Hello everyone I have a couple of questions. Let's just say that over the last 3 years I have been screwed with a sandpaper condom more than once when it comes to purchasing audio computers. All I ever wanted to do is create music but with all the money I have spent and time invested I am losing my creative desire. I have had my current system rebuilt 2 times and this is about to be my 3rd. My current system is a PIII 1 ghz, asus cusl mobo running Cubase VST 32 5.1 with a 40 gig system drive and an 80 gig audio drive with 256 ram and a M audio 24/96 I was told by the person who rebuilt my system that the asus CUSL 2 is not good because it has on board video and that I would have better performance if I get the ASUS CUSL 2-C is this true? I just found some help with Cubase with an engineer at the studio I record with. I just purchased the RME Hammerfall Le sound card because thats supposed to be the best sound card in Germany. He suggested that he rebuild my system to install my soundcard (for $150 bucks of course) for optimum performance should I invest more money in this system or build a new P4 2.53ghz system?
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Thanks opus for the advice. Sorry I took so long to reply I am s
Thanks opus for the advice. Sorry I took so long to reply I am stationed in Germany and on a different time zone. I hope you didn't take the sand paper condom literally that was a joke pretty much meaning that I am not the most computer savvy individual in the U.S ARMY. Here is what I mean the first place that ripped me off was YRS MIDI in orlando FL. They sold me my current system with windows 98 cubase,wavelab,and gigasampler with a crappy terratec x fire sound card running gigasampler and the audiophile 24/96 for cubase. My system was plagued with the CPU meter constantly being in red on the second track. Then I found out I got robbed just to spend more money. Then I came to germany thinkin that I could get some help I went to the biggest music store in germany and the guy promised to help me he re configured my system with 98 and it would not shut down so I bought xp pro and he sold me a 80 gig HD and took out the terratec card and gigasampler.Which now leads me where I am today. Opus if you can brief me on what ACPI support and what a standard pc install with no apm support is. Cause I am not too sure what that exactly means :confused: thank you
OOPS I forgot to tell you my components: Pentium I 1 GHZ cpu
OOPS I forgot to tell you my components:
Pentium I 1 GHZ cpu
IBM 40 gig system drive
maxtor 80 gig audio drive
256 megs pc 133 sdram
RME Hammerfall LE soundcard with 8 analog ins and 8 analog outs
midiman midi interface
windows xp pro
cubase vst 32 5.0
wavelab 3.0
tassman synthesizer
native instruments FM7
NI Battery and Acid 3.0
Hey man...I know the sandpaper thing was a joke!! Just a horribl
Hey man...I know the sandpaper thing was a joke!! Just a horrible image presented by it! :p )
It basically states that the motherboard can be controlled via Automatic Power Managament(APM)
What you can try to do is this..
Go to your Display Properties..this can be found by going into the Control Panel and double clicking on the Display properties icon.
Go to the Screen Saver tab. On that tab down below you will see a button that says Power. Click on that. You "should" see a tab that says APM. If you do not most likely you are in ACPI mode of the OS install.
To verify this Right Click on My Computer. Select Properties. Go to the Hardware tab. Click the Device Manager tab. There you will see a list of components. The first listing says Computer. Expand that and you will see the mode you are installed as. It will either say ACPI or Standard PC.
If ACPI than you are pretty much stuck there as it's not recommended to switch modes especially on a non ACPI compliant motherboard.
Still with me? lol
As far as your system goes. Getting another 256MB Ram is going to help tremendously as GigaStudio is a very CPU intensive program especially when trying to use it with another program running like Cubase. Typically most studios use GigaStudio on a seperate machine as to free up resources. I myself use SampleTank which is a VST instrument that runs within Cubase and doesn't use up as much resources and the sounds are just as good IMHO.
System setup. You need to find out what the DMA mode status of your hard drives are.
To do this we need to go back to the Device Manager. Follow the instructions above on how to get there again. This time we will find the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. Expand that option and you will see three listings from there. Primary, Secondary and the main Controller chipset.
We need to double click on the Primary Controller listing and within there you will see an Advanced tab. Click on that and you will see a listing for the DMA modes for the master(device 0) and slave(Device 1). Please tell me what these say. Do the same thing for the Secondary listing within the Device manager as well and tell me what the DMA modes are within the Advanced tab says. This will help me determine what is going on and what you may need to do to help yourself get more power.
Opus
Thanks for the advice. I bought the RME soundcard last week and
Thanks for the advice. I bought the RME soundcard last week and gave it with all my software to the engineer who is going to build my system so unfortunately I cant diagnose my problem. As for gigasampler I will never use it again it is a $300 dollar dust collector. Rather than put the rme soundcard in this system I thought about it and I think I am going to use this system as a internet system and have the engineer build me a new P4 system strictly for audio with all the best components that you guys suggest. I can also use this system for plug ins and vst link it with my new system. I have been looking at other peoples systems on this forum and I am going to go with either a P4 2.4b or a 2.53 ghz processor. I think I want to go with the best memory the kingston DDR 2700 ram. But can yopu lead me in the right direction as to which motherboard to use I have looked on newegg.com and I am not sure which board to use? Is the ASUS P4t533E, the P4b533-VM or the ASUS P4PE the best board to use? If anyone could give me list of the best components to build a Reliable audio work station I would appreciate it. Thank You
Well, first let's make sure you understand the difference betwee
Well, first let's make sure you understand the difference between the boards here...the boards you listed all use RDRAM and not DDR as you mentioned you want to get. The newest Asus board is probably not quite available yet and may be a little pricey since it's brand new.
I would go for the P4B533 boards....I believe the one you want is the P4B533-V which has the 845G which does support the DDR 333 PC2700 memory. the other boards do not! The newer Asus P4GE-V "officialy" supports the DDR 333 but it is a known fact that board I mentioned before(P4B533-V) does indeed support it as well.
That is definately a good board to go with in my eyes!
Opus
Well, I know for fact that the Asus CUSL board doesn't have ACPI
Well, I know for fact that the Asus CUSL board doesn't have ACPI support so you would have to do a standard PC install with no APM support in any way. It won't cause any harm just won't shut down properly. Been through that with a client of mine whose system I upgraded to XP. No biggie as basically it just won't shut down by itself.
A PIII 1Ghz system is pretty decent for a home based recording DAW. It's all about how it's configured hardware and OS wise. This is the key to a succesful DAW.
You can do it yourself and save some money!
Besides, that sandpaper condom sounds very painful. That put an awful image into my mind! I may be scarred for life from that! lol
Tell us all the components you have and we will guide you to the path of enlightenment!!!
Opus :D