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anonymous 18 April 2003

Hello,

I am attempting to set up a computer-based home studio and have been advised to consult you as to the best computer system/components to use as the core of the studio. Several folks have said that many components which often come on a basic PC can detract from optimum set up for audio recording, and that certain other parameters are necessary. I'd like to buy a computer with the necessary requirements to be able to do high-quality, professional work.

I would appreciate if you would provide your opinion on what would constitute a basic set up, and your opinions on:

-Brand

-Necessary cards and best brand/model/type

-Necessary/optimal RAM

-Best processor and speed

-Necessary optimal hard drive

-Other aspects (e.g. certain brands have x, y, and z which seem to enhance a, b, and c in audio production) of which I am not yet aware!

Thank you,

Alan Lipman

-Best software program

-Other necessary components.

Thank you!

Topic Tags

Comments

Opus2000 Fri, 04/18/2003 - 12:58

Those people telling you this are absolutely correct. Brand name computers are not optimal for audio applicational use as they set them up for generic home/internet/email configurations.

If you do buy one you have to do some swapping of parts and configurations.

Best components..depends on the horsepower needed.

Asus is the most recommended mainboard.

Crucial, Kingston, Corsair and Samsung are the most "popular" memory brands.

Matrox is the most commonly used vide card.

CDR/W's...whatever floats your boat. :D

Power Supply..Antec or Enermax

Hard drives..Western Digital JB model drives.

Software...depends on your needs. Everyone will tell you the software they use is better than the one someone else uses.

Necessary cards? Audio.

512 minimum of memory.

XP Operation System.

Opus

anonymous Fri, 04/18/2003 - 14:53

Thanks, Opus.

So if you were going to go out and buy a computer that had most of these characteristics that you list, which (or perhaps top 3) would you buy? Are there brands that have many of these that you listed already onboard? I would like to go out and purchase a computer that has as many of these already present. Is it the case, as your list seems to suggest, that one has to assemble each of these components, or are there computers that you would recommend that do the job well, and if so which? Thanks.

Fozz Sat, 04/19/2003 - 04:52

Alan,

I think most everyone here will say that you need to have the PC custom built, either by yourself or someone else.

There are places that will build/sell pcs custom designed for audio. If you are interested in that route we can start another topic.

For this topic we will talk about you picking the parts and assembling it yourself or having someone else do it.

To get an idea of exactly what the parts are, do a search on "anus" which stands for ASUS Northwood User Society, an acronym created by Gary (Opus2000) about a year ago. The search will result in a bunch of items with people listing their current or proposed configurations.

As far as prices go, start with http:// Others can chime in with the places they like. At Mwave, for example, you can also have them assemple the PC for $80, I think, if you aren't comfortable with figuring out where all the cables get plugged in on the motherboard.

If you went that route with them, or anyone else, that doesn't know about audio on a PC, you would then have to reinstall the OS and do some tuning. To get an idea of what is involved start with http://www.opusaudioprojects.net/WinXp.htm

Fozz Sat, 04/19/2003 - 15:48

I didn't proof read my reply well enough. I definitely agree with using this topic to carry on the discussion of the parts that Alan will get and put together himself, or have someone else put together for him.

I was just thinking (or not thinking) that if he also wanted to talk about those places that sell PCs specifically built for audio, that he could start another topic rather than intermix that prebuilt discussion with this roll your own discussion.

Sorry for the confusion.

Opus2000 Mon, 04/21/2003 - 19:10

Asus P4PE, P4 3.06Ghz CPU
512 PC 2700 DDR 333
430 Watt PSU
Ahanix Nobless Case
Black Floppy Drive
Matrox G450 32MB AGP Dual Monitor
WD JB 40GB OS Drive
WD JB 80GB Data Drive
Windows XP Pro W/SP1
52X/24X/52X Black CDRW

I can do this for $1,800.00!!

How's that for a system?!!!

Let me know!

Opus :D

anonymous Mon, 04/21/2003 - 22:34

you forgot the black case wit little flames and with the windows on the side with the black light showing inside!! and the chromed vent pipes!

Although these options are to die for, alas, I believe they would push the total over the $2,000 mark. BTW, with a little investigating, you can prolly find those chromed vent pipes bundled with some fuzzy dice. :D

anonymous Tue, 04/22/2003 - 06:33

Hello everyone, I have lurked here for too long, I am a newbie at this whole shebang, basically most times, I don't fully trust anything except my acoustic guitar, but I will be taking the plunge very soon into the PC recording world, Gary, I read the ingredients to your new ANUS (Smirk) But I do wonder, if it would be too much to ask about recording software, and sound cards that may be added to that system, lets just say whatever you consider the best of the best products out there perhaps a 48 track system, with 8 inputs as an example (I guess not including the 15 to 20 k$ "PRO" Pro Tools)
Perhaps you will say this is a matter of a users personal choice, but from what I've read you do know your stuff and it would behoove (probably not even a word) me not to ask.

Thanks Steve

anonymous Thu, 04/24/2003 - 12:54

Thanks for the welcome Gary, now the homework will begin, I'm looking forward to report back shortly on how its all going. Still not sure if I will "build for myself" or buy a "built for me" system, I will get back after figuring out what sound cards/software I choose.
Thank you (for such a detailed road map indeed)
Steve

robb007 Tue, 04/29/2003 - 13:52

As far as motherboards go .I would suggest Tyan .The tiger is rock and I mean Rock solid!!It is a server board built in southern california not the orient!You can find a article on builting the ultimate music pc in EQ magazine {issue eight}using a tyan s2460 motherboard and 2 AMD-mp 2000-processors although I used 2 Intel p4 chips.This board has been tested succesfully withsound cards from RME-FRONTIER DESIGN MOTU- AND M-AUDIO.This board offers6 32bit 5.5 volt pci slots.My opinion is Asus is alright but really not on par with the performance and sure AAA quality chips used at the Tyan factory.My advice like its counter parts Mac go American go Tyan.

Opus2000 Tue, 04/29/2003 - 18:01

Oh boy! :roll:
Tyan is not as reliable as Asus or Abit. In fact you have to go out of your way to get the proper memory and power supply, you don't have as many configurable options in the BIOS as the other boards as well!

Look on any other major hardware forums and count the number of Asus, Abit or Gigabyte users and then count the number of Tyan users(you'll see a HUGE ratio difference!)

Opus

anonymous Wed, 04/30/2003 - 02:51

Opus I have a question about a motherboard. I was doing some research on motherboards and I was lookin at the asus p4c8oo MB. One of the features on this MB is the Soundmax onboard audio codec controller. I have an RME 96/36 LE soundcard and Is this going to be a problem? Because I have a PIII 1GHz with the Asus CUSL2 MB and it has onboard audio and I have had nothing but problems with it Audio clicks and screen freezes. I am considering this MB and the p43.0 800mhz chip and two of those new WD 10,000 rpm drives have you done any research on this board or are you waiting for the bugs to be worked out?

Opus2000 Wed, 04/30/2003 - 17:51

The 800Mhz series chipset boards, from any manufacturer are going to be nice....BUT...(there's a catch here of course...) Intel has recalled the 1st batch of 3.0 800Mhz CPU's for a "minor" bug that they are not going into detail about! I would personally wait and not be the first on the block to go and get it.
Also the SATA WD drives are not that much improvement and besides SATA is still early in the development stage. It still has another year to go before it's where it should be.

I would wait until it's totally finished before even going that route to be honest!

Having an onboard audio does not cause issues...it's more than that that's causing it most likely

Opus

Opus2000 Thu, 05/01/2003 - 08:39

Intel boards were terrible in the past due to them putting advanced features for over clocking and other areas of the BIOS.

Nowadays they're very reliable boards and I'm actually looking into the one with the 875 chipsets...personally I am holding off until PCI express comes out. That's where the true power is going to come into play.

Understand this, once PCI Express is out, Macs will not stand a chance in hell in catching up in performance! This is a reality check for Apple at that point! 800Mhz FSB and a throughput of at least 6GB via the PCI bus! Bottleneck will be a word of the past!!

Opus :D

kevinwhitect Fri, 05/02/2003 - 04:20

I've owned both ASUS (a K7) and Tyan (the tigermp 2460 board mentioned above) and loved both of them.

I built w/ the Tyan just after the product launched...in fact, the first OS I ran on the new board was XP Pro in Beta form...I think that was Feb/March of 2001...my how time flies.

In any case, although I can't vouch for Tyan in general, and I do believe that ASUS has a larger user base, this particular board has been unbelieveably stable under heavy loads...I use a ton of plugins.

The ASUS was also very good, but it had onboard audio too, and I had to completely disable it in order to get things to operate smoothly. (Jah_Ill please note). Once it was ***hardware*** disconnected at the jumper settings, then it operated flawlessly.

I too, anxiously await the PC Express technology, Opus. I'm waiting for the product bugs to get worked out while patiently knowing that eventually the technology will age just slightly, and the price will moderate accordingly.

Until then, I'll happily run with my Tyan dual processor board.

Best-

Kev.

Opus2000 Sun, 05/04/2003 - 17:01

Angelo!!!! Holy shit!! You're alive! lmao!
How the hell are ya bub?!!!

Anyways, in regards to the new 875 chipsets...remember that the true CPU's for thses boards are not out yet! Their only the 512 L2 cache and not the 1MB cache yet!
So I would personally wait until those are out before getting into those boards!
Once the L2 cache arrives, then that's where the true performance will begin!!!

Opus

Ang1970 Sun, 05/04/2003 - 19:53

Doin fine thanks, yourself?

I'm putting together a little writing setup at home. Already got the Echo mia-MIDI card. Happy as dookie with the sound and features, considering the price. But I'm getting frustrated with my :shudder: Presario. It's fast enuf to get some idea tracks down, but crash crash crash whenever I try to run audio and midi at the same time. I know it could be the os or 10 other things, but even if it stops crashing I can see the track/fx ceiling coming. So... good time to build me a new tower. Between your suggestions in this thread and raping as much as I can off the Presario, I figure I'm in for about $800.

Asus says they won't have PCIExp on the shelf until someundisclosedtimein04. I can't wait that long, so I was fixin to go with what's available now, and plug new stuff in as it comes out.
But... if I have to wait a year for 1MB L2 to come out, it doesn't make sense to buy any 875 until they're PCIExp ready.

So maybe I should lowball the MB for now. No problem, I'll just put the extra $$ into a actively cooled [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.thermalt…"]box[/]="http://www.thermalt…"]box[/]. What do you think? :)

Cheers,
Ang

anonymous Sat, 05/10/2003 - 07:30

I'm going to be buying my new system in about a month, and I'm trying to figure out what to get.

The new P4 800mhz fsb seems to be shipping again (newegg.com has had them in and out and in again).

It seems to me that for a DAW, memory bandwidth is crucial - and its hard to argue with an 875 based board - 800 mhz fsb, dual channel ddr.

I'm seriously wondering about the Gigabyte board as opposed to the Asus. I need mutiple IDE masters (I use removables with a Mackie SDR, and if they are masters, I don't have to open the carrier and rejumper the drive, I just pop it in), and the Gigabyte board would give me 4 seperate parallel ATA channels. I could probably use the Asus board if I went serial ATA for the system disk.... choices choices!

So what do you guys think about the Gigabyte board versus the Asus one? I want to get this system as right as possible - probably won't be able to get a different one for 4 years or so.

Thanks!
-lee-

Opus2000 Sat, 05/10/2003 - 08:08

Well, remember that the true L2 1MB cache CPU's aren't out yet. Probably won't be out for a few months or so!

It's best to wait for those to be out. That way you truly get the performance you need!

As far as the Gigabyte boards go, some say they're ok and some say they aren't.

Personally I would add an extra PCI ATA Controller card than use 4 ATA controllers on a motherboard. The less that's implemented into the baord that way the better for audio based applicational use.

Again, I'm waiting(not that I truly need to update now :D

anonymous Sat, 05/10/2003 - 08:22

Just a thought - I wonder how much the larger L2 cache will make in a DAW environment if you aren't doing much in the way of plugins?

I'm thinking of using a couple of UAD cards, not the main CPU for as much plugin processing - so I'd expect the main CPU to be doing mostly primary memory accesses - the 1mb cache will get blown past in the typical song quickly. I could see it being more useful the more I would be using the CPU for compute intensive work.

OK, maybe I'm just trying to justify what I can get now My situation is a little weird - I can get a system in the next couple of months, but then the window closes and I won't be able to do any big upgrades for quite a while. Of course, when my wife really sees my budget, she'll probably want to cut it back to about $1.50.

I guess I could go with an extra controller- but I was trying to keep the PCI slots as free as possible. Right now, I've got one Aardvark interface which I really like. I was going to get one more, and two UAD cards. That's 4 cards on the bus - and only 1 or so slots free in the typical system. I'm reluctant to start off a system with all the slots full.

It gets back to the question - if you were putting together a top-notch killer system, *today*, what would it be?

-lee-

anonymous Sun, 05/11/2003 - 14:55

So - question 1: What video card? I'm seriously looking at the Matrox line, but I can't decide between the 450, 550 and parphelia. All I need is 2-D simple drawing. The main thing I want is for the card to make things easy for the main CPU. I also want two monitors. I don't *think* I'll ever use three. Is the parpehlia worth the extra money, or should I go with the 450/550? If the 450/550 - is there any reason for a 2-d guy like me to go for the 550?

question 2: Is there a problem with going with the sata 10K rpm, 8mb buffer, 36 gig drive from Western Digital for my boot/operating system drive?

Question 3: whats the best CD writer these days? I'm leaning toward the Plextor Premium. Seems incredible to write over 900 meg on a CD in form that other computers can still read. Also, I think Plextor has had a reputation in the past of making CD writers that don't bog the IDE cable down if they are on the same cable as the hard disk. Is that true?

Question 4: How about DVD? I'll be putting a dvd writer in the box for backup/data transfer. I'm leaning toward the Sony drive (~$350) that reads/writes +R, -R, +RW, and -RW. Sound good?

Thanks,
-lee-

Ang1970 Mon, 05/12/2003 - 10:17

Wicked bling site Opus! Looks like a lot of fun... I would do something like that, but my cpu goes in a closed cabinet inside the desk and completely out of sight. I did sorta trick the desk out... apparently the designer didn't foresee a need to vent the box, so I drilled a hole and added a quiet-fan. It's kinda ugly, but it works, and it's underneath the desk where it can't be seen anyway.

So.... until PCIExpress and 1MB L2 are ready, would you recommend the Asus P4PE as an interim mobo? Or is there enough performance gain to justify going with a 875 right now for the extra ~$100?

Opus2000 Mon, 05/12/2003 - 19:22

Well, I'm sure it does the job....
Check out my desk mod... hee hee!
E-cue will probably laugh his ass off on this one!

[="http://www.opusaudioprojects.net/Desk%20Modding.htm"]Pretty Desk Mod[/]="http://www.opusaudi…"]Pretty Desk Mod[/]

Ha ha ha ha ha!!

Opus :D

P.S...
[[url=http://="http://www.opusaudi…"]Cool Revised[/]="http://www.opusaudi…"]Cool Revised[/]

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