drives was much
larger, and they only cost about $30 more.

I remember paying more than10 times that for a whopping 5MB hard drive....

Only ten times???

My first 5MB (full height, 5.25", MFM, Seagate, if memory serves) was
over 1000 UKP. But I probably count as a youngster, hereabouts. I'll bet
some RAP regulars have spent more on less :-)

--
Regards,
Glenn Booth

Hi,

In message , jim
andrews writes

I have been researching this extensively for the past couple of weeks,
and will be picking this one up from a local custom shop today:

2.8 GHz Pentium 4 CPU with 1 MB cache
Asus P4C800(e) Deluxe motherboard
Matrox P-650 video card

For this combo, be aware that you'll need to do a couple of things to
get it running right. From the get-go, you may see screen corruption
during the POST and boot screens, if the mobo doesn't have the latest
bios rev. Get the newest one from Asus (rev. 11 I think, but check).
Also get the latest Matrox bios, and if you do see any corruption, run
the systemlogofix.exe file from the bios package. Better still, as
you're having it built, get the shop to sort it out!

The ASUS bios assumes that the graphics card will support mode 101h as a
VGA mode, but the P650 uses a VESA mode for that set of timings, and
nasty colours can result!

It's all easily fixable, but you may get a nasty shock if you aren't
aware of these little quirks. Incidentally, I have run this exact combo,
and once you've got it running, it works a treat.

1 GB Corsair TwinX1024-3200C2 Pro Memory
1 40 GB Western Digital ATA hard drive (system & apps)
1 160 GB Western Digital SATA hard drivfe (audio files)

Looks sensible to me.

1 RME Digi 96/8 PAD sound card

I haven't seen/heard/used one, but I'd be interested in what you think
of it.

I'll report back regarding problems (or lack thereof).

Please do.

--
Regards,
Glenn Booth

"Glenn Booth" wrote in message

Hi,

In message , Geoff Wood
-nospam writes
Mike Rivers wrote:

I was surprised to see a stack of 20 GB Maxtor drives on the shelf
at CompUSA just this week. But the stack of 200 GB Maxtor drives
was much larger, and they only cost about $30 more.

I remember paying more than10 times that for a whopping 5MB hard
drive....

Only ten times???

My first 5MB (full height, 5.25", MFM, Seagate, if memory serves) was
over 1000 UKP. But I probably count as a youngster, hereabouts. I'll
bet some RAP regulars have spent more on less :-)

It is my recollection that 5 MB FH MFM hard drives started out some place
around $3-5K.

I held out until 20 MB was selling for a paltry $650 including controller
and enclosure.

On 26 Jun 2004 08:49:53 -0400, (Mike Rivers)
wrote:


In article writes:

Hard drives - faster the better. I'd rather have two smaller drives than
one huge one, and dedicate one to audio.

7200RPM is standerd. 20 gig is also in the loop.

20 Gigabyte drives? Aren't they getting kind of hard to find these
days unless you go to the OEM suppliers that can be found at
pricewatch.com?

I was just looking at hard disk drives there, as I could use one or
more. Clicking on a drive size and seeing the models/dealers, I was
appalled at the 'ratings' of the dealers (it looks a lot like ebay
feedback ratings), 50 to 80 percent positive, admittedly from small
samples (5 to 10 feedbacks). Perhaps this rating system is brand new
(I looked three months ago and don't recall it), and admittedly not
every satisfied buyer is going to go back and give positive feedback,
but buying from one of these guys looks like gambling.
From that I suspect I'll save money by buying at Sam's Club or even
Staples or Office Depot where if the drive has problems I can get an
exchange or get all my money back. These online places don't seem to
handle probems well, if at all.
Surely there are some upstanding online computer parts dealers..
who are they?

It's rare that I see anything smaller than 40 GB on
the shelf these days. Are the common Maxtor (for example) drives that
I buy on sale with rebates at places like Office Depot and use in my
Mackie hard disk recorder just plain junk?

I dunno, but there was a neutral feedback at pricewatch, it went
something like "got a small (20 or 40GB) drive and it works fine, but
it's factory refurbished, not new as advertised."
Presuming your Mackie-formatted drives are a Windows-mountable
format, put them on a PC and run scandisk on them every once in a
while. That should give you a feel for their integrity.

Is there a "really great"
IDE drive that we should all know about?

How about 16 MB of ram for $600? I'm sure we all have some stories! g

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1088860960k@trad...

In article -nospam
writes:

I remember paying more than10 times that for a whopping 5MB hard
drive....

I looked into getting a Turtle Beach 56K system to edit DAT recordings
back when it was new. I figured I'd need to get a new computer (I had
only a PC XT at the time) but the real killer was a 500 MB disk drive
that was big enough to handle one side of an LP with a bit of
overhead. That was $2500.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

20 Gigabyte drives? Aren't they getting kind of hard to find these
days unless you go to the OEM suppliers that can be found at
pricewatch.com?

I was just looking at hard disk drives there, as I could use one or
more. Clicking on a drive size and seeing the models/dealers, I was
appalled at the 'ratings' of the dealers (it looks a lot like ebay
feedback ratings), 50 to 80 percent positive, admittedly from small
samples (5 to 10 feedbacks). Perhaps this rating system is brand new
(I looked three months ago and don't recall it), and admittedly not
every satisfied buyer is going to go back and give positive feedback,
but buying from one of these guys looks like gambling.
From that I suspect I'll save money by buying at Sam's Club or even
Staples or Office Depot where if the drive has problems I can get an
exchange or get all my money back. These online places don't seem to
handle probems well, if at all.

I buy drives for my Mackie HDR at Office Depot, Statples, or Best Buy,
whoever has a sale/rebate going on at the time I need a drive.
Whenever I mention a deal on the Mackie forum (usually accompanied by
the comment that it's really hard to find a "small" drive any more),
one of the more helpful (really) regular posters comes back with a
link to Pricewatch saying that's where he finds all of his drives now.
While he never posts the name of a specific vendor, I suspect that
he's found a few that have always sent what he needs and he sticks
with those. He says he has always had trouble with rebates so he
doeesn't see that as a "deal" but I've never not received one. At
$70-$90 for a 120 GB drive, that's less than I was paying for a 20 GB
drive when I first got the recorder.

Surely there are some upstanding online computer parts dealers..
who are they?

Man, I wish the little hole-in-the-hallway-in-the-office-building
computer shop right up the hill from my house was still there. The guy
who ran it could get anything I needed, usually had something in stock
that would work, didn't mind lending parts, and knew what he was
selling. Now he shows up at hamfests selling the same stuff and in
between sells direct to computer builder shops, but he no longer deals
one-on-one.

I dunno, but there was a neutral feedback at pricewatch, it went
something like "got a small (20 or 40GB) drive and it works fine, but
it's factory refurbished, not new as advertised."

That really only makes a difference in the warranty, if there's any. I
don't exepct that there's any real "refurbishment" going on, just
testing and repackaging. Drives of that size haven't had enough
operating time to shorten their life. If they still work when the
factory tests them, you know they they won't be DOA or suffer infant
mortality (something I've never heard of in the past 5 years). The
retail package that you get at the office stores includes a cable,
mounting screws, and a preparation disk, stuff that by now I can live
without.

Presuming your Mackie-formatted drives are a Windows-mountable
format, put them on a PC and run scandisk on them every once in a
while. That should give you a feel for their integrity.

It is. I keep a Win98 startup diskette around for serious HDR disk
maintenance. Stick it in the recorder's floppy drive, and it boots up
in DOS, from where you can run Scandisk and Format. Mackie's format
utility is a quick format that doesn't test the disk surface. Though
it clears out all the data, it sometimes leaves directory entries
behind.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Check out my custom made, quiet DAWs on http://www.MusicIsLove.com.
You can see what I use for components. My machines are fast, fast,
fast.

Thanks.

Mike
Singer/Songwriter - DAW builder

In article
writes:

20 Gigabyte drives? Aren't they getting kind of hard to find these
days unless you go to the OEM suppliers that can be found at
pricewatch.com?

I was just looking at hard disk drives there, as I could use one or
more. Clicking on a drive size and seeing the models/dealers, I was
appalled at the 'ratings' of the dealers (it looks a lot like ebay
feedback ratings), 50 to 80 percent positive, admittedly from small
samples (5 to 10 feedbacks). Perhaps this rating system is brand new
(I looked three months ago and don't recall it), and admittedly not
every satisfied buyer is going to go back and give positive feedback,
but buying from one of these guys looks like gambling.
From that I suspect I'll save money by buying at Sam's Club or even
Staples or Office Depot where if the drive has problems I can get an
exchange or get all my money back. These online places don't seem to
handle probems well, if at all.


It does sound like ebay don't it? I've found myself buying at Best Buy and
Office Depot for lots of computer stuff, online, PC Connection has been good
and I have an account with PC Mall and Mac Mall (they where quite happy to give
me a billing account). I've had no problems with either one, even if I've only
ordered a few things since starting the accounts. I've not used Pricewatch.com
as almost everything at the other stores are about the same price.

I dunno, but there was a neutral feedback at pricewatch, it went
something like "got a small (20 or 40GB) drive and it works fine, but
it's factory refurbished, not new as advertised."

That really only makes a difference in the warranty, if there's any. I
don't exepct that there's any real "refurbishment" going on, just
testing and repackaging. Drives of that size haven't had enough
operating time to shorten their life. If they still work when the
factory tests them, you know they they won't be DOA or suffer infant
mortality (something I've never heard of in the past 5 years). The
retail package that you get at the office stores includes a cable,
mounting screws, and a preparation disk, stuff that by now I can live
without.

If you find a drive under 40-60 Gigs it's more than likely an old leftover or
return that's been checked and reformatted (as Mike states). You can probably
find a SCSI drive that's as small as 40 Gigs, they are not as popular as ATA's,
Firewire's etc.

"Roger W. Norman" wrote in message


How about 16 MB of ram for $600? I'm sure we all have some stories!
g

The deal of a lifetime!

In 1983 I added 256k of RAM to my PC at a cost of about $300.

This was the same system that later received the $650 20 megabyte hard
drive.

In article writes:

Check out my custom made, quiet DAWs on http://www.MusicIsLove.com.
You can see what I use for components. My machines are fast, fast,
fast.

But are they quiet, quiet, quiet? The difficult question to answer,
even if you have noise level specs for fans, is how much of a
difference will I notice when compared to my just plain off-the-shelf
parts computer?

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

On 6 Jul 2004 15:45:17 -0400, Mike Rivers wrote:

In article writes:

Check out my custom made, quiet DAWs on http://www.MusicIsLove.com.
You can see what I use for components. My machines are fast, fast,
fast.

But are they quiet, quiet, quiet? The difficult question to answer,
even if you have noise level specs for fans, is how much of a
difference will I notice when compared to my just plain off-the-shelf
parts computer?


You want quiet, quiet, QUIET??

Try this:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/index.html

"Only" $2500 . . .

****, maybe I ought to just take 25 years experience in computer building
and troubleshooting and start making computers. I know my older son would
love to get involved. This particular computer does internet, music,
whatever apps I ask of it and it's been running for the better part of two
years with some "acts of god" taking it down. Still runs as many tracks as
I've ever needed.

But then we'll see when I finally put the AMD64 into place next week.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"Mike Cressey" wrote in message
m...
Check out my custom made, quiet DAWs on http://www.MusicIsLove.com.
You can see what I use for components. My machines are fast, fast,
fast.

Thanks.

Mike
Singer/Songwriter - DAW builder

Try a Mountain Hard Drive Card for a Compaq luggable at the exhorbitant
price of about $1300. 5 Meg cartridges, bootable. Whoopie! g But, make
it 1984 instead of 1983, so you got me there. I also outfitted all my
computers with 684 K of ram. Expensive proposition, but ultimately it was
about $1800 for a fully outfitted PC. I also had two of the first SCSI 32
MB external hard drives available. Man, I miss when I had parts backed up
to test and review.

Whoops, No I Don't! g

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Roger W. Norman" wrote in message


How about 16 MB of ram for $600? I'm sure we all have some stories!
g

The deal of a lifetime!

In 1983 I added 256k of RAM to my PC at a cost of about $300.

This was the same system that later received the $650 20 megabyte hard
drive.

In article writes:

You want quiet, quiet, QUIET??
Try this:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/index.html

"Only" $2500 . . .

That looks like a serious case. I'd like to see one in the flesh, but
they're definitely on the right track. Isn't a 300 watt power supply
kind of skimpy by today's standards and with today's CPUs and
gigabytes of installed memory?

$1400 was mentioned a couple of times in the article. Is $2500 an
actual price?



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

You want quiet, quiet, QUIET??
Try this:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/index.html

"Only" $2500 . . .

Well, for $2500 you can build a machine room for all your noisy gear!

Looking at the Zallman I am reminded of one of the things that quieted my PC down immensely. I
put little feet, those Sorbothane feet that are used to isolate audio electronics, under the
case. They really work to keep the computer from using the wooden cabinet the PC is in as a
sounding board.

Phil Abbate

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message news:znr1089153931k@trad...
:
: In article writes:
:
: You want quiet, quiet, QUIET??
: Try this:
:
: http://www17.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/index.html
:
: "Only" $2500 . . .
:
: That looks like a serious case. I'd like to see one in the flesh, but
: they're definitely on the right track. Isn't a 300 watt power supply
: kind of skimpy by today's standards and with today's CPUs and
: gigabytes of installed memory?
:
: $1400 was mentioned a couple of times in the article. Is $2500 an
: actual price?
:
:
:
: --
: I'm really Mike Rivers )
: However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
: lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
: you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
: and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

On 6 Jul 2004 21:00:59 -0400, Mike Rivers wrote:

In article writes:

You want quiet, quiet, QUIET??
Try this:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/index.html

"Only" $2500 . . .

That looks like a serious case. I'd like to see one in the flesh, but
they're definitely on the right track. Isn't a 300 watt power supply
kind of skimpy by today's standards and with today's CPUs and
gigabytes of installed memory?

$1400 was mentioned a couple of times in the article. Is $2500 an
actual price?


Ah . .you're right. I just found it actually for sale he

http://www.xoxide.com/zalman6.html

for $1200, so I sit corrected.

I ran my configuration through PC Power and Cooling's selector and they
suggested ~350W.

P4 Northwood
1GB Ram
Fanless video (ATI 9200)
Four drives (3 HD, 1 DVD Combo)

I used an Antec Sonata Case modded with a Nexus (Dutch company
specializing in low-noise air cooled supplies). and a Zalman copper
flower cooler.

It's quiet enough that it's not audible when I bring it to the office
for upgrades, compared to the office machines.

So far, my CPU core temp has yet to top 30C *knocks wood* I spent about
$60 over and above the cost of a stock Sonata w/ the stock P4 cooler.

In contrast, my older slower gaming rig routinely tops 60C, depending
on how much 3d I'm pumping out.