Building PC

[FADERFILE]

Suggestions on motherboards, mem. and everything else. first time building pc for audio. If anyone knows a good link please help. I want to make sure I do it right.

[terrorbeat]

Depends on what you're using? I can give you some general direction if you tell me the following:

1) What software are you using (i.e. Nuendo, ProTools, Cubase, etc)

2) What will you be recording?
(i.e. are you recording live instruments, or are you looking to create a "virtual" studio with soft-synths and such)

3) How much money can you spend?

Those'll help give you better information.

[dawboxpro]

You should weigh the options before considering doing it yourself, you would be surprised at what you can get by letting someone build it for you. It is not that much more and you get support and a warranty.

1.Budget
2.What gear do you own now?
3.What software and hardware are you using or do you want to integrate into the DAW?
4.How many tracks and plugs are you gong to need to create your projects?

[terrorbeat]

dawboxpro:

Don't mean to sound argumentative, but I've got disagree with you here.

"you would be surprised at what you can get by letting someone build it for you. It is not that much more and you get support and a warranty."

While you do get support, you're also assuming the company has decent support to beging with, or stays in business for more than a year.

As far as a warranty, you get a warranty when you buy parts too.

What I really disagree with is your statement that it's not much more. That's just silly. It's a LOT more. If the VAR uses high quality components and provides excellent customer support, it'll cost a lot more. If the company uses low quality or grey market components and has limited or lousy support, you'll get a little closer to what you pay if you build it yourself.

I'm not disagreeing that for many people, buying from a VAR is the way to go because they need that level of support, but if you're comfortable with the case open, there's no comparison. You get the most bang for your buck building it yourself.

[Pretty Pretty Cyanide]

Plus you get the know what goes into your DAW. Someone else might cheap out creating headaches down the road.

Here is my setup.

Asus A7N266VM
Athlon XP 1800+
360MB DDR2100
Radeon VE
Audiophile
W2K
20GB [OS and Plug-ins]
120GB WD[Audio]
Enermax 420W

It's been rock solid w\ low latency and great sound throughput.

Though I would make sure I get a non-micro ATX board next time

[Polaris]

The support for the computer I built is incredible. Anytime I have an issue, I ask myself. But usually I don't have any problems.

Good thing, because I look stupid talking to myself about computers. http://www.audioforums.com/forums/biggrin.gif

[maggotcontrol]

I have to defend Dawbox Pro a bit here.
While it's true that the initial investment in building your own may be less, if you aren't a technically savvy, resourceful individual with enough time on your hands, you'd end up spending more money by hiring consultants, researching for tweaks etc.
The reason why there are dedicated DAW builders like Dawbox, I and a few others is to reduce the amount of time you as a professional musician/producer waste by doing all of this nonsense.
Time is money for >lots< of people.
Having a machine already built and ready to go by knowledgeable people is worth the few extra hundred dollars because they can concentrate on their own work and not >building their own tools< to get their job done.
What kind of shoe repairsman would spend time making shoe horns and common leather?
Sure sometimes having someone else building it for you won't 100% guarantee you get all of the components you want or expect but that's a trust you have to develope with the seller by asking questions, looking for testimonials, rants, actual product pricing etc. It's a common thing with all companies, not only in the computer industry.
Hope you understand.

Yoshi
www.studiokobari.com (http://www.studiokobari.com)

[Aunt Harriet]

Hey Faderfile! Since no one wants to answer your question or help you,except the person asking what you have or what you plan on using(software,virtual or audioplans) why dont you give us a list and someone Will Help and not try to SELL YOU ANYTHING! or tell you their life story. Lets get to it.AH http://www.audioforums.com/forums/biggrin.gif

[XenosoniK]

i'm sure dawbox is not trying to sell himself. he didn't mention that he would do it for a price. it was advice. and most of the people that participated in this topic gave advice. support is a big thing when dealing with time and experience. with little time and experience, fader would be better off getting a prebuilt DAW. if he has the time and patience to learn and the money to spend, then he should learn how to build his own DAW for his own benefit.
oh, and fader, it would help if you did answer the questions, regardless of who is actually going to do the building.

-Xeno

[This message has been edited by XenosoniK (edited 05-15-2003).]

[terrorbeat]

I completely agree that building it yourself isn't for everyone. On the other hand, if you're going to begin to invest a lot of time USING a computer to record your work, I think it's just as good of an investment in yourself to begin learning how computers work.

Someday, you're going to be in the middle of a session, and something is going to go wrong. If you can fix it yourself, the session is saved and you're the hero. If you can't fix it, everyone loses time and money.

[FADERFILE]

So far my setup is
Korg Karma
Akai MPC2000xl W/250 SCSI ZIP
Roland 303
Technics1200 (2)
vestax 07 mixer

[FADERFILE]

Originally posted by FADERFILE:
So far my setup is
Korg Karma
Akai MPC2000xl W/250 SCSI ZIP
Roland 303
Technics1200 (2)
vestax 07 mixer
I would like as many tracks as possible.
I will be doing a lot scratching and I want to be able create mix-cds that consist of multi-track recording. also I don't know much about software but I have used Soundforge2 and I thought it was alright.
I have always been used to the harddisk recorders, "remember ADAT"
I also have excellent wirring and have been using midi very well. I don't want to go over a 1,000 for the computer not including monitor or sound medium, which I don't know if I should have internal or external. I would be willing to spend about 700 for the sound card. However if anybody realy knows would a computer setup that I am looking to build sound and function as well as a multi-track hard disk recorder. And I know I would get a lot more tracks with the computer.

[Chaser]

faderfile,

I recently built a new system. It ROCKS.
NO conflicts, NO crashines, and so far no limits as far as tracks and plugins go!
The list

Abit BH7 - 533mhz, serial ATA, DDR333,
Intel P4 2.53 Ghz - 512fsb
Matrox G550 - Dual head graphics
512Mb DDR 333
2 19" Proview monitors
Rme Hammerfall 96/52 for connection to studio
3x WD 80gig Caviar Ltd Edition 8MB buffers
XP Proffessional, Cubase SX, Waves Native Gold bundle, GigaStudio 160 (runs perfect along with SX.