Guelph_Guy, post: 435990, member: 47293 wrote: The units are ddr3 , personally, I'm not sure if I would see even a difference in ram speed for the applications I run , I know it would show rendering or video processing. Maybe there's some advantage to faster ram to support vst effects processing.
The biggest bang is still the SSD by far,

Seems to be the consensus around the audio forums.

Your setup seems nice and solid. The focusrite liquid processing is excellent. It went largely in noticed, but I used a liquid mix for years, it's dsp was killer.

Motu is what I consider a gatekeeper to professional audio. I use motu 2488's and 828's over at the studios. They are solid performers. I think the faults when does long with mid/budget type interfaces/converters is tri-fold. Modest recording levels are a must, as they are not forgiving and start to thin out quickly. Lots of open mics at once is also a weak area as they lesser products don't stack as well and the buildup is a bit unpleasant. Third is how they take post processing. I find that there is a difference in how mid/budget level gear takes to eq and compression. In general I think less is more with plugins, but more so with that stuff. I think it exposes things a bit more and thins them out and makes them a bit grainy and small. This can happen with any signal and plugins.

Since your household is primarily DI and electronic based you bypass a lot of these shortcomings.

Motu is very respectable. When you consider the next jump up is apogee or prism , the cost triples and sound gets incrementally better. Again much more of a difference when live mics and pres are the main source. And everything has to live up to the same potential. Too many times people mistakenly have very nice outboard into a budget interface or vice versa. A particular studio I know of has some top end transformer based pres and excellent mics, going into a budget Roland interface. You can hear the lack of sonic headroom in the final product.

A lot of people live their jbls, my buddy has 5 of them. A very well known tech I know also has a pair. Jbls aren't my favs but are certainly a long standing product.

Plenty of fun toys over your neck of the woods eh!?

My personal gear list is pretty budget. I have an m-audio FireWire interface from about 8 years ago. I has a Tascam m-30 mixer with transformer coupler pres and eq on all 8 channels, no phantom power. I got it for $25 and its from the late 70's. I would put it up against and pre and or eq in the under $599 range. It's surprisingly good. Especially at $3 a channel. In also use a Tascam portastudio cassette machine once in a while. I do a fair amount of gritty rock / garage / metal, the rest is clean pop. I don't think good gear necessarily has to be expensive, although most of it is. I gave my Art pre amp to the studio and my DBx compressor as well. Another couple of bargain performers.

My mics are pedestrian, 3 sm57s, an AT 3035 which is the best budget LDC hands down, and a rode nt-a (hate it), and a 414. With mics especially being so important, I started w time tested pieces.

The interface is not very good, but has midi and adat so that's why I'm keeping thru this round of upgrades. It was an upgrade from a sound blaster external usb soundcard lol

I'm upgrading to something boutique conversion wise in a year or so after the daw is running strong. I only use a couple channels at a time so my outboard will be a combo of tried and tested and a couple state of the art.

I think pre amps are very overrated as far as texture and overall contribution to the sound so I prefer eqs at least along w them, or a full channel strip. I like to get texture and I find eqs and comps have that in spades relative to pres. I started on that portastudio so eq has always been part of my workflow.

I use a set of mackie hr8 mk2 monitors.

I'm selling off a lot of my guitar gear, just about everything. And gear in general. If it's not completely necessary, special, or if it's redundant (unintentionally) it's gone. I don't really own anything 'high end' bedsides my guitar, and my old amps.

well.. plenty of used toys and as long as they come out of a studio and are well maintained. I don't mind grabbing them.. alot of the media production houses flip out gear pretty much yearly now, in with the new and out with the old.

I've got a Tascam tm d8000 digital console which I picked up as well , it's a beast but a bit overkill if you just want to lay down an idea... there's some TC helicon and lexicon gear and some antares in the rack for fun .. When I was putting things together I really was clueless and did alot of reading, but even with all the reading there were decisions I struggled with .. things like how many channels do I need ? Seems like a simple question but I was having friends drop in to jam so more channels needed.. So yes I've made a few mistakes.. But the goal was to try to find a pre amp that would have more then one character. I wanted more flavors to play with , Avalon 737sp's , or an API a2d, neve.. U/A you can find it here fine. I wasn't too concerned about the modelling or emulation... All that mattered was I had a tool which sounded pleasing to my ear.. these units sound pretty good to me... and I wanted to stay in the digital domain from front to back..
At the end of the day, the MOTU 2408 /1296's are just data converters.. from focusrite aes/ebu through the MOTU to s/pdif to the monitoring chain.. I figured it was a pretty good start for a reasonably budget home studio.. Even though I'm more DI line input, I do have some mikes in the closet as well.. the conventional fair , Shure 57/58's, SM7B, ev re-20 and akg 214/414's , no Neumann yet but to be honest I don't have a great VOX setup or booth, so the mikes capabilities would be limited by my environment...

Well, at the end of the day, it's still the engineer that makes it sound right , I think the difference from mid to high end is the high end gear can get you there quicker .
I have a line 6 pod xt pro rackmount guitar processor, I had never used it to record with as I never put much faith in the quality of the conversion. An engineer on another forum set me straight, I asked if anybody had recorded using the pod interface and had an example, he sent an example and I was floored ...So I guess you can still make a silk purse out of a pigs ear (or the other end). I was quite humbled by that ... it shows that people are very resourceful when they have a limited amount of equipment so they know the gear inside and out , they can pull maximum performance out of it as they have to ..They may not have any other gear to go to ...!!!

Yea man, I agree with that to a certain extent. I know at the studio I've heard various levels of quality come from the same gear, by different users. Much of it is related to the room and the performers, but the engineer plays a large part as well.

There is a point where the gear/room becomes the limiting factor, and I do believe there is a ceiling of quality that can be reached, on any level. Having first class performers, songs, rooms, and gear, all at once is an evasive part of this world. It's part of what keeps me hungry (literally and figuratively) as an engineer. And it's true in my mind that a good song will shine thru anything but poor production without a second thought. Particularly to the end listener who does not in anyway listen qualitatively, just for content.

It's extremely easy to get hung up on minutia, be it a gold plated conntector, or an 'imperfection' in a recording or performance. I've fallen guilty to it, and so has just about everyone I've worked with and talked to. The day it stops being fun (overall) is the day I hang it up. I've been fortunate to have worked steadily since i stopped attending business school at the end of my junior year. Having to not have any other formal job is a luxury, one that requires sacrifice. I've done my fair share of odd jobs and side work. But mostly it's audio related. Everything but rent has been paid for by audio. Phone, food, car, gear, Ect. I've sacrificed certain things like better clothes, vacations, relationships, Ect. I've spent a week straight at the studio without going home. 28 hours straight of construction to meet a deadline for the studio. Thousands of free hours getting projects up to snuff, becuase budgets ran dry. Being 31 living on my parents couch is both a blessing and a curse depending on who's eyes are seeing it, but that will change with time.

Sylvia Massey (tool, system of a down) put it the best I've ever heard. She said "audio is not a job, it's a lifestyle" and that has proven true to me and everyone I know in "the life".

This doesn't make me any more of an engineer than a hobbyist weekend warrior or other person who got the bug. I've always found its a common ground among people who would not otherwise be connected. And skills and gear simply don't matter as long as the love is there on some level. I find that elitist attitudes to be offensive to the art, and I've seen a few over the years. Mostly good generous people overall, and hopefully I'm considered the same. Debate and conversation is healthy as long as ego isn't he beginning and the end.

Music is beautiful in a sense that it is motion itself, it's energy. The technology around it is no different. It's all part of the show.

So my bottom line is never settle for less and do the best you can with what you got. It's certainly always fun to get a new toy and put it through its paces, as GAS (gear aquisition syndrome) is a bug we all get bit by.

Well I think I've settled on a final purchase list for the new setup, at least to get it all unboxed and running. The idea behind this system is to be a closed system like radar or a hard oak recorder. This means once it's running they'll be no new installs of software, plugins, os tweaks, hardware, for a while or unless deemed necessary. In theory this machine should be able to do what we it does, limitations and all, fully and completely for many many years. Though it will only be 'current' for 2-3 years, and 5-6 years will most likely render it obselete where it will take on new duties or continue as is elsewhere perhaps in a spare room or practice space Ect.
Any imput is certainly welcomed as this is going to likely be the last revision.

So here goes:

Computer- Lenovo ideacentre

PSU- Corsair Ax860 (860w) ($160)

Hard Drives-

SSD-

2/3x- Samsung sm863
-250gb OS ($170)

-250gb Samples (BFD3, samplitude suite, Vienna ensemble pro5) <-150gb ($170)may Get 500gb ($300)Cost depenendent

500gb Audio ($300) only if PCIe drive isn't compatible.

-OR-

PCIe- Samsung sm951 500gb- audio ($319)

(Will start with 1x 500gb pcie first, which will be audio drive. If pcie doesn't work, 500gb SSD will be used as audio drive, and 250gb ssd will be assigned to samples. Either way only 1, 500gb SSD will be purchased due to cost.)

Hybrid- (in external usb 3.0 case)

1tb- music collection/general storage. (No cost, stock w computer)

Thumb-

64gb- current project backup

EXTERNAL HDD/SSD ENCLOSURE-

Icy Dock- ice cube 4 bay usb 3.0/esata raid enclosure (6tb per bay capacity) ($179)

- will house music/general storage hybrid, raid backup of audio drive (drives undetermined, likely Wd black, or Seagate enterprise 4-6tb)
Or more likely the cheapest drives I can find

Accessories

FireWire/esata pcie card-$30 (for audio interface, backup enclosure)

Pcie m.2 adapter- addonics pcie 3.0 4 lane card ($26)

SOFTWARE-

Windows 10 pro ($149)

Samplitude pro x suite (own)

Xara web designer 11 premium (own)

Xara movie edit pro premium ($129)

Pro Tools Free (freeware from avid)

Pro Tools HD (running native interface, no hdx/hd native card) ) ($800-1200) this is the last piece of software, price varies due to 3rd party sale on eBay. Will be upped in priority IF protools free doesn't handle my old protools sessions (lol the whole reason for getting a computer, was supposed to be basic $300 cpu for file transfers only, until custom built) things change. A key factor tonthe PTHD 12 license, is it comes w versions 9-12, 9 is the last version to support Rtas pluggin format. All of my old sessions are from PT mpowered 7, 32bit, with RTAS pluggin format. (Fingers crossed here)

Waves Native Power Pack- (own lincense for version 7) upgrade cost $69. Pluggin pack includes about 10 basic waves plugins.

Vienna Instruments Ensemble Pro 5 - orchestral samples ($250)

BFD3- core package ($350) possibly cheaper as upgrade from old BFD, most likely not. :(

-OR-

XLN Audio Addictive Drums 2- ($129) significantly cheaper than BFD, have to try. I very much liked AD 1 when I tried a demo some years back

Triggering (audio to midi/replacement)- drumagog 5 platinum, or slate trigger ex

Damn this stuff is expensive lol

Google Sketchup- free!!!

I think that rounds out the hardware/software set for the computer. Fortunately the innitial buy in is the most expensive part, and some software allows multiple installs. Still unsure of what to do w the extra stock power supply and ram from the computer. Might just be a loss.

NAS DRIVE

Qnap Ts 251- (own) wish I sprung for tha quad core version for $60 extra but it's too late to return, and this was supposed to be just for backups and family records. I want to use this to learn about virtualization and remote acces and remote machines. In fact this whole system is intended to be a 'mockup' of a first class version of the same thing, but that's a significantly deeper investment. This is the first drive in the product line that offers the full feature set the others have. Great starter, still wish I got the quad core, but I console my obsessiveness by saying when I outgrow/fully understand this one, I'll be shooting for much bigger/better than simply the quad core of this drive.

HDD

2tb Seagate 'NAS' drive- (own) (mainly for project archive, of which I have about 400gb)

6tb 'NAS' or 'enterprise' drive- ($175-275) likely western digital, or Seagate. Looking for cheap and reliable, as the above list is as scary now as it was when I made the spreadsheet. Come on Moore's law work with me now.

Thumb- 64gb current project backup.

OTHER ACESSORIES

Triplite1000/1,500 watt isolation transformer-($175-300) for clean power to the cpu, powered speakers, and interface

Basic furman power conditioner- for its front panel power switch.

If there is no 'always on' outlet in the conditioner, I'll also include a basic surge protector for the NAS, or possibly an ISO transformer, which has surge protection. ($15-125)

Well that's all I can think of for now. I have a 32" hdtv for a screen and will be purchasing a similar sized 4K tv for the cpu's video editing section. Also a 4K or HD projector will round out the visuals depending on when I get that far. But a projector is on the must list.

For monitoring I'm going to start w a dennon 7.2 receiver w atmos pass thru (hopefully), and my Bose speakers, the surrounds I was actually surprised to see in a comercial theater. Got them at a yard sale for $100, still need the two woofers as I donated my Cambridge sound works 7.1 to my dad.

I have my mackie hr8's for stereo.

Eventually I'll upgrade to jbl or b&w passive and crown DCA digital cinema amps. But that will come along with phase two in conjunction with high end converters, and the dangerous st 7.2 monitor controller. I'll probably need a new computer by then as I'm anticipating about 3-5 years before phase 2.

Plenty to keep me busy learning, then playing!! Maybe just maybe, I'll actually finish a complete song of mine, as my personal stuff is stuck in riffs and demos. All my finished stuff is other people's material, or live gigs that are just memories.

Cheers! Fwiw.

-Kyle

Quite the shopping list , does the Lenovo take a conventional power supply?, or does it have a custom power harness? Just asking as the HP has a custom power supply. I went cheap on power conditioners..I bought the Art pro audio PB4X4 instead. I also put in all new power distribution from my power panel in the basement.. Solid common ground etch.

Yeah man getting it right at the source is the way to go, power wise too. The next best thing is an isolation transformer, as it has its own isolated ground it helps keep other household noisemakers like fridges and ac's out of the power. When my house happens I'm probably put a few isolated ground circuits in. Especially with high powered cinema amps.

Power conditioners don't do that although they advertise they clean up power and reduce hums. I just like the front mounted power switch, and the nice clean look when the plugs are organized in the back. Otherwise I'd use the basic power strips.

I for some reason like furman, they have an (mx-8?) power conditioner for like $60.

Lol yeah the shopping list, I hope to aquire everything over the next 6months. I'm in a phase where I just want everything together with no holes so I don't have to think about equipment for a while. I spent a hefty amount on my guitar rig when I got a full stack and pedals, all at once, and I have it for years without issue, and without the inclination to buy more for it. This is actually the first purpose dedicated computer I'll have owned so, it has been a learning experience, and it's only begun.

Good call on the power supply size. I'll call Lenovo but they probably won't know (ugh lol)

Gonna have to make sure. It's looking like I'm gonna have to take this computer apart sooner than i wanted too. I.e. Before I have all the parts.

Lenovo literally advertises this computer as highly upgradable, it's literally a selling point. You would think they'd have better literature on it.

I'm going to try and contact the parts dept, instead of tech support.

I'd just confirm with Lenovo that it can support a 3rd party power supply .I..aftermarket or generic ...

THANK YOU!!!! So much!! Whoohoo ax860 here I come!!!

Well I scooped another Hp 8200 elite for $ 60.00...
Came with an I5 3.3 gig/ 500gig hard drive and 4 gigs of ram, a 17" monitor mouse and a keyboard.. and a legal copy of windows 7 x64 pro..
The coa (certificate of authentication) was on the case from MS..

I grabbed a 250 gig Samsung evo $ 115.00
16 gig of ram for $130.00

Moved the 500 gig drive to secondary drive
Put the 250 ssd in for the primary..
Re-installed windows 7 pro 64 on the SSD
Ran windows update
Google windows 10 upgrade
Did the win 10 upgrade and at the moment windows 10 upgrade is free.

So for 300.00 "all in" a cheap machine for the studio

Anyhow, I have added a 3rd HD to the system .. so 250gig SSD for O/S
500 Gig for samples (was the original drive in the unit)
A second 500gig drive for projects ..

I'm just downloading Sonar Platinum with command center now and will have this as a single application DAW , just O/S Sonar and associated accessories and that's it..

Somebody over a Cakewalk needs to create a definitive guide for moving libraries for dimension pro and rapture.. Cakewalk platinum moved over fine

Guelph_Guy, post: 436005, member: 47293 wrote: Well, at the end of the day, it's still the engineer that makes it sound right , I think the difference from mid to high end is the high end gear can get you there quicker .

Yup. Better gear means better quality recordings to begin with; and that's where it all lands. If you have hi quality audio to start with, mixing is a lot easier, because you're doing far less manipulation of the sonics to try and make those tracks sound good.

That's not to say that I haven't run across a few "engineers" over the years who have managed to foul up great sounding source tracks by over-cooking, over compressing, or by simply not knowing what they were doing in general, but by and large, the better the gear, the better the fidelity, and the easier it is to mix those tracks.

My two cents.

;)

I've been fortunate to try a universal audio gear 6176 if I remember right (pre amp and compressor in the same rack)
I was amazed just how quickly you could get there. This was a few years back ... as a hobbiest it was a nice to have but not a need to have at the time..

Guelph_Guy, post: 436184, member: 47293 wrote: I've been fortunate to try a universal audio gear 6176 if I remember right (pre amp and compressor in the same rack)
I was amazed just how quickly you could get there. This was a few years back ... as a hobbiest it was a nice to have but not a need to have at the time..

Yeah, that's the difference you're hearing, GG. The better your recordings are at the source, or at the input stage, the easier it is to make those tracks "fit" into the mix.

There's a big difference between a mix session and a repair session. Actual mix sessions are nice, because you're not having to worry about trying to get something to sound like it doesn't, or trying to make something sound like it wasn't as it was originally recorded; whereas repair sessions are generally all about just that - either getting rid of unwanted crap that accompanied the source audio, or, trying to get it to sound like something it simply can't sound like - because you're trying to add sonics that weren't there to begin with; and that's a futile battle. And, because often, people will rely on heavy amounts of filtering or processing to get to that point - (truthfully, you never actually do get there) - generally something else in the sonics of the cheaper tracks will suffer... you'll gain one thing, but then something else about it will sound wizzly.

Having done both mixing and repairing more times than I can count, I definitely prefer the former. It's just so much easier, so much nicer, the results are far better. ;)

Good gear makes all the difference, as you know, when you used the 6176. There's a reason that the big pro million dollar rooms aren't using Behringer C1's and Tascam Pre's. I'm sure that if they could get the same fidelity in sonics with that lower priced budget gear, then of course, they would... after all, why spend 5 large on a pre and a mic, if you can get the exact same sound for $250? The answer is simple... it's because you can't. ;)

YES after using the 6176 I was humbled. I actually caught onto it in a different way, another home studio owner had a budget microphone that he sent out to be modified. When he received it back and tried it, he couldn't hear the difference on his interface, preamp... I also had one of the same mics but unmodified. When we did the a/b between both mic's sure enough we could hear nothing different on his pre/interface .. When we slammed the mic into my focusrite liquid channel (yeah I know they don't get much love) you could immediately hear the difference when you A/b'd on the Focusrite... The stock mic sounded veiled in the highs and lacked definition, (smeared might be the word). With the modded one, the highs were all there as in well defined, . He eventually put the mic up for sale,

I don't have a big mic collection, your usual fair, but I've stayed with the tried and true. Shure, AKG, ATK, EV... This was one of the first things I've learned a quality mic at the front end from a known manufacturer will eliminate a good portion of problems you experience from lesser offshore mic product. When I started recording, I had purchased a cheap offshore tube condenser.(all my other mic's I had were dynamic up to that point, it was what I knew and what I had worked with ). It wasn't till I stepped up to an 414 that I really started to appreciate the finer nuances of microphones.

Yep Donny you're so right, with the right microphone for the application and a high end preamp, the track writes itself... and it's far better to get it right up front, then wasting time trying to fix it after the fact... I get a lot of kidding from some of my home studio friends because I take the time to make it sound right upfront.

They on the other hand, slam a mic in front of an instrument and hit record then try to fix it later. I keep getting "the you can fix it in the computer ... don't waste your time..

When I do find time to record, which is short right now ...it's usually acoustic guitar, I have a Taylor which I mic up with an SM 81/and an At 4033. I'll track with both focusrite liquid channels... works for me.....

Guelph_Guy, post: 436170, member: 47293 wrote: Well I scooped another Hp 8200 elite for $ 60.00...
Came with an I5 3.3 gig/ 500gig hard drive and 4 gigs of ram, a 17" monitor mouse and a keyboard.. and a legal copy of windows 7 x64 pro..
The coa (certificate of authentication) was on the case from MS..

I grabbed a 250 gig Samsung evo $ 115.00
16 gig of ram for $130.00

Moved the 500 gig drive to secondary drive
Put the 250 ssd in for the primary..
Re-installed windows 7 pro 64 on the SSD
Ran windows update
Google windows 10 upgrade
Did the win 10 upgrade and at the moment windows 10 upgrade is free.

So for 300.00 "all in" a cheap machine for the studio

Sweet !!! How's she running ?

+1 on good mics. That's where I started my collection after good guitar gear. That's and decent (not great) speakers.

My first experience w the 414 after purchase was actually dissapointting. I had used one years before at a home studio and instantly wanted it.

I finally got it, and my recordings sound worse than w my 57 was kinda sad lol.

What I realized was it was powerful enough to pick up the bad acoustics I had at the time in the room. It changed my perception of mic technique which up to that point was 57 inch from amp / snare / vocalist / anything lol.

I had actually purchased an AT 3035 and a rode nt1a a month or two prior. The AT is a sleeper mic that cannot be beat for $99 or $500 and under.

After getting a taste of those I maxed out my account and credit card and bought the 414. It's a great all around mic. I love it on overhead drum. Wish I bought a pair but couldn't afford it. Now they don't make the same model so I'll have to buy a pair when If I get some more.

Taylor acoustics record excellently. The rode nt-5 is a cheaper mic that is practically made for Taylor's.

DonnyThompson, post: 436192, member: 46114 wrote: And, because often, people will rely on heavy amounts of filtering or processing to get to that point - (truthfully, you never actually do get there)

Couldn't agree more. Mixing was always a long challenge for me till my first 'aha' moment of professionals recording some well arranged cover times live in studio.

Yes, the 8200 runs great, I had some Kingston hyperx memory ddr3 1800 MHz 32 gig and dropped it in , I checked the used boards today and found 250 gig Samsung ssds brand new sealed for 100.00 the guy had bought 10 used 4 sold 2 and had 4 left , I took them all..

I decided to make the unit my primary daw and changed my direction... I used one 250Gig ssd drive for O/S and studio one, a second ssd for sample library and a 500 gig conventional drive for audio Western Digital (black series)... Its running windows 10 ... The 8200 has onboard video which is more then fast enough for the application.

Anyhow, the O/S drive with studio one dropped to 170 Gig... I moved the sample library to the second ssd ... about 34 Gig... for my level of play ,that's more then enough space for what I do ...

The 8200 can support an i7 2600k so I'll keep my eye out for a used one... sort of a fun challenge to build an inexpensive rig...

Anyhow.. it's solid so far and a pleasure to use, I've got about 4-5 hrs learning my way around studio one last night , The unit is from a cold start to the desktop in about 5-7 seconds. Studio one launches in about 1 second from closed. I've got my MOTU PCIx card in it and a 2408 to test.. I'm running an LG 34" monitor with a 21:9 ratio ..,(2550 X 1080) this combination is pretty sweet.. There's an ultra 4 K version of the monitor but the text is way too small, even with a 39 inch monitor..

I don't think I would even consider an ultra4k monitor under 65 ".. ...

One small maintenance thing I do is change the lithium battery on the motherboard when I buy a used box... I also use a sharpie pen and write the date inside the computer side panel, and also the license key... also clean the dust bunnies out... I'm also create a recovery DVD in the even of a crash... and tape it to the inside cover in a DVD sleeve... anyhow.. I'm happy with my project.....

Guelph_Guy, post: 436233, member: 47293 wrote: Yes, the 8200 runs great, I had some Kingston hyperx memory ddr3 1800 MHz 32 gig and dropped it in , I checked the used boards today and found 250 gig Samsung ssds brand new sealed for 100.00 the guy had bought 10 used 4 sold 2 and had 4 left , I took them all..

I decided to make the unit my primary daw and changed my direction... I used one 250Gig ssd drive for O/S and studio one, a second ssd for sample library and a 500 gig conventional drive for audio Western Digital (black series)... Its running windows 10 ... The 8200 has onboard video which is more then fast enough for the application.

Anyhow, the O/S drive with studio one dropped to 170 Gig... I moved the sample library to the second ssd ... about 34 Gig... for my level of play ,that's more then enough space for what I do ...

The 8200 can support an i7 2600k so I'll keep my eye out for a used one... sort of a fun challenge to build an inexpensive rig...

Anyhow.. it's solid so far and a pleasure to use, I've got about 4-5 hrs learning my way around studio one last night , The unit is from a cold start to the desktop in about 5-7 seconds. Studio one launches in about 1 second from closed. I've got my MOTU PCIx card in it and a 2408 to test.. I'm running an LG 34" monitor with a 21:9 ratio ..,(2550 X 1080) this combination is pretty sweet.. There's an ultra 4 K version of the monitor but the text is way too small, even with a 39 inch monitor..

I don't think I would even consider an ultra4k monitor under 65 ".. ...

One small maintenance thing I do is change the lithium battery on the motherboard when I buy a used box... I also use a sharpie pen and write the date inside the computer side panel, and also the license key... also clean the dust bunnies out... I'm also create a recovery DVD in the even of a crash... and tape it to the inside cover in a DVD sleeve... anyhow.. I'm happy with my project.....

Sounds awesome! Glad it's working well. You gotta drop a link to these used boards I keep hearing about lol. I'm not much for used stuff, but deals on brand new tickle my wallet!

Those are some awesome boot up speeds for when inspiration hits!!

I've been eyeing an i7 myself but my gear purchase list needs to shrink before I add to it.

I totally hear ya on the large 4K. I'm going to get a 4K projector. They usual max out around 108" aka the wall lol. I may get a 32" or pair for editing Ect, especially as I'm moving video capability into my arsenal. Probably have just one and the projector, and use my HD tv (32") as the monitor for the NAS. I'm waiting for the prices to drop since 4K is premium right now. And I need to get my 7.2 receiver as well. So audio first. Thinking bout jbl 18's for the subs. My buddy is putting them in the theater I'm building for him, so I'll see how I like them.

I was actually concerned that 32 gb of ram might be just adequate since I know people running 64, but my mobo Maxs at 32, and I'm not running large track or pluggin counts. We will see how it handles 192k sample rates. Which is another concern of mine as far as ssd size, but with so many backup and drop points I should have an easy enough time moving projects around. Time will tell.

Good idea about dating the battery and making a crash disc stored in an easy to remember exclusive spot.

Well, I've got the computer stiff sorted out pretty good ... no need to upgrade for quite some time... need to work through my piano skills building course which I practice very day... It's not my primary instrument and I need to work on playing skills... I'm enjoying it and there's moments of inspiration while I play too break from the monotony of practice exercises... seems silly how a repetitive exercise can cause inspiration. I think that in our head we try to embellish the exercise so it's not so boring and creativity seems to spring from that ...

Anyhow, a few weeks in and I can hear and feel the difference when I play, things I struggled with are falling into place and are becoming easier ... I smile when I feel that happening....

Darn, good thing I've got my soldering iron active.. I just powered up an older MOTU 2408 Mk 2 and I'm getting raw ac buzz through the headphone jack!

I popped the case, and the power filter caps were domed but not blown ... time to swap them out ... 4 at 4700uf and 1 at 3300uf...took me longer tomget the board out of the case then to replace the caps!!!

Caps and power supply's always seem to be the culprits. Were you lucky enough to have the right ones on hand?

Piano is an interesting instrument. I always found it difficult to do two different things with each hand. Which is strange because guitar does two completely different things w each hand. Maybe that's the difference? Lol. The thing w Piano is its logically laid out. Each octave is the same. Where string instruments, each string and each position has a new pattern for the same scale, although there are speaking patterns. I learned the basics of piano reading at a young age and took a class in high school. I never got good though. I'll lay stuff down sometimes on soft synths but piano isn't ever the main for me.

I never got super fluid at gtr music reading but I got decent. I went through the first of 3 Berkeley guitar books w my teacher.

The thing w piano vs guitar is the string bending, and textures w the pick. Piano os more Ridgid in that sense. Which isn't better or worse just different. It's pretty cool to mess w feet tapping type stuff on the piano. I've never been into guitar effects, just distortion and eqs. I've always mimicked the effects w picking and stuff. Piano can be a very deep and dignified instrument when played w touch. It's one of those instruments that can carry a whole tune unaccompanied.

Caps and power supply's always seem to be the culprits. Were you lucky enough to have the right ones on hand?

Piano is an interesting instrument. I always found it difficult to do two different things with each hand. Which is strange because guitar does two completely different things w each hand. Maybe that's the difference? Lol. The thing w Piano is its logically laid out. Each octave is the same. Where strong instruments, each string and each position has a new pattern for the same scale, although there are speaking patterns. I learned the basics of piano reading at a young age and took a class in high school. I never got good though. I'll lay stuff down sometimes on soft synths but piano isn't ever the main for me.

I never got super fluid at gtr music reading but I got decent. I went through the first of 3 Berkeley guitar books w my teacher.

The thing w piano vs guitar is the string bending, and textures w the pick. Piano os more Ridgid in that sense. Which isn't better or worse just different. It's pretty cool to mess w feet tapping type stuff on the piano. I've never been into guitar effects, just distortion and eqs. I've always mimicked the effects w picking and stuff. Piano can be a very deep and dignified instrument when played w touch. It's one of those instruments that can carry a whole tune unaccompanied

Yes, I thought the same, I play guitar (since I was 13) and can fingerpick pretty well, Moving to piano I though it would be an advantage, nope !

But my skills building is working.... the course is good, and I see the improvement pretty much every second day...I can sight read but I need to bring it up a couple of notches as I'm not where I need to be ... I can play by ear as well... anyhow, my skill set is stronger then my sight reading , so I'm not very well balanced.

As for replacement caps... nope didn't have any stock .... But I'll grab them at my electronics supplier this week.

Good stuff man. I meant to ask you. You mentioned you mobo could handle an upgraded processor, is there any way to figure out what a mobo could handle as far as processor in general? Thinking ahead here for my cpu, and general knowledge. I had contacted qnap a while ago about processor upgrade for the NAS and they said it could not be.

Like for instance would is skylake mobo compmatibe w all skylke processcors? I'm guessing there's something that bottlenecks/limits the processor compatibility somewhere in the chain.

It should be reflected in the manual for your PC, HP has the manual online for my gear a..so it makes it easy.. I'd google your model and add "processor upgrade" to the google entry

I wouldn't bother updating a processor in the NAS , it will far outrun your storage medium , it would be like putting a v8 engine in a car with bicycle tires. You would have lots of power but you could never get it too the ground... My SAN actually has a dual core in it... and can support several hundred users..

If you are the only person on the NAS , I would not bother...

Guelph_Guy, post: 436448, member: 47293 wrote: I wouldn't bother updating a processor in the NAS , it will far outrun your storage medium , it would be like putting a v8 engine in a car with bicycle tires. You would have lots of power but you could never get it too the ground... My SAN actually has a dual core in it... and can support several hundred users..

If you are the only person on the NAS , I would not bother...

Duly noted sir. Good to hear about your San being dual core, it's comforting.

I was just being overly obsessive w the NAS cuz I saw the quad for $60 more.

But when I researched it before hand I decided on mine as best suited. Much more power/money and I'd jump to a different League of enterprise or just below. I found a good point before heavily diminishing returns So I was just being spec obsessed.

This one is just mainly for backup and family use. It's meant to be a test run for a much more powerful remote acess/internet based/remote recording/networked audio setup. This is the long term of my business plan, as I see it as the future. So I'm getting my feet wet w this. Lol besides it just seemed cool. And the $289 price point wasn't much more than Best buys offerings that didn't have nearly the capability.

Upgrading from 2gb to 8gb is the only upgrade for the NAS. $50 is very affordable. Considering I can hook up a bunch of external drive to the NAS I belive I'll get many years of use as is.

I've tried a couple of free nas products that both work well , FreeNAS and Openfiler.. both very powerful ...
I'm currently running a Microsoft storage server solution...

I will say this much, when you have 24 TB of storage, your files seem to all be parked in a small corner , there is so much available storage space, you question how you will ever use it

Cool I'm gonna check that out. I'll have about 8-10tb to start w mine about 800gb is pre exaisting stuff.

All that free space just mean we gotta record more tunes right !??!

I'm going to be curios to see how moving to 7.2/192khz as standard is going to effect my storage trends with my regular recording pace. I've seen the charts with the technical usage, just will be curious how it effects my normal storage rates.

I seem to average about 200gb a year at the studio, and 100gb per year at home.

A 500gb ssd should give me a reasonable year or two before I'll increase capacity or have to start moving 'working' projects on and off.

Also, I was doing some research on pci m.2 and I was questioning whether it was better served as OS vs audio drive. The concensus seemed to be OS because of the large amount of calculations being performed relative to writing reading audio.

Does this make sense to you as well?

I'd use the m2.0 stuff for O/s , that's where you need it most , hell I still use a 7200 rpm hard drive for audio and its more then enough. I'm using ssd's for O/S and sample libraries only. What I do know about ssd's is there is a memory write and if you are constantly writing to the same location eventually that cell will fail, the ssd will mark it as bad and move forward. There are at least 2 types of memory used in ssd drive manufacture..One is more robust then the other and can tolerate multiple writes to the same memory cell..(now we are talking millions of writes here and both types can support millions of writes).. personally, I'm just going to stick to conventional hd's for audio for the moment.

One thing I am going to try is ISCSI , which is basically a protocol to talk across the network to a hard drive. Or NAS unit...I want to try recording across my network to see how things work out ... if its really solid, I would use ISCSI on my SAN establish an audio partition and just keep the o/s and samples locally on SSD..

I have used ISCSI but not for audio and it seems as fast as the local internal drive on the desktop

Guelph_Guy, post: 436516, member: 47293 wrote: One thing I am going to try is ISCSI , which is basically a protocol to talk across the network to a hard drive. Or NAS unit...I want to try recording across my network to see how things work out ... if its really solid, I would use ISCSI on my SAN establish an audio partition and just keep the o/s and samples locally on SSD..

I have used ISCSI but not for audio and it seems as fast as the local internal drive on the desktop

This is what I'm getting at in theory at least lol I'm learning the technical from knowledgeable guys like yourself. Super interested in this concept.

I've read about the ssd types when I was deciding on make and model. Something like v-nand and nvme, one being more reliable, one being faster.

The consus was pretty much as you said and HDD was more than enough for audio. Although some people are making the jump.

It's something to consider because $300 for 500gb is fairly substantial overall considering $600 shelf price of the computer. Plus in a year or so it'll be pennies on the dollar for ssd.

My initial plan was one 250gb pcie and a 500gb ssd. My thinking is becuase Lenovo doesn't seem to know what's in their machines, unlike Hp who answered every question I had for them, I'd try the pcie for os, if it doesn't work, I'll exchange it for an ssd of the same capacity. Then either assign the 500gb ssd to either audio or samples. Then make the final call for tha audio drive. Running the ssd's in raid mode would be ideal but with only 3 drive bays I'm a dollar short on that one. Lol I'm always trying to push things to 11.

The only reason I feel an inclination to ssd audio drive is the horrible experience with PT mpowered 7x where it would say my disc was too fragmented, even tho it was 1/4 full and just defragged. To avoid application of fist to computer I want the fastest data exchange possible. But guys like you seem to think 7200rpm is plenty. And supposedly, avid is void of all that bs. I'll belive if/when I see it. But data loss scares me.

I was trying to cknceptualize using the ssd in tandem/raid w the usb3/esata external but I don't even know if that's possible. I gotta finalize the psu ram and Windows purchase and that will allow me to be ready to unbox and hook things up, then narrow each component one at a time, and grab the other software as I go. Lol this $300 original purchase grew to about $1500.

I've been looking into aftermarket fans, noctura seems to have good cred so I've been looking at those.

With 140 gb of sample right of the bat, not counting the drummagog stock collection, I think I'd fill up a 250gb sample drive to quickly and my original plan has to change and take a bit more cash.

The NAS does realtime backup to google drive, I still have to figure out if it can do so elsewhere .
I'm looking into those NAS links you put up should get to it today or tomm.

Seeing how much everything else costs, as much as I still long for the i7 6700k cpu I speced adding the drives and fans would have doubled the price to $3k then the software set another $2k.

So I think this is the best for now, a good foundation to build on.

Yep I see where you're going .

On another note, I fixed the MOTU 2408 , replaced 5 of 7 filter caps .. all is good .. about 14.00 dollars have it up and running as I type

Sweet! Beats $50 an hour on another techs work, and a 2 week wait w no interface!!!

Why only 5 of the 7 and not all of them jw?

We'll I though about the other 2 and from their condition, they did not appear to need replacement , the 5 I swapped out were bulging and had domed tops (this is an indication that most likely they are bad) the tops are usually flat...what was interesting is that the capacitors were rated for 10 volts.. So over time (several years )they can dry out ... I replaced them with the same capacitance value 4700uF but upped the voltage to 25 volts from 10 volts.. basically this means that the cap can support a voltage of 25 volts before the lid blows off lo,...

I scored a used I7 2600k processor for one of those cheapo Hp 8200s I have here...picked it up for $125.00 ... its 3.4gig quad core... and a direct plug and play to exchange for the I5 3.3 Gig that's in there now , will pick it up tomorrow night after work ... I don't expect to see a big performance boost between the i5 to the I7 I grabbed it just to fully option the HP up..

So at the end of the day, I'll have an Hp 8200 elite with i7 3.4gig , 32G of ram , Samsung ssd 256G for O/S , 512G ssd for sample libraries, and a 1TB western digital 7200 rpm drive for audio... all on windows 10, for video I popped in an NVIDIA Quadra nvs450 video card which supports 4 monitors at 1080p..more the enough desktop!.. anyhow.. it's been fun running around finding deals on parts.. I'm under $500 on the PC all in.. so I think I got some value there

My daughter grabbed a used mac book pro on the weekend for abletion live. I7 3.4g /16g ram,1TB SSD ! Its an older late 2011 model and it's a beast..!!
I've been playing with it and its pretty neat, I'm not really knowledgeable on MACs , I had to look up how to drag and drop lol... Anyhow, my girls have Macs and my wife and I are PC based..

well scooped the i7 2600k and installed it .. a slight bit snappier but not much , need to stress test it under studio one and see what happens....

Guelph_Guy, post: 436640, member: 47293 wrote: well scooped the i7 2600k and installed it .. a slight bit snappier but not much , need to stress test it under studio one and see what happens....

It's interesting to observe diminishing returns. And at what point is a good crossover point between levels of processor i.e. I5 vs I7, quad vs octo.

Lol I was looking up processors and they apparently have 64core pentium 16 core 2.6ghz. For $1800 the 16 core seemed almost bang for your buck relative to say an 8 core.

It made my i5 downright toyish.

Over on another thread there were some issues w pops/spikes and cpu latency w certian nividea video cards. Many users citing either certian models trouble free or resorting to stock .

The last peice to my the puzzle for me is the cooling fan. Are you running stock? I've looked at various noctura ranging from $25-80, and cooler master I belive was the other one.

Lol it took me a while to get used to Mac conventions when I started at the studio 6 or so years ago. I'm fairly fluid now, and in fact will probably have to re learn some Windows stuff lol. As soon as so get fluid with daws or computers the script gets flipped on me.

I officially registered my domain name, and with my current design work I am going to make my website w xara wen designer pro.

It's making me consider an office centric 2nd cpu sooner than I thought. I'm also concerned about CAD which I have to buy, and sketchup clogging my system. My idea was a closed system in the vein of radar or a hard disk recorder, but I'm entering software overload mode here.

Sounds like you got a hell of a computer setup for very little money. Hopefully others benefit from this thread. It illustrates two different approaches. Mine having significantly diminishing returns. I just get skeeved buying others computers/phones due to my quirks.

The more and more I'm learning from people about electronics it seems headroom is a good thing accross the board. Like you doubling the cap voltage. I know Danny zellman did that, as well as over spec'ing the power supply whe sprucing up the mackie d8b, which is an atrocious peice of electronics junk with age. Which is a shame becuase it's a great concept with good sound.

The berringer x-32 is like the modern equivalent. A very nice piece of hands on is your thing. I'm looking heavily into the 'avid dock'. Which incorporates the i-devices with a single fader transport. Touch screen faders haven't been my favorite but, touch screen editing is fantastic in garage band for iPad.

Lol 4 HD screens.... Really.... My friend... I love the indulgence.

Looking forward to hearing about the performance tests.

I think your daughter got a nice setup. Something her and her peers are probably much more accustomed to than a Windows PC.

Well here's what happened after The i7 update... Something was not quite right.. It just didn't feel right even if it was fast I just didn't trust it so I decided to re-install windows 10.

So I used the windows 10 media creation tool to create a boot USB stick with a fresh copy of windows 10 on it...
As windows 10 was all ready activated, I opted for a fresh install.
I booted of the USB stick and started the install, It prompted me for a registration key, I selected the "I don't have a key option".
It went forward and promptly activated itself at Microsoft..all, is good.

SO Now you don't need to worry about an activation key anymore. Basically if you did a windows 7 update to 10 and 10 is activated, MS knows.
So even with a fresh re-install it will still activate. You can use the USB stick to fresh install win 10 on any machine that is Win10 activated.
Very kewl.. make sure you get your free copy before the end of June 2016. After that you'll be paying for it.

That's awesome.!! So the i7 worked well after the install? Are you noticing a huge difference in speed bs the i5, plugins, processing power in general?

What do you mean 'get your free copy before June'

FYI I have w10 home stock in my PC, and I was going to buy pro outright for $140 boxed,
Not the upgrade. Do you mean of snag a used computer that has w7?

Nkt sure of that Applies to what your saying or not. It be cool if you could clarify for me. I certainly will jump before June for sure if It's a situation where I'd have to pay for something that's otherwise free. Hopefully I'll have it either way before June.

Okay, there is just a small improvement, it appears to be slightly more responsive... yes if you grab a windows 7 PC used, connect it to the internet , you can get a free copy of windows 10 till I think it's June 26... So as I was getting those hp's fairly cheap with windows 7 pro. Then I just upgraded them ...