Dual Zeon Quad Core DAW 32 and 64 bit FAQ

[shmackband]

Hello Everyone!
My goal is to record a close-enough to professional album for my new band (this has potential!). I will go to other studios (for acoustics and mics) and consult with pros (i.e. mastering) but due to budget have to do most of the work myself in my own studio, I have good monitors. This means that I need a powerful computer that I can work on to put all of the pieces together.

I just bought all of the parts to replicate the top of the line computer from a certain audio production computer company. The exact MB they use, exact Ram, CPU, everything. Their cost was $3000, mine was $2000.

The company gave details on the parts in their top of the line machine, I figured it would be ethical not to post the brand name and model, but is is sold as a machine ideal for film scoring, arranging, - big intensive stuff. It is supposed to eat plugins for lunch. So we used $2000 of the bands money and bought these parts:

Chenbro RM41100 E-ATX Rackmount Chassis

Nexus Silent 1000W Powes supply

Two Intel Quad Core Xeon E5520 2.26GHz Processors
Two CPU Fans Noctua NH-U9DX

12GB Kingston ECC DDR3 1333 (6x2GB) actually 2 (3x2GB) kits Triple Channel

Tyan S7010 Server Board - Intel 5520 1xPCI Express x16, 2xPCI Epxress x8, 1xPCI Express x4, 1xPCI, 1xD-Sub (what is D-sub btw?)

Gigabyte 1TB 9800GT nVidia Geforce GDDR3
LITE-ON DVD/RW

SIIG 3-Port FireWire 800 Texas Instruments Chipset

System HD 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3GB/s
Project HD 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3GB/s
Sample Drive *to be determined* is a solid state drive better?

All of these parts came to around $2200. Now I am going to find out if it is worth the extra $1000 for someone to put it together for you.

So here are my questions/advice I need.

I am pretty sure I can put all the pieces together properly. When all of the parts come I will ask questions if I need. I will update and let you guys know how the physical build goes. My apprehension is about the software and configuration.

So once all of the parts are put together, I am going to power it up and put in the CD that came with the motherboard, right?

And the MB program will do it's thing, are there any tips or should I stick with default options?

Then what?

I need to install an O.S.

I know I want to install a boot menu and have many boot options, like versions of linux, windows, and backup/emergency alternate windows.

I am new to the new Daws (I know Cool Edit Pro 2.0 haha) since I am getting back into music so I want to explore all options. We have a delta 1010 but will probably buy another firewire unit once I figure out compatability - I want to check out linux, especially Ubuntu Studio. This machine is production critical, so I need stability, but I also want to experiment. I think that these are the O.S. installs I want:

Windows XP
Windows XP 64 bit
Windows XP 64 bit backup
Windows Vista 32 bit
Windows Vista 64 bit
Windows 7 32 bit production critical
Windows 7 32 bit production backup boot
Windows 7 64 bit production critical
Windows 7 64 bit production backup boot
Windows 7 64 bit gaming/internet/multimedia/explore

Ubuntu Studio
Xubuntu 64

Im actually thinking now of using the 1 tb as the system HD, so that I can have plenty of space and partitions. What is a max partion size you would go for an OS?. Is it OK to do something like 5 50GB Parts, and 2
So what is the next step ?

Install a boot menu first? Or install an O.S. then partition? I have a friend who can put grub bootloader and multiple O.S. Linux and Windows, but he has no experience with Windows 7 or 64 bit pcs.

Am I way in over my head? With a little patience and research I hope that I can make this build work.

Specifically can we talk about the O.S.? I want to be able to explore all options available to me regarding DAWs and plugins. 32 bit and 64 bit.
Is XP64 bit good for anything or should I use vista or 7?

Programs I know I want to use

Ableton - for live looping (dont own yet)
Tracktion 3 - for easy recording
Audition - I know cool edit
A program to use vstis live
A program to compose in midi
Cubase 4 - it came with a pedal I bought

and, maybe you can help me pick, a new killer DAW to learn

I have 2 goals for this machine - 1- record a near pro qualtiy album for cheap by using the computers processing power to use many plugins instead of outboard gear. 2 - be able to use this system with live looping midi and audio, linked to other midi stuff, getting the heartbeat downbeat synced from a midi signal from the kick drum, so that organic tempo fluctuations from the drummer slow down or speed up the tempo of the computer and sync loops with the actual beat. YEAH! more to come- separate thread?

so in essence, I need general advice and suggestions, and details on installing the boot menu and different versions of windows side by side, and how to do what I want to do regarding what programs.

More about the band - I think this is my ticket guys, Single Hot Moms and Crazy Kids - I work with 4 talented cool hip female vocalists with song styles varying - one is commecial hip hop style, one electronic, one country, one dancehall, a few rock n roll, 3 songs about pot etc. but it all ties together around a theme of being a cool single mom (or single parent) with crazy kids and how your life is.

Me? Im a late 20s year old single male no kids that just got back into music for a career after quitting music and jamming in HS when they told him NO, music is not a career, go be a businessman. Music can be a career and its the best career option for me now. (construction sucks). Done right we can sell many thousands of CDs and MP3s, ringtones, play our shows and festivals and keep most of the profit.

I am going to need all kinds of advice but lets keep this as a thread that will help someone in a similar situation, that wants to build their own dual zeon or dual quad core setup with multiple O.S. boot options to take advatage of both 32 and 64 bit platforms.

Thanks for any reply!

"Shwa"
Producer, S.H.M.A.C.K.

[kope]

I will by one additional HDD 200/300 Gb just for experiments.
Advice – forget experiments until your production setup runs 100%. If you start together more OS you will just get confused.
About OS – Windows 7 64 bits. W7 because of stability and compatibility, 64 bits because of amount of memory (for 32 bits is maximum 4 Gb of RAM).
Do not complicate your life with partitions – you will get nothing.
Today market is rich with VST plugins, so if one doesn’t work with your OS just take other one. You have to know that is not so easy to do projects in multiple OS surrounding. My suggestion is Windows 7 with compatibility support for older systems. Multiple systems only make confusion where is what and where you done what.
Advice – if you want to play with other OS just by some crap second hand and play with that – after some time you will get it that Windows 7 is the best solution.
Recommended program for you is Cubase 5 -> Audition.
Most important thing missing – SOUND CARD?
Don’t be so happy about price – You have to purchase OS and to pray that nothing will go wrong.
So – conclusion: You were quite naïve to believe that “studio” knows the best. For far less money you can build comp with I7 which one can run a elephants.

[shmackband]

Ok- I already bought windows XP 64 are there any older good audio programs that will run on it (XP) and not windows 7?. I guess Ill get 7 too- what version? I am going to use a delta 1010 for a sound card, for starters. Another guy told me that I could put OS X on it. Would that work good for audio? How should I configure this motherboard setup? ANY tips, big and small, detailed or simple, are appreciated. I already bought the parts so I have to make this work....

[Gavin3]

I have 2 goals for this machine - 1- record a near pro qualtiy album for cheap by using the computers processing power to use many plugins instead of outboard gear. 2 - be able to use this system with live looping midi and audio, linked to other midi stuff, getting the heartbeat downbeat synced from a midi signal from the kick drum, so that organic tempo fluctuations from the drummer slow down or speed up the tempo of the computer and sync loops with the actual beat.

[sabianq]

i have to chime in here...

so you have your super duper super fast super computer...

what interface are you using?
i didnt see a mention of an interface..

your interface is waaaayyyy more important than the processing power of your pc..

case in point.. some of the best digital recordings on the planet were done in the late 80's and 90's with 300 mhz machines, 128 mb of memory and 6 gig hard drives..

albums like Information Society and the remastered Abby Road when it came out on cd..

regardless, your interface is the most important part of your digital chain.. having good analogue to digital converters and accurate word clocks are absolutly required for high quality digital sampling..

then on the analogue side, you need nice wide head amps (microphone pre amplifiers) and microphones, not to mention a good set of compressor limiters for your anagloue to digital converters..

[sabianq]

as for motherboard set up...

the very first thing you should do is disable the onboard sound module in the bios..

[sabianq]

i like Audition too..

Cakewalk Sonar is a very nice application, it has been around for quite some time.

im diving into Samplitude.. so far, it seems quite powerfull..

[sabianq]

ohh, i got to play with Sequoia and SADiE Version 5

one word for both..

NICE!

[sabianq]

i personally use a pentium 4 3.2 ghz with 4 gig of ram and multiple removable SATA hard drives.. the OS is sitting on an IDE 40 gig 7200 rpm HDD..

i use two interfaces both PCI, the Aardvark and the MOTU 2408 Mk3 with the PCIx-424.. i master the word clock from the Aardvark (i think it is more stable than the MOTU)..

my recordings are pristine and super accurate..

it does not take much processing power to manipulate audio data..
the big gun pc like the one you listed are wonderful for video post production..
over kill for audio IMO..

[shmackband]

Thank you so much for the responses! They are helping! So an update.. all of the parts came, I put them together, and it didnt start. But luckily all it was is I had the ram in the wrong slots. So that figured out it booted, and I went through the bios setup. I will double check but im pretty sure I disabled the onboard sound. I installed windows xp, windows xp 64, and windows 7. Then I found out that our delta 10/10 does not work in windows xp 64 bit. So that was kind of a waste of money, buying xp64. But our 10/10 has a problem where it has a random channel cuts in and out, (it was doing this on the old system) so we are going to buy a presonus firestudio tube. Maybe I;ll be able to use xp64 after all, if I need to.

I like windows 7. I havent done any optimization to the OS on windows 7 but I can record, no problem, in Cubase, Cakewalk Home Studio, and Tracktion 3. Tracktion 3 is the program most of us here know so Im going to stick with it. Right now I can record 8 tracks at a time and then record 8 more while listening to the first 8, and so on untill I am listeming to about 30 tracks and then when I try to record 8 on top of that the sound starts skipping every second or so. Is this because the harddrive cant keep up? It is a 7200 rpm 32mb cache 500GB sata. Upgrade to 10,000 rpm? Or is that why they use RAID? I am recording onto a separate HD than the OS sits on. This number (30 tracks playback only?) is kind of low. I have only tried this in tracktion 3 so maybe it is the software. When I take the number of CPUs to use higher than 1 or 2 (it lets me go up to 16 even though I only have 2 quad cores) the sound starts skipping and being choppy. So there is stuff to figure out.

We are going to process video on this machine also, and I am exited about getting into the big sampling libraries. I realize I have a little overkill but I can also expand.

So regards to the outboard gear

We have a Focusrite Tube preamp 2 channels with optical compressor
Ashley Eqs, a Soundcraft 24 channel board, a DBX compressor, a matched pair of $1500 AKG mics, NHT A-10 monitor system (need to upgrade)

How do I wordclock? Do I need to if I am only going to use the presonus firestudio tube.

Also something interesting someone told me I could put Mac OSX on this machine if I wanted to.

Well all in all I am happy that the beast is running and recording something, its doing all I need it to for now (demo and composition work) and hopefully by the time were laying final tracks I have it all worked out.

So my next steps- optimize windows 7, figure out my DAW of choice (tracktion 3 wont cut it.), figure out why I can only play back 30 tracks or so (no fx or vsts) before skipping.

Thanks again to all you guys replying it makes me feel like im not alone.

[john123]

wow that spec are cool

[robertruetz]

You might need to adjust buffers for playback. Raise them when playing back, lower them when recording. You have a dedicated audio hard drive, correct. Make sure you keep your OS/software on a separate hard drive from your data, that will speed things up a bit.

As far as OS X, that's pretty much personal preference. You're going to have to put a hacked version, since there isn't an off-the-shelf version that will install on OEM hardware. For the most part, there are some good guides out there for doing this, but I guess I don't understand why you would want to. If you're more familiar with Mac or there is some Mac-only software you want to run (I can't think of a DAW that runs noticeably better on a Mac or is Mac-only), then you might want to look into it. Otherwise, just stick with Windows.

As far as a DAW, after reading through this thread, I would point you towards a Pro Tools rig of some kind. If you're going to be taking this stuff in and out of pro studios, they are going to want Pro Tools session files. That's the only real advantage to using PT. The problem is, you'll need to swap out your hardware to use Pro Tools.

If you want to start warming up to what Pro Tools looks and feels like, I would point you to Reaper. It's a VERY powerful DAW, that has a lot of the same functionality as Pro Tools (mostly with recording, not necessarily editing--which I mean as a compliment). Picking a DAW is mostly personal preference. You find something with a workflow that you like. If you're worried about compatibility with other studios--you have to look at Pro Tools.

Good luck.

Rob

[shmackband]

Thanks Rob!
I just started using Reaper and it works well... that's a good point about Pro Tools - other studios can use the tracks easily. I am exited about this project and our new tool. I named this thread Dual Zeon Quad Core DAW 32 and 64 bit FAQ so that other people can look at the thread and maybe get answers to similar questions about this kind of build if they searched for specific key terms. The next thing I am going to try is the Mac OS with the multiple boot options. Right now I have windows 7 running reaper and windows xp running demos of pretty much every DAW. So the beast is set up but I have not dialed it in yet at all on Windows7 (no audio OS tweaks) I also put windows xp 64 bit but the delta 10/10 does not have supported drivers for that OS. So under XP I get around 30 tracks, In tracktion. I don't know if I am using all of the Cores. The next thing for me is to put on OSX because I want to explore all of the options and get comfortable with different DAWs and creation programs.

[shmackband]

We are thinking of buying a Presonus firestudio tube, but that wont be Pro tools compatable, so maybe not. Right now I also have to build this studio wall so this computer will be getting set up slowly I suppose. This is all for this hot project- I am not thinking that I am going to learn great engineering/mixing/mastering overnight but I want/have to be able to put down clean enough tracks (vocal, keys, drums, guitar,) in the comfort of our own studio. Clean enough to produce them to the top notch Pop level. I will probably have to borrow better vocal pres but we have a good board, good mics, and top top top notch instruments/amps.

[kope]

When you work with M-Audio Delta 1010 you should disable stepping function of processors in bios. I do not know for Xeon but for normal processors they name it C1. Is’ function which step down processor speed when processor is not loaded.
Your software for recording is bad choice. I’m using 3 cards Delta 1010 and 24 channels recording in same time. While recording I can go on internet, play cards, use windows explorer etc. All this on weary low buffers (128) and latency around 1 ms. Do not play game with bad software -> use Pro Tools or Cubase. In addition, before 10 years on Pentium III I made test with some 70 channels playback with no problems -> WTF you are doing when you can’t play more than 30 channels’ on this animal????