Duncanjp wrote: That's not entirely true, Dos. I just finished reading every post in this thread since I'm in the market for a new DAW and need to research what's available. There's a lot of valuable information here for someone who's looking to upgrade or replace their system.

Point taken, my bad

Hi Dos. Sometimes I feel like there are braggarts on the internet who talk about their gear and their exploits as if we should all drop our jaws. But most people of reasonable intellect recognize them instantly.

Peace and music. :D

Here it is. I just bought a rack-mounted X2i DAW from http://www.sonicalabs.com:

-64 bit Intel Pentium D 830 Hyperthreading LGA 775 @ 3.2Ghz 2MB cache / 955X / ICH7 chipset
-System bus: 800/1066Mhz
-Dual channel DDR-2-667 1Gb
-Win XP Home "tuned for audio" w/service pack 2
-System drive: 80Gb 7200 SATA2 300Mb/s 8Mb cache
-Audio drives: Dual 160Gb 7200 SATA2 300Mb/s 8Mb cache
-Plextor PX-712SA 12X SATA dual mode/dual layer DVDRW/CDRW
-PATA: 1 x ATA 100 up to 2 devices
-SATA: 4 x SATA2
-System noise level 22dB or lower
-IEEE 1394 Firewire: 3 ports 800/400
-USB 2.0: 8 ports

I had 'em throw in Cubase SX3, too, since I'm still using the old Cubase VST 5.1.

MY DAW

*Intel p4 3.2 ht tech

*1GB RAM

*Budget Nvidia graphics card

*SONY CD-RW DRIVE (FAST)

*REASON 2.0

*M-audio Delta 66 pro audio card

*M-audio Omni i/o Audio interface

*M-audio Keystation 49 (midi controller/keyboard)

*Nuendo 2.2

*SURE SM58

*B.L.U.E. Bluebird mic w/ shockmount & popper

p.s. im selling The delta 66, omni i/o and the sure sm58 all for only $450

because im going to purchasing a pro tools rig here pretty soon

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
AMD ATHLON XP 2400+
1gb D/C 3200 DDR RAM
120gb Audio + 60gb Application HD's
LG 52x CD/RW
ASUS Ge_Force 4 - 4200 128MB (unneccessary.. i dont play games)
Yorkville Studio Refference Monitors
Presonus Firepod
M-Audio Oxygen 8

NO INTERNET (BY CHOICE) it only causes hastles and it loads like 4 or 5 more services into memory..

My daw is SOLID.. never crashes.. i can have it running for weeks and never have to reboot.. it is S O L I D ..

the only thing i can recommend to people who have issues with speed and or crashing.. is learn about services..

I have a total fo 16 to 17 services running at all times...

Some services to disable if you are interested...

WINDOWS MESSENGER (not MSN Messenger)
TELNET
WINDOWS HELP AND SUPPORT
REMOTE REGISTRY
ALERTER
HUMAN INTERFACE DEVICE ACCESS
REMOTE ACCESS CONNECTION MANAGER
ROUTING AND REMOTE ACCESS
CLIPBOOK

and there is many more..

another thing.. MAKE SURE YOU DISABLE "System Restore" ... god damn that will take a toll on your HD's... and your overall performance..

anyways... any questions pertaining system optimization.. MSG me..

peace

Re: MY DAW

CRSBEATZ36 wrote: *
p.s. im selling The delta 66, omni i/o and the sure sm58 all for only $450

because im going to purchasing a pro tools rig here pretty soon

i must advize against protools.. (if your talking MBOX) .. if you are talkin protools HD .. then go for it.. but MBOX you are so limited with two inputs and digitech hardware..

it is expensive and not worth it in the end when you realize you need more..

I've just recently switched from PC to Laptop for everything:

-Computer
Sony 17" Laptop w/ Dockingstation (I don't use an external LCD since the screen on the laptop is large and widescreen)
1.8ghz Centrino
1 Gig PC3200 Ram
DVD/CD Burner
PCI Express Nvidia GPU
100 GB 5400RPM HDD (For Programs)

-Other
300 GB External Maxtor 7200RPM (For Samples/Audio/Etc) that's puggled into the docking station and easy to take on the road
Tascam FW 1884 Mixing Board/Sound Interface
Alesis MK2 Monitors (Desperate need of an upgrade)
Maudio Oxygen 8 for portable midi.

Running Ableton Live 5 and Nuendo 3.0

The system was built for doing live gigs w/ ableton. Basically I was gettin sick of swapping everything from my Audio PC to my Laptop when needed, so now I use everything all inclusive and am VERY happy w/ the move!

'Puter #1
Pentium D 830
Asus p5wd2 Premium
2 gb 5400 Corsair (4-4-4-9 Latencies)
19" BenQ LCD FP937s (power supply when in standby kinda makes a tinnitus type noise... not loud but might be damn annoying with 2 side by side in sleep mode...)
17" samsung CRT
2 x seagate 300gb SATA
ATI X300 128mb GFX
RME HDSP 9632 (with the AI4S - AO4S expansion slots mounted in front 3.5" bays)

'Puter # 2 (Fx teleported)
Pentium C 3ghz
asus p4p800 865chipset
2 gig corsair 3200 (2-2-2-5)
intel gigbit PCI lancard (works extremely well with fx teleport... model no: 8391MT)
2 x 80gig HDD (seagate)
Linksys gigabit Switch (again works with fx teleport extremely well)

non 'puter
Edirol PCR-50
m- audio bx8's
2 deks and mixer
a cat and dog

IBM A30 Desktop
Intel P4 2.66GHZ
XP Home
40GB HD
512 MB RAM
Dell 17" LCD monitor

Planned Upgrades:
Memory > 1GB
HD > 120GB WD Caviar
Outboard HD > 160GB WD Caviar USB 2.0
Computer is stable and surprisingly quiet for an off-the-shelf unit

Software:
Cakewalk Sonar LE

Hardware:
Edirol DA-2496 audio interface
Roland SMPU 64 64 channel 4 port MIDI interface USB 1
Yamaha RY-30 Drum Synthesizer
Yamaha MU90r rack synth
Kawai K1r rack symth (sounds like older Korg M1)
Rode NT1 mic
Peavey Max Bass Preamp
Yamaha MG 12/4 for monitoring & mixed synths into DA-2496
Yamaha MSP5 active monitors

My Home Studio

A note on the cooling and power...

I decided to make a concerted effort to reduce noise in the recording environment. So I decided that I would locate power supplies, and cooling devices in the other room and have them come in through the wall behind the built in workstation surround.

The two 4" ducts are intake and exhaust for the cold AC air coming in to and out of the CPU case. An electrical snake cable from the two Antec power supplies running parallel for farming out the extra juice to all drives and peripherals. Koolance radiator is mounted near the Honeywell AC unit in the other room for effective cooling of the CPU core. Two coolant lines for the Koolance CPU cooler block run through the wall and into the CPU case and through the Koolance CPU cooler block.

I mostly went through the above conversion because with all of the drives and the PSUs I needed a lot of noisy cooling, so took the "move it to another room" idea and knocked some holes in the wall under cabnetry, and plumbed the goods through.

With that said, here is the specs list.

Hardware
------------------------
Case
Custom (home shop) Made 6U Aluminum Case
20 x 3.5" drives
8 x 5.25" drives
*NO* case cooling fans
(only moving parts are HD's and Optical Drives, and they are isolated with dynamat and rubber stand-offs for vibration isolation)

Cooling
Koolance CPU-300 Liquid Cooling Head
Honeywell WA1220H Air Conditioner

Power SUpply
2 x Antec TruPower 550's (Master/Slave)

Core
Asus P5WD2 Premium
Pentium D 840 3.2Ghz
8GB RAM (4 x 2GB Crucial DDR2 PC2-4200)

Video
MSI 6800 GT 256MB
2 x Samsung 21.3" 213T Flat Panel Displays

HD I/O
3Ware Escalade 9500S-8 SATA RAID Card
Promise Ultra ATA card (for CD/DVD Burners)

Hard Disks
8 x 400GB Westerd Digital
(techincally capped at 3TB on 3Ware Controller)
5 x 76GB Western Digital Raptors
(3 for OS, 2 for Swap/Scratch Disk)

DVD Writers
6 x Lite-On 16x DL DVD+-R/RW

Special Keyboards/Input
3 XKeys 58 Key units (http://)
Wacom Tablet

XKeys, when Used in conjunction with Perfect Keyboard Pro, you can automate your computer to do nearly anything with a single click of a button. Get one if you don't have one.

Software
------------------------
Windows XP x64 Edition
Perfect Keyboard Pro (mentioned above)
Sonar x64
Propellerhead Reason 3 (up to crap on x64 though, not sure why)
Load of DX and VST/VSTi Plugins

Sound Gear - Rack
------------------------
3 Motu 896HD's
3 Behringer ADA8000's
1 Behringer HA4700 Headphone Amp
3 Line 6 POD XT Pros
1 TC Helicon VoiiceWorks
1 Lexicon PCM91
Various Patchbays

Sound Gear - On Deck
------------------------
1 Mackie Control Universal
2 Mackie Control Universal Extenders
3 XKeys Keyboards (mentioned above)

Sound Gear - Mics/Wireless
------------------------
1 Neumann TLM103
2 Audix DR456 Drum Mic Packs
1 Rode NT4 Stereo Mic
3 AKG Bugs
2 Shure ULXS1430 Headsets
4 Shure ULXS body pack systems

Sound Gear - Monitors
------------------------
2 Mackie HR824 Monitors
1 Mackie HRS820 Sub
6 Shure PSM200 In-ears

__________________

Later!

Wes

:D

Greetings All,

I’m reasonably happy with what I’ve got, it suits my current amount/pace of work but I’d expect to have to upgrade if I was to use it in a semi-professional/professional capacity.

Computer:
Carillon AC-1 Core 1
Intel motherboard 845E Intel chipset
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz CPU
QTechnology QT-03400G Gold 400W ATX PSU
1 x Seagate 80GB 7200rpm IDE HDD
1 x Seagate 200GB 7200rpm IDE HDD
LiteOn internal DVD ROM/CD-R/CD-RW combination optical drive
Plextor PX-504UF external (firewire & USB) DVD+R/DVD+RW/CD-R/CD-RW combination optical drive
ATI Radeon 9200 128MB dual head videocard
2 x Digimate 17” TFT video monitors
Labtec wireless keyboard & mouse

Related hardware:
Roland PC-160A MIDI keyboard controller
MOTU MIDI Express XT MIDI interface
MOTU 2408 mk3/PCI-424 audio interface

Software:
Microsoft Windows Home XP (SP2)
Steinberg Cubase SX 3.02
Sonic Foundry* Acid Pro 4.0f
Sony Acid Pro 5.0b
Sonic Foundry* Sound Forge 6.0e
Sony Sound Forge 8.0a
Sony CD Architect 5.2
Image Line FL Studio 4.52
Image Line FL Studio 5.0.2
Propellerhead Reason 2.5
Various demo and/or freeware plug-ins
(*Sonic Foundry has since been purchased by Sony but retains the same staff.)

Other instruments/gear:
Oktava MK220 multi-pattern condenser mic
SE Electronics SE2200 cardioid condenser mic
Beyerdynamic M 300 N cardioid dynamic mic
2 x Sennheiser MD421-II-4 cardioid dynamic mics
Korg M1R MIDI rack module
Peavey electric bass
Suzuki acoustic guitar
Allen & Heath GS3-16 analog mixing desk
Millennium AB-4 Output selector
Millennium HP 6 Headphone amplifier
EMO Systems Preamp (Stereo RIAA to balanced line)
Drawmer LX20 dual expander/compressor
Lexicon MPX500 dual multi-effects unit
Tech 21 Sansamp PSA-1 guitar modeller/DI
Tascam 202 mkIII double cassette recorder
Cambridge Audio CD4 SE compact disc player
Aiwa AP-2100K belt-drive turntable
Wharfedale Active Diamond bookshelf speakers
Hafler 220 power amp
Event 20/20 passive studio monitors
DIY rockwool acoustic treatment

Future developments will (hopefully) include more & better outboard, a standalone hard disk recorder (e.g. Alesis HD24XR), a ‘mastering’ device (e.g. Tascam DV-RA1000) and, of course, more mics.

Akai DPS 24
Akai MPC 4000
Roland TR-808
Korg Triton le
Art Pro Channel
TC Electronics M-One XL
Behringer Truth monitors
Shure sm57 x 2
Behringer B2 pro x 1
Rode NT1a x 2
Technics 1200's turntables x 2
Vestax turntables (not sure of model) x 2
Pioneer turntalbe (used to sample from) x 1
and a boatload of Mogami cables

Peace,
BEN

Also an Akai DPS 24...(HI Ben!)
a pair of Tampa's
TC Electronics Triple C
Behringer Pro 2600
M Audio DMP 3 (on the way)
Shure 57, 58, 2 KSM 109's, Beta 52
Marshall V67G
Cad E200
AT 3035
Roland keys, 1/2 a dozen guitars, same ol' crappy drums (pearls fell thru) w a couple of Zildjians and a couple of trashcan lids...
Mogami and ProCo cables...
and a couple other things

Peace.........Kel

Hi, nothing spectacular, mostly for my own self-made recordings and demos for friends and helping record students music for school fundraisers. Progressed from analog 4/8 track recording to Cubase/DAW only 2 yrs ago, so still have much to learn.

Computer:
Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop
3.2 Ghz desktop P4 processor
1 GB dual channel DDR ram 400Mhz
XP Home
60 GB HDD @ 7200 r.p.m
ATI Radeon 9700 128MB ddr
24x CD-RW/ 8xDVD combo drive (Sony)
Echo Indigo I/O PCMCIA soundcard - (recommended !)

Software :
Cubase SX 3.2 (prev. Cubase SE)
Reason 2.5
Wavelab 5
Korg Legacy vsti / NI FM 7 vsti/ tons of downloaded + free vstis and Reason refills etc.
Waves Platinum v5

Music Stuff
2 SM57 mics
yamaha rgx electric guitar - 2 humbuckers, 1 single coil
Boss guitar effects pedals (ie DS1, CH3 etc)
yamaha guitar amp
yamaha acoustic guitar
edirol USB-midi controller
Motu fastlane USB-midi interface
mackie vlz 1202 mixer
Casio keyboard - but not proud to admit it !!

Finally I found a PC setup I am now satisfied with :D

Asus PL5D2
Intel Pentium 640 2 MB Cache @ 3,66GHz
2x 1024MB DDR2 MDT Ram
Thermaltake Sonic Tower CPU Cooler

Heres mine.....

Main studio

P4 3.2 775 socket HT off
2 gigs cosiar ddr 400 ram
2 X 160 gig IDE western digital harddisk
2 X 160 gig SATA audio and backup
ASUS P5P800 MOBO
Intel Chipset
ATX tower, 450 watt power supply
UAD-1 Studio Pak, with new plugs
Motu 828 MKII
Truth Monitors
JBL Monitors
2 monitoring systems
Hardware Gear:
BBe sonic maximzer, ap audio patching system, Pod 2.0, Lexicon mx200, Art 2 channel preamp tpsII, Behringher Ultra Gain, Art power conditioner, dbx 32 band eq, behringher compressor/gate, yorkville, 5000poweramp, yamaha 16 channel analouge mixer.

Instruments: Fender stratsx2, fender bass, roland td-20 kit, 3 acoustics, yamaha classical, korg triton, korg karma

Software:
too many vstis to mention, but, my favs are, abby 3, BFD, Groove agent 2.0, Virtual Bassist, edirol ochrestra, linplug, saxlab.

software effects,
URS eqs are great, and the uads ,usally are all i use.....

Moblie system....

Most of the above, when needed, plus

HP, Pavillion, Notebook,
Centrino, 1.73 P4
1 gig, ram
120 gig HD
19 inch widescreen

overall, a great system, cant complain about it.....

there you go.....i have enjoyed, some of the other peoples, DAWs.....

Cheers

i'm on a mac with protools :shock:

Ok here is mine.... (My PC is a bit old but it stll does the job)

- Rackmount case
- 400 PSU
- MSI 850i pro motherboard 400fsb w/oem soundcard
- Intel P4 1.3Ghz
- Syncmax 256MB pc800 rambus memory
- 40GB maxtor EIDE disc (data)
- 18GB seagate 10,000rpm ultra160 SCSI disc (audio)
- adaptec SCSI contoller PCI card
- Echo Gina/24 Audio interface
- ATI 9200se Radeon graphics card w/DVI output
- Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM drive
- Sony CD-RW burner (I forgot the speeds but its fast enough)
- Belkin 10/100 ethernet card
- Westell VersaLink wireless modem (DSL connection)
- 2 19" screens 1600x1200 resolution (I need real estate babe)
(no floppy drive)

My software....

- Win XP pro
- Firewall, Anti-spyware and Anti-virus updated and running
- Cubase SX2 (recording)
- Samplitude 7 pro (mastering)
- A variety of VST and DirectX plugins (including software synths)

My hardware....

- Mackie 24x8 analog mixer
- Alesis M1 MK2 Actives
- Yamaha CS2X Controller
- E-MU xl-1 w/protozoa card installed
- Steinberg Midex8 MIDI Interface
- Sony MDR-7506 and MDV500 cans
- Shure KSM27 and SM58 mics
- DBX 286 mic pre

Theft deterent hardware....

- 2 Glock26 semi-auto pistols w/laser scope
- 2 MP5 Assault riffles
- Night vision goggles w/heat signature capability
- frag grenades
- smoke grenades
:D

DAW:

G5 iMac 1.8 GHz 17" 2Gig RAM
Logic Pro 7.1.1 / Waveburner

Other Stuff:

Toast & Jam
Peak 5
Altiverb
ValveTone and HydraTone

Mackie Onyx 1640/Firewire card
Lacie D2 external Firewire drive
Good mics

Printer that prints to CD/DVDs

Very pleased with this set-up; it flies! It is very flexible, extremely portable, does everything from recording musicians, to giving them a finished CD with artwork. One negative - - now I'm hooked up to broadband, I'm wasting FAR too much time on the [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.stuffonm…"] net![/]="http://www.stuffonm…"] net![/]

Re: MY DAW

webtroy wrote: [quote=CRSBEATZ36]*
p.s. im selling The delta 66, omni i/o and the sure sm58 all for only $450

because im going to purchasing a pro tools rig here pretty soon

i must advize against protools.. (if your talking MBOX) .. if you are talkin protools HD .. then go for it.. but MBOX you are so limited with two inputs and digitech hardware..

it is expensive and not worth it in the end when you realize you need more..

digitech hardware???? :shock:

the mbox is made by digidesign with pre's from focusrite....

protools LE can also run on the digi002 rack....

i'm not sure your advice is based on actual knowledge...

My DAW

Digi 002 PT 6.1 , Yamaha O1V, Mac Dual G4, 1 gig ram, 1 130 gig lacie firewire drive, 2 cheap PC monitors, KRK rokit 8's , TC finalizer, TC voice works, panasonic dat, shure 57 , 58s, apex mics, akg c1000, akg d 112, sennheiser 421, akg the tube

733mhz g4 quicksilver
512 ram
40 gig harddrive
80 gig firewire
cdrw

m- audio delta 1010 (brilliant)
behringer Ub2442Fx

cubase v1.2
reason 2
protools m-powered

im currently saving up for a bigger processor because its not handling protools to well, everything runs great

holla!!

hardware:
Pc:
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
2x 512mb Samsung pc3200
2x 120 gb IBM Deskstar
1x 320 gb Western Digitals
AGP Geforce 5900fx 128mb
ESI Waveterminal 192m (4in, 8 out)

Peripheral:
M-Audio Keystation 49e
Mackie DFX6 mixer
2x Shure SM57
Marshall JCM2000 TSL601
Cheapo Ibanez RG Replicas

Software:
Cubase SX2
Wavelab
FM7
Battery2
Waves Diamond Bundle
Kontakt

im recording audio as well as midi.
well, my setup is far from optimal. im using this pc for everything (internet, gaming, and whatnot) so the performance in audio applications leaves much to be desired. im planing on building a stand alone gaming rig so i can have this one as clean as possible for audio only.
the plugin limit?? dunno i never tried to reach it, i guess its something between 10-15 tracks maybe less
also, im using my hifi system for monitoring which is as bad as it can get, but i havent got the money atm to buy some neat mid range speakers...i was thinking of the mackie hr626 when ive saved enough, but i ve not decided yet.

CAUKO CHALANI!!!

Here's my daw...

Toshiba Satellite 17" screen with Intel Hyper Tread.
1x80g HD
1x120g Usb HD
1 Gig SDRAM

Protools 7 with Digi 002R
Reason, Ableton.
Alesis MK2 active monitors.
Alesis AI3 converters
Audio-technica 4040, 2020
Seinheisser MD421
Shure Sm58, sm57

ART mp ( a shame)
But i'm putting together some more money to spend on good preamps.

(custom built)
amd 64 3000+ 1.7ghz
2x -512 ddr ram chips
geforce 6600
2x -200 gb sata hd's
windows xp pro
motu 2408 mkIII

outboard:
mackie onyx 1220
2x focusrite trackmaster pre's
lots and lots of mics (dynamic and condenser)
all mogami cables
2.1 bluesky monitors
Sennheiser hd 280 phones

software:
i run sonar 4 pe
waves diamond
L3
Q10
various dx/dxi and vst/vsti

midi:
radium 49
roland v-drums

Software: Pro Tools and Logic Pro 7
Interfaces: 2 Digi 002 racks
Also, loads of outboard gear I hardly use anymore.

When mixing, the mains of my Soundcraft Ghost console go through a tc electronics Finalizer 96k, to a distribution amp, which feeds any mastering devices and the control room monitor section of the console. The finalizer also feeds back into a digi 002, via light pipe, for mixdown directly into Pro Tools or Logic. To eliminate glitches, I am using the Finalizer as the master clock for both programs.

hey... it works for me.

new here

Windows XP
Dell Pentium 3.2ghz 800 fsb
1.25 GB RAM
80 GB IDE drive
ATI 9800pro
19" Sony trinitron

EZ Bus mixer (2B replaced)
currently audio through DigiTech GNX 3000 pedal's USB 2.0 (can be noisy and only runs 16 bit)

Shure mics etc

Martin D35
Fender American Strat Deluxe
some old Classical guitar

Sonar 5.0
FLStudio 6
Dimension Pro
Sytrus
VSampler
Edirol PCR M80 MIDI keyboard (nice)

Alesis 300 ref amp
Alesis mkII passives
Yamaha PA amp (P3500S)
Yamaha PA monitors

Wish list

64 bit PC when 64 bit XP and Sonar 64 mature a little
a better audio interface and preamps
more PA gear i.e. JBL mpro series
a better digital mixer
more software
more guitars
TAMA drum kit
more mics
Roland DR880
Yamaha motif

AMD 4400+ (thats a 64 bit dual core 2.2 ghz)
2 gigs ocz Gold XTC ram
10000 rpm 74 gig western digital as main drive
2 x 250 gig Seagate Barracuda 16 meg cache (NL35 series) - audio drives in raid 0
ATI 1800xl

monitoring: Mackie 624s

Recording: (protools) mbox 2

Mics: 2x Audiotechnica 4050, 2x audiotechnica 4041

I guess I should toot my horn some more! I built a Intel Dual Core a few months ago. Pretty sick if I do say so myself. My 4th "Ground Up" Intel Build. The First-gen Intel Dual Cores (the 8x0 series 90nm process cores w 2MB L2) left much to be desired IMO. The latest line of 65nm Dual Cores (the 9x0 "Presler" line with 4MB of L2) has much better performance, and runs OODLES cooler, too. The prices will be falling like rain at the end of April, and again in Q3 (we are talking 50% price cuts here, folks!). They are bringing the big guns to the knife fight...

Intel D-930 Dual Core - Stock Speed: 3.0GHz per core, 4MB of L2 Cache. Overclocked to 3.9GHz per core with a XP-120 heatsink and Fan on low/inaudible speeds.

Asus P5WD2-Premium MoBo

2Gigs OCZ Gold DDR2-667 RAM

OCZ Powerstream 520 - 520Watt single rail adjustable voltage power supply (+/- 1% tolerance on the rails - VERY stable voltage and quiet as a mouse).

Sapphire x800GTO PCI-Express 16x; 256MB of 256bit GDDR-3 RAM

TWO 36Gig Raptor 10,000 RPM SATA HD's in RAID-0 on the ICH7R for the 3 OS partitions (Triple boot)

TWO 250Gig WD SATA-II 16MB Cache HD's in RAID-0 on the ICH7R (Average Read BW ABOVE 100MB/s :shock: )

Over 1TB of removeable B/U HD's in caddies that mount in a front-panel Bay - interfaced via a PATA-to-SATA Bridge Board to allow painless hot-swapping of the PATA drives, and full speed transfers (no Firewire Packet Conversion losses which DO slow down transfers). B/U Images of the OS's are also accomodated via Caddies and Ghost.

2x Plextor 740A 16x DVD-RW-DL drives (Nero allows ripping and burning to 2 or more drives at once, and it saves TONS of time)

20.1" Dell LCD/DVI @ native 1600x1200 (Extra Large Fonts + Large Icons are a must!)

RME Multiface

Antec SLK-3000 Mid-ATX Case w/ 120mm fan locations and 3 Silverstone 120mm fans on low/inaudible speed.

Scores over 8500 points in PCMARK-04 with a basic video card :shock: and it is fairly quiet, too! Beat that ;)

I moved my other 4GHz P4 to our rehearsal room, and I track band practice directly to removeable HD Caddies. I can simply pop out the caddy (no wires, no copying files, nothing) and pop in into my Home PC (the Dual Core), and start mixing away.

My Shuttle xPC 3GHz is not getting much use lately (replaced by the 4GHz P4), so I might turn it into a HTPC. It sure is quiet enough, and has 500Gigs of storage installed. All she needs is an appropriate video card to handle the DVR functions (I do love my DTV TiVo for this task, but the lack of easy file exporting to DVD's is somewhat annoying).

Ahh - I STILL love tweaking PC's.

Rock On :cool:

My DAW PC

After about 6 months of research, I built my DAW PC about 3 weeks ago. Here's what I chose:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (not overclocking at present), Asus A8R-MVP Radeon Express 200 Crossfire mobo (with BIOS revision 0402), 2 x 1GB Corsair Twinx3200C2 RAM (at 2.5-3-3-6-1T), Antec Phantom 500 pwr supply, ATI FireMV2200 128MB video card, 3 WD Caviar 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s HDs in a RAID 5 array, 2 x Asus DVD burners, WinXP SP2 with updates.

Audio interface is a Tascam FW1082 (with v1.50 drivers). It controls Cubase SX3.1 very nicely, and I think I'm going to enjoy the touch-sensitive faders.

Couldn't set up the RAID array until I updated the BIOS, even though the Asus website says the A8R-MVP supports RAID 5. I guess that's a sign of how the manufacturers crank 'em out before they're finished baking, eh? Anyway, once I flashed the BIOS, everything installed fine. I went with RAID 5 on the advice of an old friend who has built several PCs (he used to work for Digital on their mainframes). He seems to think that the fault tolerance was desirable over the potential performance overhead caused by the RAID's parity calculations. So far, it seems plenty quick to me.

Everything is very stable and I'm getting processor temps in the 35C range with the stock case and processor fans. However, I admittedly haven't been pushing the system very hard yet. I'm still tweaking some settings in BIOS and the OS to determine what will provide optimum performance.

This was a major upgrade for me, since my old rig was a Yamaha MD-8 minidisk recorder synced to a Win95 PC (Pentium 100!!!). I'll report back after I've completed a project or two and let you know how things are going.

My new DAW is as follows:

AMD 4400x2, on a ASUS mobo with nvidia chip, couple of hard drives, 1g of ram, 7300 nvidai graphics card, and Layla 24/96 sound card. The software is: Cubase se and reason 3.0....thats it

This is my first computer I ever built from scratch. I had no problems at all...eveything went smoooooth.

Best,
golok :twisted:

Sorry ladies!

heres mine.

WinXp Pro (NO Sp2!!!!),
AMD ATHLON 4200+ X2 64bit , 940pin
4 gb Ocz gold pc3200 ,
2 sataII WD Caviar drives(160/Os , 250/Data),
LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D ,
Enermax 660 wtt
ATI x1900 256mb ddr3.....
All in a server type rack mount

And to top everything off 3 Motu 2408 for 24 bit yummy-ness....

My little songwriting/bass tracking setup.

Macbook Pro 2.0ghz 100gb 7200 internal 1gb ram
Samsung 19" LCD
200gb 7200 fw recording drive
M-Audio Firewire Audiophile
M-Audio Axiom 25
Logic Pro 7.2.2
-Sibelius 3.1.1
Reason 3.0.5, strings and drumkit refils
Ableton Live 5.2, for the synths
-Bias Peak 4 with pile of ppc plugs, all torrent edition, :( . Don't have the money yet for Peak 5xt, soon though.
Akg k240's
Mesa m-2000 for bass di functions
Hotrodded P-Bass and J-Bass
5 string Fretless
5 String Acoustic Bass
1971 E.H. Roth Upright with Pickups.
I'm thinking I may get either a Yamaha i88x, since their relatively inexpensive and now that mLan's universal binary compatible for the good preamps, or I may just get a Apogee Mini-Me with a future student loan and some form of full range, not super expensive microphones for live XY or MS recording. Still learning, so I'll play it by ear, I'm desiring a six string fretless bass, so this stuff may be putoff for another year. Also, I'd love to get a Sadowsky Bass DI, but again, time is a factor. I can't wait to get my own versions of Peak and Sibelius, especially considering peak is UB now, and rosetta emulation sucks. Everything else I own on the list. Also, another future buy is Drumkits From Hell Superior: Custom and Vintage and the Waves SSL plugin bundle once it goes UB. Bah, too many things, too little money. After that, I cant think of much else personally. Anything else I'd desire, I could rent a studio to use, I hope.

My system is used for songwriting and tracking bass on friends compositions. Since I'm a student, probably going to end up buying protools m-powered for the student discount now, Would be awesome to not have to import my friends protools sessions the long way unless I wanted to work on them in Logic.

BTW, Logic is a hard ### mother######. I got the academic version for 300 bucks, and am glad I have all that power available, but cripes, after using my friends digi002 system, it seems a bit alien. At least it came with a real manual, unlike my friends digi002, and reading the plugin manual taught me alot about how audio processing functions on a general level.

New hardware just arrived, Core Duo Mac mini, will be running Logic pro and DP5 once i upgrade the software.

And maybe a little Wavelab, und virtualization.

Update: rolling with Logic Pro 8!! rock Solid

8) 8-)

My Daw!

G5 Dual 2.0, 3 gigs of ram, running Digital Performer 5 with no internet
LG 19' monitor
2 Fireface 800's
2 Channels Sebatron pres
4 Channels Sytek w/bb pres
2 Channels of Summit Pres
20+ microphones totaling about $9000
BBE Sonic Maximizer
2 RNC's
Alesis Masterlink
6 pairs of headphones, 2 are beyer 770's for mixing, the rest for tracking
event tr8's, upgade soon
I just need around 5 more channels of pres and 5 more mics, and a 24 channel Soundcraft Ghost or better and I feel like I could get somewhere close to a somewhat real studio.

HP Presario 6100 (laptop)
AMD 4100+ (2.4 ghz)
2 gigs pc2700 ram
100 gig 7200rpm internal HD (OS/progs)
160 gig 7200rpm external HD (Files)
E-MU 1616 for interface
M-Audio Luna
shure-sm58 (getting more soon)
*getting a rack of mic PREs soon to mic a drum set

mostly use sonar 5 producer

Hardware:
- Mac mini w/ OS 10.2
- Seagate 7200 rpm 80 Gig. external hard drive
- M-Audio Project Mix I/O (Firewire)
- USB expansion port module
- Edirol MA-10D digital monitors (Suck!!!! replacing ASAP)
- M-Audio Keystation 61 Midi controller
- *Adding Mackie Onyx 1200F soon.

Software:
- Pro Tools M-Powered v.7.1 (32 audio tracks)
- Waves Platinum Bundle
- Melodyne (much better than Auto-Tune IMO)
- M-Audio Key Rig synth module (cheap but decent sounds for starters)
- Native Instruments B4, Pro-53, FM-7, Battery, Spectral Delay

My DAW

Hi, i haven't got it yet but this is what i have in mind for my DAW, am i making the right choices?

Processor - AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ Dual Core AM2
MoBo - ASUS MV2 Athlon 64 x2
RAM - Kingston 2GB DDR2 (2x1GB)
Boot HD - 80GB Westerndigital Caviar SE ATA
Audio HD - 160GB Westerndigital Caviar SE SATA
Graphics - 128MB MSI Radeon X300SE
Burner - Samsung SH - S182D
PSU - Zalman ZM360B - APS (360W)

Is the Prcessor + MoBo compo ok?

Can anyone suggest a interface/soundcard around £300 that would run smooth with the MoBo?

Plus any other comment (good or bad) welcome?

thanks Ern :D

My DAW

Hi, i haven't got it yet but this is what i have in mind for my DAW, am i making the right choices?

Processor - AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ Dual Core AM2
MoBo - ASUS MV2 Athlon 64 x2
RAM - Kingston 2GB DDR2 (2x1GB)
Boot HD - 80GB Westerndigital Caviar SE ATA
Audio HD - 160GB Westerndigital Caviar SE SATA
Graphics - 128MB MSI Radeon X300SE
Burner - Samsung SH - S182D
PSU - Zalman ZM360B - APS (360W)

Is the Prcessor + MoBo compo ok?

Can anyone suggest a interface/soundcard around £300 that would run smooth with the MoBo?

Plus any other comment (good or bad) welcome?

thanks Ern :D