Heres a great site for storage info http://www.storagereview.com/.

RAID 0(zero) or striped will give faster reads and writes by writing and reading to two or more drives simultaneously. So data '1,2,3,4,5,6' striped accross two drives might go '1,2,3' to drive A and '4,5,6' to drive B. So two Maxtor 20GB 7200 RPM drives with max transfer rates of say 30Mb/sec would look like one 40GB hard drive yielding in theory 60Mb/sec max transfer. Actual transfer rates are slightly less (depending on how you set up your file system)but if you need faster disk transfer for more tracks RAID striping in a nice option.
Heres a great article for doing RAID in Windows2000 without having to buy additional hardware Toms Hardware. Tom was able to get up to 140Mb/sec using four drives. :cool:

Great stuff man!! I love it when everyone collaborates like this!! I used to have more time to search for articles like that but been bogged down lately!! Anyways...lets keep it coming..next topic will be about PCI card installation and common setups and practices to follow!!!
Opus

If you go RAID why not try RAID 5.

The first two drives write and the other two mirror. 4 times the speed, Now thats one sexy bitch :D Plus it offers great stabilty and if one drive goes bad another will rebuild what the bad drive lost.

A friend of mine has his servers set up to where when one drive goes bad(we're talking about one in a very large array, I'm talking Terabytes) it e-mails him and the company who made the faulty drive so he can replace the drive when needed and gets a free drive from the disk maker, if it's still under warranty. His set up is similar to RAID 5 but on a much larger scale. Hopefully in a few months I'm going to test this out on my DAW machine.

Now thats-ah-one-ah-spicy meat-ah-ball-ah!!

RAID is a good thing to talk about, as IMO that's where you start to see the big differences between IDE and SCSI.

With one single (say) 7200 rpm hard drive (at a time), you're not going to see much of a difference between ATA66, ATA100, ATA133, or the top couple of flavors of scsi- I'm sure there will be some differences between interfaces, but basically, all of these interface standards are capable of more throughput than the hard drive.

With RAID, however, you get to use hard drives together, which can eat up your interface bandwidth pretty quick.

The common RAID levels are 0, 1, and 5. RAID 0 is called striping, which was pretty well explained in another thread- it spreads data out over 2 or more disks and thus the total array is a lot faster. Down side is, you lose one drive, your data is toast. RAID 1 uses mirroring, which writes identical data to 2 or more drives at the same time. This is great for important stuff, because if you lose a drive, you still have everything, but it's not any faster than one hard drive. RAID 5 is striping with parity, which basically means it spreads data out over 3 or more hard drives, but it also spreads parity information over them all as well, and you can reconstruct your data from that information if one drive goes down. Not quite as fast as RAID 0 with the same number of disks, but a lot faster than one hard drive.

You can also nest layers of RAID- for example, with 4 drives, configurations of 01 (two pairs of striped drives mirrored, i.e., drives 1&2 and 3&4 are striped together for speed, and each pair gets a copy of the same data for backup) and 10 (the opposite- 1&2 and 3&4 are mirrored, and the pair is striped across) are pretty common. 05 is out there too.

There are other types of RAID, but some are proprietary- these three are the most common, I think. In my opinion, RAID 01 makes the most sense for recording.

Of course, it's going to cost you 4 drives and a RAID card to get 2 drives worth of space (because of the redundant mirroring).

Windows 2000, I think, can do RAID in software, but if you're really serious about it, a hardware RAID card is much more efficient.

With all that said, I think I am going to use a couple of SCSI drives for audio (one at a time), and back up pretty often. I don't need a gajillion tracks. :)

Jon your absolutely right about using a hardware controller for raid. I tried using win2k to stripe two drives and the performance was very flaky. Spend a little extra and get a RAID controller.

Lets face it over time things deteriorate and go back from whence they came. :)

I've had better stability with RAID than any other system. Go figure.

If your just staring out I'd recomend one IDE drive for audio and when you run out of space buy a new one.

Experiment, test the limits of your hardware so you know exactly what you can get out of your investment. And always have a back up if you plan on keeping what you've worked on no matter what type of storage set up you have.

No mention of 7200RPM exernal firewire drives. What do you guys think? Record directly to it, put it away until that project resmues? (have not heard any comments on pereformance) Or perhaps just use them as backup drives. Your old tape room is now a drive room! :)

I guess there's no mention of firewire drives due to the fact that they're not as popular as SCSI or IDE drives. People tend to go with what the mas public uses. There are a few firewire drive users but they tend to be laptop users than desktop users.
Firewire is great indeed! plug and play...well, er..sort of!!!
Opus :D

Hey, Garysjo - Opus is right about Firewire not being quite as popular, but it is a good idea - I am planning my 4th DAW, nearing the ritual "raping of the VISA" phase, and here's my plan -

The computer is going just outside the control room wall, wires thru a multi-baffled pass-thru, sitting on an elevated, enclosed, baffled and neoprene-isolated platform. The platform top will be two standard 20" 3-speed window fans, oriented like the two slopes of a gable roof and blowing up and out, with a top cover to keep airborne chunks out. The fans will be re-wired using an air-conditioning thermostat, so that as long as the temp inside the computer (server case) is below probably 85F, they will run on Low speed. When the temp hits setpoint, a Double Pole, Double Throw relay will switch the fans to High speed. This can be accomplished easily by using the wires to the 3-speed switch. The air inlet will be the entire bottom of the "cage", which will be expanded metal mesh with appropriate support cross-members - Under the mesh I will use two 20" square HEPA furnace filters - These are more restrictive, hence the extra cross-sectional area. I can get away with the machine being "outside" because my studio is a "room in a room" (although very much a "work in progress" - duh, whose isn't?)

As to firewire, I intend to use Internal IDE drives, 80 gb 7200's - there will be 5 of them, 4 used in Raid 0+1 for main recording drives, and 1 set up as 10 GB partition "C" drive, the rest as one big volume to be used as a "scratch pad" - When I go into the studio I will hit "R" for record, and the control room out's will ALWAYS be patched to a 2-channel sound card recorded to the "scratch pad" Then, any god-like passages that spew out of my demented (but not always repeatable) brain will be on a drive, and can be ported over to main recording drives, yada yada. (70 GB is more than a normal day's worth, recording continuously.)

FINALLY - I'm going to use a Firewire card with at least 2 outputs on this machine, so I can plug in whatever firewire HDD I want OUTSIDE where the noise belongs, and also plug in a firewire HUB which will go in the studio. This hub can be used to plug in a CD-RW, Firewire DVD-RW, DV Camera, whatever. This way, the only time ANY drive, even optical, will be making noise in the Studio is when I'm copying a mix to CD or DVD - all actual mixes will be made first to HDD, so the only noise IN the studio SHOULD be intentional. I plan to use Firewire HDD's for ANY customer work, plus as an expansion if(when) I run out of room on the 160 GB Raid. I also will use Firewire drives for "Nearline" backups of "WIP'S" (Works in Progress), and the DVD-R for "Offline" backups.

Anybody who want's a list of the Actual components I've finalized so far, feel free to email me : knight001@compuserve.com
(Once I get everything finalized and am ready to "Card-Rape", I'll post on this forum. (FWIW) Peace, Love, and NoSharedIRQ's, Steve

Steve...where on the west coast are you? If you're close to LA or somewhat close I'd like to check out your setup...
God-like passages...ahh, I love when that happens..thats why I cycle record in Nuendo!! lol
Demented brain..thats something I can relate to!!!
Opus

Holyshit knightfly, that's some cooling system! Are you overclocking or is that level of cooling required for a RAID system such as you describe? I'm not using RAID, 15GIG sys drive (IBM ATA100 7200RPM) and a 45gig audio drive, also IBM. My thoughts on firewire are really driven by the need for a viable backup solution. I'm sick of dealing with CDRW's and with the cost of HDD's coming down, it seems to make sense to have one per project. for studio owners you can sell the clisent a drive, just like the old days of selling tape :) Is anyone out there recording directly to firewire 7200 RPM drives, and what are your experiences??? Opus, thanks for starting this thread, it's been very valuable. i built my current system (with help) a year ago, I guess it's quite old by now!! These things age quicker than dogs!

no problem gary...I try the best I can to be as helpful as possible....
Ya know..been noticing a bunch of fellow Mass-Holes in here lately!! I kinda miss the whole Boston attitude!! These damn Cali people are too damn relaxed for a native bostonian!! lol
Altho they are starting to rub off on me..oh shit..I better get a fix of Kelly's roast beef before I do finally become one huh?!!
Opus :D

Hey Opus - I'm in bee-yootiful downtown Scio, Oregon - Santa Cruz, Ca is the closest I've ever been to LA for more than a few days...Right now, the system exists in yet another dank corner of my demented brain and on a couple dozen half-eaten slips of paper and price-watch print-outs - BTW, I'm sure there is a parallel discovery somewhere, (there usually is) but FYI my "brain", such as it is, invented a new chord the other day - it seems to be a "very minor augminished demented 9th", or at least close. Not sure what it sounds like yet, haven't been able to actually play one...

Hey Garysjo - I HAVE lived fairly close to you, I was stationed in Ayer, Ma at Ft. Devens 'way back when dirt was young and I was only a little bit old, hated every season everywhere on the east coast except fall...
On the subject of cooling - First, I am a devout "OverKiller" anytime I even remotely think something may bite me in the (rhymes with the first half of Massachusetts) In this "wind tunnel" will be at least two machines, one an 850 P3 with 4 hard drives, 3 are 7200rpm SCSI- The other is the one I'm about to order parts for- 2gHz P4, 1.5 gB DDR Ram, at least 5 internal 7200rpm drives, server case, 430 Watt power supply, and a partridge in a pear tree...
Two other "problems" I plan to solve may also require some real estate in the "box" - I intend to run the entire studio (except lights) on a 2200VA UPS which will then go thru an EquiTech 1.5KW Balanced Power transformer. I have read that typical studios (combination of bal/unbal cabling, etc.) improve noise floor by at least 12 dB, usually more like 20 simply by throwing about $1500 at it in the form of balanced power. (Think balanced audio - similar reasons) Go to equitech.com for a primer if you haven't already. The UPS is because I live on a hill with a great view - especially of all the things that fly by my house in the winter, like cows, tractors, etc. So, I am already running most of the studio on a 1400VA UPS. I have a couple of small incandescant lights on the UPS, so when the room gets dim in the middle of the "best damn gweeter solo I ever done did", I smile, keep playing, finish the track, save my work, shut down casually, and flip Mama Nature the big middle one... Really satisfying, ya know ?
Anyway, keep tuned, in about a week or two I should be holding a bleeding Visa in one hand (the other hand is non-a-yer-bizness) and I'll post a list of goodies and reasons, probably to the Opus-Never-Ending-Cause-Some-People-Never- Read-What's-Already-Been-Posted-This-Is-How-ya- Build-A-Computer Series... "Jist when ya think ya got all yer ducks in a row, one of 'em runs off to sell "AFLAC" insurance or somethin..."

Hey, I just realized (didn't I tell you I was slow?) I been talkin' coast-to-coast (Mass, Ca) No wonder my throat's dry, startin' to affect my belief system - right now, I believe I'll have a beer... Buy Guise ! I know, it's the lithium - I ran out... Steve

Hey Steve
A possible heads up here, I say possible because I'm not sure of the info.
During a discussion on balanced power on the 3D Audio forum, a tech posted that he was seeing many blown UPS systems, which he attributed to combination with balanced power systems. I'm also interested in this as I'm about to make the decision on a balance power system. I thought I'd post it here, as you reminded me, and maybe someone has a little info. Take care Logan

no problem gary...I try the best I can to be as helpful as possible....
Ya know..been noticing a bunch of fellow Mass-Holes in here lately!! I kinda miss the whole Boston attitude!! These damn Cali people are too damn relaxed for a native bostonian!! lol
Altho they are starting to rub off on me..oh shit..I better get a fix of Kelly's roast beef before I do finally become one huh?!!
Opus

lol, I didn't know you were a transplant Opus. i'm about 30 miles south of Boston close to the coast. Did you grow up in Boston or a suburb? Yes, even a south shore guy like myself can't resist an occasional Kelly's RB sandwich. It's funny, roast beef joints are a north shore phenom. in MA. You can't find one on the south shore.

Hey Garysjo - I HAVE lived fairly close to you, I was stationed in Ayer, Ma at Ft. Devens 'way back when dirt was young and I was only a little bit old, hated every season everywhere on the east coast except fall...
On the subject of cooling - First, I am a devout "OverKiller" anytime I even remotely think something may bite me in the (rhymes with the first half of Massachusetts) In this "wind tunnel" will be at least two machines, one an 850 P3 with 4 hard drives, 3 are 7200rpm SCSI- The other is the one I'm about to order parts for- 2gHz P4, 1.5 gB DDR Ram, at least 5 internal 7200rpm drives, server case, 430 Watt power supply, and a partridge in a pear tree...

Steve, I guess it's tough to appreciate any geographic location when people are yelling at you to get the fffff up at 4 AM :) yeh fall is a beautiful time of year particularly in the western part of MA. I couldn't live anywhere but near the water, I'm a boating bum in the summer. Starting to hate winters more and more, I'd move south if my kids wouldn't kill me, (15 girl, 11 boy) the studio biz situation couldn't be any worse than it is here in the Boston area. i suppose it's not much better anywhere. I used to freelance in the early 80's in sone decent 2" rooms that are all gone now. Now I'm playing with the DAW thing at home, preparing to build a room, which I've already had designed. My current system is an AMD 750 oc'd to 1.1. KT7 raid mobo, 512 mushkin ram, matrox dual head vid and the IBM drives I mentioned earlier. i'm running Logic 4.8 using the Hammerfall card feeding a DA7. I dig it so far, way different way of working than analog. I love the workflow, and the ability to totally recall a mix on any given day, editing abilities, etc. I definitely need to get some decent mics and front end to put some character into the sounds, however, I need to put out the fire on my visa first. You should put up some photos of your system, once it's done!

Gary

Gary
grew up in Suburbs...Marblehead...ya know..that small little yuppy sailing town :D
Yes, Roast Beef...still bleeding please
Transplant I am in a wierd sort of way
Shall I tell you my story...well, you're going to hear it anyways!! lol
So...age of 15 I bought my first 4 track machine to use with my Roland Alpha Juno-1 poly programmable synth...oh those where the days!!
Got so addicted to recording I got a Apple IICi(after I've been using a IIe for several years for playing games and writing basic...)Started with Galaxy and Vision of course...
Then I swithced to guitar and also started recording and mixing my friends stuff..live and in-basement recordings!!
17 I started building stages for concerts..real stages..RFK stadium in DC, Rich Stadium in Buffalo, Carrier Dome in Syracuse, NY..and many many more! My first show was Bon Jovi with Skid Row and Bad Company opening up...oh, the rock star was born at that moment!! After trying to decide which direction to take in life..that isafter a year of heavy partying at UMass Amherst(knicknamed ZooMass) I decided that Music was my life and headed to Berklee College Of Music for technology!! There i interened for Audio-One..David Frangioni. I learned how to wire and install patch-bays...how to use and record digital recording devices to a "T" I learned alot from his work and him. Great time...got to meet a lot of famous people and so forth...I alos interned a little bit at Blue Jay Recording Studios...great stuff there man..
Anyways...after Berklee I ended up at a machine shop for awhile to make ends meet...I ended up buying a Roland VS880!! My first major purchase..boy was that fun..recording friends stuff and mixing it down!! Ah, the world of digital medium was nice to me!!!
So, I trashed my Apple and bought myself a PC since it was affordable to me...I bought an Echo Gina, Mackie 1402, NS10 monitors and was on my way to composing and so forth..by that time I was truly enthralle with fixing and learning PC's..it fascinated me!!! I asked so many questions..messed up my mahcine on purpose just to learn how to restore it!! How fun you say! indeed...at that point all my friends and family were calling me up saying...HELP!!! lol
So, I then got a gig for a live sound company in NYC!! I went on a Raggae tour..oh was that fun indeed!!! lol
So I spent about 2 years in NYC working for the sound company and also had a stint working for CNN as an audio operator for CNN financial..got to say I hate working for TV...it's fucking boring(no offense to any one who enjoys it)
So, after a few I ended up quitting the live sound and not having any work..I ended up with the band Fountains of Wayne..greatband to work for..great bunch of guys..
December of 99...well, they decided they werent going to tour for quite some time..I was out of work..thats when I found Sweetwater..I thought, hey..they need a PC tech for audio tech support.
It combined the two most things I loved..computers and Audio..I figured what the hell!!!
So I ventured my way out to Indiana!!! It was pretty cool..I got to play with every toy possible..got tons of free software and learned a butload of stuff and gained a big reputation as being the Wiz Kid(also I was known as the Grim Reaper..but I wont get into that here!! lol)
So after a year and a half I got sick of the job..got too damn repitive. No challenge it seemed!! Well, I was talking with a company out here about a job and decided...fuck it. I'm moving out to LA to One...get out of the friggen cold weather finally..and Two...get into a place where I would find work..well, I did..and it found me too!!
So here I am in good ol LA..working for Apogee Electronics as a tech..much better than Sweetwater only in the aspect that I tech only 4 or 5 products and not 200+!!!! Hell of a lot easier I might say!!
Also do a ton of side work building PC's of course!! Teching studios...teaching inner city kids how to record and having a grand ol time as it is...
Hope you enjoyed my story...there's quite a lot of events in between but I dont need to bore you with those
Peace and Live you lives to the fullest people...since you never know when it will end
Opus

Hey, Logan - Yeah, there are a few things to watch out for with Balanced Power - Equitech.com has a small correspondence course worth of info on the subject. Nutshell - If you're going to use balanced power with a UPS, the UPS MUST be big enough to handle the load INTO the Balanced Power transformer, and you plug the UPS into the wall, then plug the BP transformer into the UPS, and run everything that's physically connected to each other, either by wires or chassis, on the balanced power. NO EXCEPTIONS ! Although it's definitely out of character, I won't expand on this here - you can read a LOT more on equitech.com (for my studio, I can run everything on less than 1500 watts, so an ET1.5R running off of an APC Smart2200 will be fine. Costs about $750 for the UPS, about $1500 for the Equitech, and pays for itself the first time you hear 20 dB less crap in your speakers, and ESPECIALLY when you can flip mother nature off after the whole neighborhood goes dark and you just calmly finish the track you were recording...

First of all, Everybody - great forum here, if we're not careful we may ALL learn enough to only waste money INTENTIONALLY on stuff that's really decadent, instead of buying crap that never was designed to actually work...

Hey Gary - Wow, 15 boys and 11 girls, maybe you should get all 26 of 'em part'time jobs and just retire (yeah, that WAS an intentional mis-understanding used as a feeble attempt at humor) "But serially fokes", been there done that and (unfortunately) it really isn't legal to "take 'em out just 'cause you brought 'em into this world..." The good news is (in my case anyway) the son I wanted to kill when he was 15 is now 30, has his own graphics business, and is looking at some expansions which may net me some audio/video gigs (commercials, voice-overs, etc.) So, "Step lightly - the toes you step on today may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow"...
I too am trying to get to the point of building some serious rooms - got a barn, 1/3 of which now contains the 1-room studio I built 12 years ago when I was still dumb enough to think egg cartons meant "sound proof" (since then I've read everything I could find by F. Alton Everest, Mike Shea, Dave Moulton, Roger Nichols, Bob Katz, Fred Schwartz (OK, Fred is the mailman, he just delivers the other guys...) . The other 2/3 of the barn is now a concrete slab, and the plan is to
(a) Replace the roof, adding plywood and heavy tar paper under new metal, AFTER building new trusses in place so they can hold the extra weight
(b) Finish the inside with 2 layers of sheet rock and a layer of MDF or Waferwood, everything glued except the first layer, eveything sitting on Neoprene or thousand-year guaranteed silicone caulk, wipers on door, 1 big sliding door (vehicle access for load-in/out)with foam surround and swing-out trolleys, t-nuts every 2 feet all the way around, so it can be hermetically sealed most of the time
(c)Build a floating floor/ceiling control room, after which the old control room will be erased
(d) Build large, medium, and small floated iso-booths where the old control room was, for acoustic drums, vocals, acoustic guitar, Leslie speaker, etc.
(e) Build a floated tracking room, either with double glass window facing the control room, or (more likely, since they're cheaper and less leakage)a few video monitors and LCD cameras.

All the above rooms will be similar construction, using 2 separate stud walls - from the outside in, 1/2" rock, 5/8" rock,stud, 1-1/2" space, next wall staggered studs relative to first, 3-1/2" insulation "woven" between studs, then studs, 5/8" rock, 1/2" rock, various wall treatment depending on room use and which part of the wall (diffusors, absorbers, hinged "tunable" absorbers, etc. )All walls sitting on 1/4" Neoprene, ceilings similar, hung on wires from trusses, isolated with 2-mode isolators (rubber+spring)
Stop !!! This sounds like a book report on F. Alton Everest's earlier book, "How to build a Small Budget Recording Studio from scratch (2nd Ed.) Just ordered what sounds like the newer version (1996) titled "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget" also by F. Alton Everest - Guy's gotta be at least 80 by now, but physics never change, they just get further discovered -

BTW, Gary - Welcome to the club, I doubt if a team of forensics experts could find the ashes of my Visa cards, I guess it's part of the job description ! Check out the Audio Technica 3035 mic if you need a good condenser for vocal, acoustic anything, etc. - Was in the local GC last week picking up my DM-24, cables, bridge, etc, and one of their guys was trying to "A/B/C" 3 mics for a customer thru a Mackie 32x8 and a set of HR's - When he couldn't get one of the mics to stop feeding back at about 250, I went over and set the trims up right , killed the EQ, balanced the apparent "lewdness", so the cust. could compare "apples to cider, at least" - The 3 mics were Shure KSM32, AT3035, and one of the Rodes, similar price range but don't remember the model # - The AT3035 made both the others cry and go home to mommy - I'm gonna buy a pair, probably next week (Just in case you thought I was kidding about that forensics team) Brought this up re: your mention of similar short-coming - Those mics are only $199 @ GC, and so far I haven't gotten an AudioTechnica mic I didn't like (have a 4033, ATM25, Pro25 - Really like the ATM25 for kick, acoustic bass, lower end of piano - first time I used that mic it came off the UPS truck, into my car, and downtown to a "freebie" mercheant's play day - Guy running sound was also the gweeter guy for a Beatles knock-off group, and they were also playing - He talked me into running sound for them, so I stuck the ATM25 up on kick and the Pro25 on snare - the board was this roached out BiAmp (brandname) board, real POS, 2 channels dead, 1 maybe, etc. The snare sounded pretty good w/EQ bypassed, but the kick (same settings) nailed me in the solar plexus and wouldn't quit. Good "slap" too - Mic was placed about 8" away from the beater contact point inside, offset from beater by 2-3", on a small boom. Anyway, the ATM25's can be had now for about $125 or so, think I gave $169 at the time.
Gotta go, time for another beer (after I soak my tired fingers in it, I may even drink it) Ever notice how similar "Visa" and "Viscera" look ?!??
Just a thought.... Steve

Hey Steve
Thanks for that info, i was concerned about the whole deal. I use a UPS now but haven't sprung for the balanced power deal yet. I'm in a similar situation as you designing and building my new room. I've got to lift the roof on my studio to get more head room, most of the material is bought andsitting in the gutted out space waithing for me to get the time to work on it. I'm murdering trees at this moment, for the extention that will be the new drum room. Try a mix after spending all day with a Stihl, man I hope I have some ears left when I get these 120 trees cut and milled.
Got to agree on the AT mics. I'm using stereo 4033s for alot of accoustic stuff and drum OH as well. Also use the 4050 and 4047. Lots of times we end up using the 4047 or 4050 instead of U87's for vocals.
If you've got a lad 30 you must be an old fart like myself. Unfortunately my boys are only 6 and 8 which keeps my well over 50 ass humping to keep up. I dream of having a 30 year old to help hump this timbre around. Man the only good thing about having young kids and being old is that I'll be checking out before the college bills come due
;-). Thanks for the info and good luck with the new rooms. Take care Logan

Yeah, Logan, dirt and rocks don't talk to us, 'cause their music is newer than ours... Seriously, I hope you're using really good ear-plugs for all the noisy crap - I think I caused the slight Tinnitus I'm now enjoying by not using anything around air hoses and tools. I have a Case 580 Backhoe I bought used, 3 chain saws, 2 weed eaters, and about a dozen more noise-makers that all help me try to save a little energy for FUN stuff, and I always wear at least a pair of the disposable plugs. Makes a big difference at the end of a day of mutilation - I used an air nailer ONCE without plugs, was reaching up under a roof overhang to nail an extension rafter for a small shed, had the exhaust of the nailer about 2 inches from my right ear - to this day, my head leans to the left because the right half of my brain is relocated there - so, from that day on, it's "no pluggie, no workie" for me.
Yeah, having my youngest kid beihg 30 is nice, in that I don't require 3 adrenalyn shots a day just to stay behind, but as far as the help goes, mine are both Type A's in the process of growing their own businesses, so I see one or the other about once a month even though the closest one is about 15 miles away. (Guess it's a two-way street, I have 'way too many Alligators in my (their) pond most of the time) I do have a couple of young guys with little money and enough of a desire to learn to be willing to trade fairly high ratio's of elbow grease for hands-on learning, so that may help my achin' back some. Time will tell, and all that. ( I firmly believe they're right when they say that excercise doesn't really make you live longer, it just seems like it...)
120 trees, man you're either standing in a field of pecker-poles (lodgepole pine, just in case that is a local term) or else that's gonna be one hell of a drum room ! Sounds like you have a Alaskan mill for your Stihl (or do they call it a "Canadian mill" up there ? Hope you like sharpening chains better than I do if you're gonna mill all that. I found a little saw shop in town that does chains for $2.50 to $3.00 depending on length, so I bought 2-3 chains for each saw, and durn near threw away my files. I just drop off all the chains at once, pick 'em up the next day, and do something more fun with the time it would have taken. I guess if I was further out, I would buy an electric sharpener, I have to be unbelievably bored to want to do mind-numbing stuff like that anymore. Hey, take some pix while you're mutilating, should be interesting. I plan to get one of the Nikon 885's pretty soon, and hope to remember to document this whole never-ending project. (Yeah, right...) Anyway, remember, if it's round, but has a bootlace tied around it, it just might NOT be a tree, and you should maybe pinch it first before firing up the chainsaw. I've found that the screams are not nearly as loud and don't last as long that way - Hey, here's a possible way to get at least a little bit of help from your kids - when mine were about that age, I was trying to get this big sugar pine stump out on a different place we had, this thing was about 45" across, I remember felling it with a Mac 10-10 (20" bar) to cut the notch, I had to do about a 10-12" plunge cut thru the center of the face after notching both sides as far as the bar would reach - Anyway, the little dozer I had at the time was almost as big as the stump, and I had dug all the roots I could reach and cut them with the saw, still couldn't get that bugger out - I finally told the kids I had seen the last rainbow stay on that stump for quite a while, and they could probably get to the gold pretty easy since I had already done most of the hard part. I casually mentioned that the gold was usually hidden under one of the roots, so they should dig around there, then gave each one a bucket and trowel. To this day, both of them get this squint in their eye when I mention it, guess I was the only one that saw the humor in it... Did finally get the stump out though - Anyway, glad I could help on the power thing, and may your saw always run out of gas just BEFORE you do... Steve

Hey, Logan - One other thing I forgot on the UPS/Balanced thing - Maybe another possible reason for the 3d tech guy and the "letting out of the smoke" ritual with UPS - could be they were trying to use cheaper UPS with a square wave output - even if they had things hooked up in the right order, etc., it's possible that the Square wave out could really not like the amount of inrush you can get with that much of an inductive load, and anything close to borderline sizing of the UPS could cause you to wish it was only bacon you smelled... That's why I'm going with the APC, their SMART series are all sinusoidal output except for the SmartVS (valu server) series, which are trapezoidal. Also, the Smart series are line-interactive, and don't wake up the battery til the power either dips below about 85 volts, or surges above about 145 or so. Within those ranges, they use multi-tapped transformers and some kind of processor to switch them in order to maintain 120 volts out. This is supposed to really save battery life. I got about 3 years out of the battery in the 1400VA unit I'm using now, before it woke me from a really productive composing session with its beeps - Anyway, I got most of the smart-ass stuff out of my system for a while with the previous post, so TTFN... Steve

Hey Steve
Yah, I always have the ear protecters on, still I wouldn't want to do any critical work for a few days after a bush session. Pecker pole , nope I"ve never heard that one. Mainly white pine and Balsam spruce and white cedar along with some poplar for roof boards. Actually the room will not be huge, 22x20x12, but there is a 12 foot drive shed under it so the timbres are 24 feet long for the walls I am supplying all the material for flooring and roofing and double walls as well as the timbre frame structure, it adds up.
I have a portable band saw mill that I can get right into the bush, it'll handle 28 foot logs about 30" on the butt, along with a 4wheel drive case tractor/loader it's pretty quick to mill the stuff.
My ups is a 1000 watt APC but that's as much as I know about the details. I'm at least a year away from the balanced power purchase so I'll research the details as I get closer.If i need a bigger UPS well that's the way it goes I can use the old one on the machine I use for midi stuff, which will be in a seperate room. I'm designing the wiring system so I can slot a balanced power unit in when I can afford it. Now I'm just trying to make sure that all the noisey stuff is on the opposite leg of my panel box from the audio circuits.
As I've gutted my existing two rooms, everything is set up in the house at the moment, which is cool 'cause I've got a pretty open space with some nice 26' ceilings and it works well for the few jobs I'm doing these days. In fact lately I've been trying to convince my wife that we should just add a walk through to the existing studio and build a new house instead of an expansion to the studio. Maybe that's why I keep finding the yellow pages open to the lawyer page ;-). Anyway hopefully we can continue to exchange ideas on studio building stuff as time goes on. Maybe we should start a thread back on the pro talk side so Opus doesn't get snippy about us polluting the DAW side ;-). Take care Logan

Keep the disussion here guys..it's very relevant!! Plus it's better to keep a discussion going where it started so those reading it can hear how it ends!! Lord knows I cant walk out of a movie at the end before you find out who the killer was!!!! So...who dunnit? lol
Keep it coming guys..it's just getting good!!
Opus :D

Well alright. along the lines of studio building and incorporating a DAW. How are you guys handling the placement of your nearfields and your computer moniters. I'm using a dual moniter setup with 2 whopping big 19" Flat View Sonics that really take up alot of room. I also use a big console ( Soundcrart Series 800). I'm trying to keep the nearfields I use (Tannoy Reveals) as far from the screens as possible but I'm having trouble getting a nice sweet spot happening. Also I'd eventually like to use four computer moniters when I get the midi system hooked into the rest of the system, and that really complicates matters.Has anyone tried having nearfiels up high pointing down to the sweet spot? Anyone have any ideas? I'm really trying to keep the control room as symetrical as possible. Im also finding that looking up at a screen all day is giving my neck alot of grief. Now if I wasn't using a console I'd build the screens into the desk in front of me, but that's not an option so tell me what your setup looks like. take care Logan

So, Logan, What kind of hydraulic pressure you gettin' on your Case loader, you got the engine over-clocked, how much room for diesel ? (hehe)

Opus, prob'ly can't tell, but just kidding - I'm the same way, I won't even start on a used paperback without a quick check to see that the last page isn't missing -

Gotta go guise, yesterday the UPS moron drove out of my driveway with some of my stuff because he didn't bother to honk like the sign says - coulda' been a newbie, I guess - they usually get freaked out with the dogs (2 Dobermans, the male is 160 #, stands over 31" at the shoulder, + a Chow-Rott cross that's just a little meaner (to strangers) than a Crock-A-Gator)
I figger if I fire a warning shot to the head I can slow him down enough to 'splain it to 'im... Yeah, I AM kidding, I usually aim for the foot...
But serially now folks, don't wanna miss my edit VCR, 8-9 more books on shit I can't afford, or the new surround amp to go with the 5 KRK's and Hafler sub - Speaking of subs, I'm hungry (wonder what that guy meant when he said I need to focus more... Oh, just in case you thought this particular post had any "socially redeeming value", FOOLED YA !! (I promise there'll be a LITTLE bit of meat in the NEXT sandwich...)

Peace, Love, and Braver UPS Guise... Steve

Hey, Logan - Way to sneak in a post while I was blathering on - Don't EVER do that again !
After I snare the UPS dude I'll try to convert some of the (very) basic CAD drawings I've done while trying to figger out just what you're talking about. Basically I'm going to build a huge desk/rack/bridge/whatever from scratch, and even MY prolific fingers would fall off before I could describe it without "lotsa' purty pitchurs" - I'll get back to you AFTER "goodie-time"... Steve

I know I've got everybody hanging on my every erudite utterance by now (yeah, right) but I gotta take a day or two to play catch-up - I found out after the last post that if anybody wants graphics from me, I'm going to have to figure out what format and email them. Sooooo, after I shot the UPS guy in the foot, thereby having to carry all the crap (good crap though) into the house myself, I (finally) got the ball rolling on a website, business licence, domain name, non-traceable PO box, ditto business voice mail, etc - Also got big-time sticker shock on DDR ram, am now looking at 2 other MoBo's - Didn't like the "lite" raid bios on the built-on Promise on the Gigabyte boards, can't get the .pdf to download for the manual on the Abit raid boards (HighPoint raid) looks like ya get a choice - somewhat slower MoBo with DDR and ATA133 Raid, or faster MoBo with RDRAM and ATA100 raid. Looks like the Gigabyte board with the ATA100 Promise raid will also let you use the 3-4 ata connectors as 2 more "normal" ide channels. Gotta think about that one... What that board WON'T let you do (if I'm reading the manual right) is do Raid 0+1. Hard to tell for sure, since they all are written by people who use English as their 4th or 5th language... (Sure is easy to bitch when you're an arrogant freakin' American that only SPEAKS 1 language...)

Right now, I think I'm leaning toward faster motherboard (i850, RDRAM) and a little slower drives (ATA 100) The reason: here's a paste-in from an email answer to one of our readers who asked about the comment I made regarding i850 chipsets (He made me think - thanks Mike, now I'm gonna have to kill you...) Here tis -

"any additional
information on the Intel 850 mobo problem you referenced from reading an article or something at anandtech.com.
I could not find what you were referring to on that site. If you have more info or could direct me I would appreciate it.

I am in the process of building a new machine with a P-4 1.8 Northwood and I have the Intel 850MV mobo.
I wanted to use the Rambus because it looks to me more like it will not date itself as fast as some of the other memory has in the past.

I checked on this at the Intel site and there was no reference to any problem of that nature. I may have missed something."
Part of my answer:
"You almost got me on that one - had to look awhile. Here is the short answer from the .pdf -

5. Sustained PCI Bandwidth
Problem: During a memory read multiple operation, a PCI master will read more than one complete cache
line from memory. In this situation, the MCH pre-fetches information from memory in order to
provide optimal performance. However, the MCH cannot provide information to the PCI master
fast enough. Therefore, the Intel® 82801BA terminates the read cycle early to free up the PCI bus
for other PCI masters to claim.
Implication: The early termination limits the maximum bandwidth to ~90 MB/s.
Workaround: None
Status: There are no plans to fix this erratum."

This last may explain why I can NOT find a MoBo with the 850 chipset AND ATA133 Raid - Why bother?

May be a moot point for all I know, here's more of my answer to Mike -
"On the first part, here is another thought: If you do the math for a TRUE sustained throughput of 90 MB/Sec., figuring worst case
at 24 bit, 96kHz sample rate - 3 bytes x 96,000 (ignoring the 1000 vs 1024 crap for now) = 288kb per track/second or .288 MB per track second. (figuring it from real world values, you actually get .2993 MB/track second in mono. So, a 48 track (24 stereo) project will only theoretically require a sustained thruput off disk of about 14.367 MB/Sec. - So, I figure if you keep your drives defragged and the machine is set up right in every way possible, the above discussion would need to happen when you get to 300 tracks at 24/96, or about 750 tracks at 16/44.1 . I know theory doesn't mean squat here other than general ball-parks, but still, !!?!?"

Food for thought, Soul food for suckers, who knows - all I know is on my old DAW (450 P2, 256mb, 10gB IDE boot drive, 18.2gB U2SCSI with Adaptec on-board 2960U2W controller), it never would behcnmark faster than about 12 MB/Sec, and I have one project in Samplitude that is 19 STEREO (38 mono) tracks out of a DSP Factory, with Samplitude set for 32 bit float/storage, the files are huge so they really must be 32bit, and that machine plays back all tracks fine as long as I don't breath, add ANY plug-ins, etc.

So, that would lead me to believe that I need more DSP power before I need more disk power. This is what's making me lean toward the i850 MoBo with ATA100 stuff. (Both MoBo's have 6 PCI slots, so if I have to I can always kill the onboard Raid and buy a Promise 133. As of today, the RDRAM (1 GB) will cost me about $320 more than the same amount of DDR. (Heads, tails, stand-on-edge, there goes another duck to sell AFLAC Insurance...) Anyway, I'll catch up in a day or two -

Sorry , Logan - I'm still working on getting you some graphics so I don't have to try to explain all the convoluted crap I've been thru getting to a workable ergonomic on monitors, CRT's, chairs, etc. Send me an email @ knight001@compuserve.com and It'll probably get done faster.

BTW, once the site is up my email will be easier to recky-member - (Not yet tho, use the one up above) pretty soon it'll be Steveknightfly.com - Pretty cool fer a guy "outstanding in his field", huh ? Later guise... Steve

opus,

Thanks for the background. Marblehead is a beautiful area, we cruise up to that area once or twice a season. Pickering Wharf, Annousquam (spelled that wrong) river in Gloucester, etc. You wouldn't believe the real estate values in Marbehead these days. I too am a Bezerklee grad, (1983). It must have been cool working w/Frangioni.

Knightfly, you are a funny dude!! I've enjoyed your posts. Not just the humor, but for content as well. You have to post photos on your site when your done.

knightfly,

One more thing, I know this is a bit off topic for this thread, but how would you compare the AT3035 vs. AT4050?

thanks

Thanks Gary - The one thing that's kept my sanity (hidden away from everyone) over the years is the ability to find something to laugh at/about in any situation !! (He exclaimed) One of my (Numerous - rhymes with humourous) favorite sayings is - "Nothing is so scary that it cannot be laughed at, modified, run away from, or (in desperation) killed"

Butt cereally ( I really am a cereal killer, have hot oatmeal almost every morning) on the mic thing - Since I don't own and haven't used an AT 4050, here's the best I can do (notice that even tho I am DEFINITELY a BS-er, I will NOT BS you on things that should be serious) Actually, I do have just a teensy bit of info on the 4050 - My best friend, who now lives in Colorado, used one to record his wife on their first (only, so far) CD - DA-88, not sure which pre or anything else, but I know what she sounds like from when we were in a band together, and even tho he is a guitarist and sometimes tries to bury the vocal so it won't get in the way of his 37 guitar tracks (yes, exageration IS part of BS) her vocal sounded just like her and as simply as "the verbose one" can put it, great !

First, the 3035 is 3 for the price of 1 - All things being equal, that makes it look good (but of course they're NOT equal...)

Second, the 3035 is a single-pattern, cardioid only (don't remember if it was super, hyper, etc.) Whereas the 4050 is a dual diaphragm, therefore capable of multi-pattern. If you NEED the other patterns, end of comparison. Otherwise, due to design differences the two HAVE to sound at least a little different, even with the 4050 set to cardioid - with two diaphragms, the acoustic path inside the mic will change (relative to the 3035)
What the 3035 reminded me of was my AT 4033, which was $600 when I bought it, and now is available re-issued for $299 mail order or at GC -

Bottom (probably NOT last, I just like to talk dirty) - I was going to get a pair of the 4033 V.2's for stereo stuff, overheads, piano, acoustic guitar, etc. but as good as the 3035's sounded I'm gonna get a pair of them instead, and put the $200 difference into the Nanosyncs I need to get all my digital stuff to behave and sync to whatever I throw at it. (either that, or save it to buy 3 square feet of acoustic foam) (I know it's different, but does anybody else wonder what makes it worth $4 a square foot other than price-fixing?) Definitely gonna re-read F. Alton Everest's books before, during and after (I should live so long) building the rest of the studio complex (boy is THAT a well-chosen word) - He (Everest, the man, not the mountain) has a lot of "build-yer-own" work-arounds on "acoustics for the un-rich" Sometimes I think that if, in the quest for "sound without sound", I'm stupid enough to put on just one more "hat", my neck will break and I won't have to worry about it anymore.

There, Gary - and you thought YOU could dissemble - "Take That!" (Sorry Opus - hope you had so much fun you forgot what we were REALLY 'sposed to be talkin' about here) Buy, Guise - (Then send it to ME, hehe)... Steve

Originally posted by knightfly:
as long as the temp inside the computer (server case) is below probably 85F, they will run on Low speed. When the temp hits setpoint, a Double Pole, Double Throw relay will switch the fans to High speed. This can be accomplished easily by using the wires to the 3-speed switch. Steve

shit, and all i was able to figure out was how to disconnect the thermostat entirely on the damn old freebee AC unit so it's full on all the time (it handles both the machine closet and my room, and was shutting off WAY to often to do any good, even on it's coldest setting). don't i feel like an ignoramous... :(

Hey Rader - If anything that spewed out of my (usually) Hi-quantity hole was a help to you, that's good - I like being able to repay favors, even if it's an accident ! The more of my posts you read, the more you'll find that beside wanting to play with toys for a living, I'm kind of a (sometimes frustrated) inventor. For example, instead of using the $140 a pair (and 2" too short for my setup) nearfield stands for my rear surrounds, and instead of welding up a set to my specs (which I have the equipment and expertise for) I'm going to buy some 6" schedule 80 CPVC pipe, matching glue-flanges, and some 3/4" PVC sheet and build a pair. This is the plan - cut the heavy-wall 6" PVC pipe to the required height of the stand, minus two thicknesses of the 3/4" sheet, minus the distance from each glue flange's face to the bottom of the glue socket - drill and tap holes in both top and bottom 3/4" PVC plates to match the holes in the glue-on flanges, use PVC bolts (All this stuff can be gotten at industrial pipe place if you can convince them to sell to an individual, or if you know someone who works at a plant that buys from them - glue the pvc pipe into both flanges, one on each end, then rough up the PVC plates where the flange will attach, mix some epoxy and quickly bolt the flange on so that the bolts hold the flange tight against the plate while the epoxy sets up(the plates will be the base and shelf of the speaker stand) - After the glue dries, drill a hole the correct tap size for 1/2" pipe, tap the hole, fill the inside with sand, insert a pipe plug, add 1/2" of heavy foam to the top for isolation, and voila - speaker stands for about $35-40 each, the height YOU want, much lower resonance than steel, non-magnetic, rust-proof, and paintable if you knock off the sheen with ScotchBrite or steel wool. If you use spikes on the base, you can use a normal "stick out of the hole" kind of pipe plug - otherwise, try to find a recessed "allen head" or "socket head" pipe plug, tap the hole pretty deep, and the plug will fit completely flush.
If somebody out there wants to build a set before I get the chance to, let me know if they work - no sense in ME wasting time if they're no good (Yeah, I'm kidding again - whooda thunkit...)
BTW, these could probably be built with schedule 40 if it's easier to find, 6" shouldn't bend with the weight of a near-field bearing straight down on it.
Well, I gotta get up early ma~nana (that's the closest I could get the tilde on this cheesy computer) so buy buy (the economy NEEDS you, boy... Steve

Hey Steve...the place you lost me on the speaker stands is the 1/2" pipe part for sand-fillin' reasons....why not complete the base assembly 1st and the fill the big tube up w/sand, then put the top together? sure be alot faster/cleaner to pour the damn sand in. maybe you could try filling w/concrete too, if you wanted skinnier pipe or bends or something...

actually though, you kinda lost me when it was clear the stuff probably isn't available at the local Home Depot. when i have to explain what i want, when i don't know exactly what i'm talking about, to those specialty shops who are used to dealing w/folks who do know what they're talking about...well, let's just say social human interaction isn't one of my forte's and leave it at that... :(

but if you can think up a way to keep this old AC unit from frosting up all the time due to my thermostat mangling, that'd be pretty, um, cool :D ...scott

Hey Scott - First, in spite of my "Anal Dementia" condition (twisted asshole) I sometimes look too hard at little things (no SA comments, I get enough of those from my wife) My reason for the plug is not so I can take 10 times as long to fill with sand (even tho it probably will) but so I can add more sand when it settles due to constant vibration ( I'm going to put my plug in the top plate, recessed, under the foam pad the nearfield sits on) I've had enough problems in lives past regarding resonant things in the sound field that I don't want any resonant cavities messing up my perceptions. I guess if you didn't want to mess with the plug, you could fasten a "real" (no batteries, not shaped like a banana) vibrator to the column after the sand was in and before the top goes on, and let the sand compact as much as possible.

On the subject of availability, I should have warned that this is a "TIP" (Thought In Process) and not yet a "WIP" - So, I have yet to nail down sources for some of the pieces. I just recently "retired" (read "Got Tired of the Sleazy Bastards that ran it") from an Industrial Instrumentation type gig - Upside - lotsa neat materials in the scrap bins to take home cheap or free. Downside - Assholes think $20/hr is too much to pay people for exposing them to stuff that was outlawed by the Geneva Convention in war-time, so now I'm one huge "WIP" the end result of which is to do whatever lucrative things I can that involve the fun toys I have/will accumulate.

The "nutshell" on this - email me at knight001@compuserve.com, and as soon as I get the time to lock down part names and #'s (probably a week or two) I'll send them to you. If you're in more of a hurry, the first place I'm going to look after Home Depot goes "Huh???" is a place (we have them here, not sure about less agricultural areas) which deals in irrigation systems and equipment. They should have the larger sizes of pipe, not sure about the flanges or the PVC sheet. Guess I should filter the crap that flies off the top of my head - I know how I personally feel about "vaporware"...

About the A/C - Since the ice is caused by trying to cool too much with too high humidity (I'm not a HVAC tech, just observation) you might try adding a de-humidifier. I have one I use in the studio (not while recording, as yet it's all one room) I got it from a thrift shop 2-3 years ago - has a removable catch pan, holds about a gallon - for a permanent install, it has a blind hose male sticking out that can be opened with a knife or drill, so you wouldn't have to keep enptying it. Mine fills up and shuts off about every 3-4 days, depending on conditions outside, etc. (Beautiful sunny Oregon, our sunshine is better 'cause you can save it in a Mason jar for later, maybe even drink it if you run out of beer) The lower you can get the humidity, the longer the A/C should go before freezing up, just remember that too low humidity can screw up stuff, especially stringed instruments - Now you have the sum of my info on A/C - most of the year in my neck of the woods we need heat and lower humidity instead.