hi, i've read a lot of posts, but i think posting my thoughts will help me get the answers i'm looking for. thanks in advance for all of your help.
i'm buying a new PC to use with a Mackie Onyx 1620 24bit 96k
i need to avoid latency.
i need advice on motherboards. i've heard an external firewire card will help decrease latency. i've also heard to avoid on-board sound. i'm probably going with ddr2 ram. i'd like to avoid any on-board 'add-on's' if possible. any idea's about the best motherboard for my situation?
i need advice on hard drives, my current choice is hitachi 7K1000 1TB drive because they have a faster seek time based on having 3 platters, not 5. what the best drive for audio? does size matter?
i need advice on fans, cooling, and cases. my current choices are antec sonata 3 for the case and a Zalman CNPS9700LED for the fan.
i need advice on ram. i'm going with DDR2, but 800 or 1066 is the question. the way i read it, the 1066 will give the intel chip a faster bus speed, 1333mhz. am i interpreting that wrong. should i bother with 1066 ddr2 ram? will 800 ddr2 ram be enough? any idea's about brand?
i need advice on a video card that will not interfere with the audio with fan noise, wasted resources etc...
what about software. the Mackie will work with cubase, nuendo and VST's. any advice on software choices would help.
i'm not afraid of doing my own research, but i AM going around in circles. even just a few links to hardware spec's would be helpful.
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thank you for getting back to me tracks at once: 2 or 3, usual
thank you for getting back to me
tracks at once: 2 or 3, usually one track at a time; bassist redo-ing bed takes, lead guitarist painting in solo's... that sort of thing. so, very few tracks recording in at once.
i'll likely end up working with many tracks at once for editing. i'll sub mix the drums into 2 left and right tracks. i'll have bass, a few keys, many guitars, a vocal or 2. maybe 20? maybe more?
also, i'd like to use a few vst's in real time as well. any idea's?
no external fx. all software. i'm using a line 6 X3 live, with re-amping so that we don't need to play a good part twice just to change the sounds. the guitar sounds can be changed after the fact. luckily, this method allows the processor intensive guitar modeling to happen ON the pedal, not in the computer.
The Mackie will act as an external sound card, so don't worry ab
The Mackie will act as an external sound card, so don't worry about the built in one that comes with the motherboard. It will only get used for Windows noises, etc.. And you can configure it so it doesn't get used for anything at all (although having windows noises coming through expensive monitors can be unsettling).
When it comes to hard drives, the faster and bigger the better, although it's best to have a smaller separate drive for the operating system. So I'd get two. And have a plan for backups. Maybe 3 drives :)
Don't know about the rest of your hardware issues, I'm not the computer nerd I once was, but you might want to clarify some things, like how many tracks you want to record at once, how many tracks you'll likely end up working with at the same time. Are you going to use any external effects, or do it all in the software? Particularly resource-intensive plug ins like guitar/bass modelling software can put a big drain on a system, as can some of the higher end effects from what I've heard. Some more info along those lines might help people give you the answers you need.