Another "recording PC" thread

[jay ratkowski]

Well, it's tax return time and I'm 100% set on spending my refund on recording equipment (get my money in ~4 weeks). I sold off just about all my old gear after living in apartments for years, but now I have more freedom to make noise so I badly want back in the game.

I still have good monitors, mics, all that jazz... I really just need my recording interface and probably a new PC.

Assuming I go computer-based, I am dead set on buying an MBox2, as I have had good experience with Digi in the past and prefer using ProTools over anything else I've tried. However, getting such a setup is really reminding me that my current desktop is pretty old and I really don't want to attempt recording on my laptop.

Right now I'm rockin' a 1.7GHz P4 with 512MB RAM and not much else other than a lot of HD space. Digidesign says they require at least a 2.4GHz P4... which is fine, I wanted to build a new PC for other stuff.

The specs on what I need are no problem, I'm just curious if there is any other recomendations that people can give me. I want to make sure I'm getting all the right stuff right away.

Since a lot of components of my current PC will carry over just fine to the new one, here is what I am tenatively planning on building:
-ASUS P5VD1-X Socket T VIA PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard (Plenty of USB 2.0 slots, a pair of SATA and ATA slots, etc)
-Intel Pentium D 820 Smithfield 800MHz FSB 2 x 1MB L2 Cache (2.8GHz)
-1GB PC3200 RAM
-SATA HD for running Windows/other softare (pro tools included)
-HD for recording only
-Other HD's, video card, etc etc etc

It should work out pretty well... as I can get the parts needed for my PC and the MBox2 for about $1k total. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything important before making this venture.

Thanks.

[M.J.E.C.]

if u buy the Mbox 2 u get about anything u need (maybe some cables). but if u wanna plug in alot of instruments at the same time, u gotta buy a mixer aswell and then plug the mixer into the Mbox 2, that way ull have the jacks of the Mbox and the jacks of the mixer.

also get ALOT of ram pro tools eats up ur pc in seconds

[AirGuitar]

I would deffinately say get 2GB RAM, itll improve the performance of your system rather a lot!

For a main windows drive, id reccomend the Western Digital Raptor (10000rpm) 76GB (or 36GB, depending how much you need for the main drive). It makes a huge difference compared to a normal 7200rpm drive.