I want a pure Recording Computer

Ozzdoc · #1 09-23-2006, 03:42 PM

I want a computer that is designed just for recording, don't need a 1000000 dollar video card since I won't use it, I don't need a monitor, Don't need speakers, just the Tower.

Now, I'm just 15 years old so I don't have that much disposible income! I'm looking to spend around a grand.

I was thinking to buy say, a 500 dollar tower, with lots of expansion so I could add more ram later on (Eventually I want up to 4 gigs muhaha). A pretty big hardrive, like 250 and I got a good soundcard already but I may by a M-Audio one.

Or should I buy a tower with just say, a good proccesor, lots of ram, pretty big hardrive, **** graphics card? Companies like Dell, MDG, HP or go to a store and get one "custom built". I want a Mac Pro but I'm to poor...

Thanks, Austin

Randy G · #2 09-24-2006, 03:59 AM

Try Sweetwater, they could probably set you up with a $1K box.

nightfiend14 · #3 09-24-2006, 08:26 PM

i would get two harddrives. One to keep your programs on, the other too keep all your recorded files on. Try to get new Sata II harddrives that are nice and fast as well.

gu1tar · #4 09-25-2006, 02:42 AM

A Dell Dimension E510 would run you about $750 or less with a good video card (ATI Radeon X600 - but, like you said video is not critical for your needs), 1MB RAM, 250GB hard drive, DVD/CD burner, and no monitor. You can play around on their configurator and see what combo best fits what you need. Of course, you could always go with an even cheaper tower (a E510 without various upgrades) like you mentioned and upgrade in small doses later.

JimmyJ · #5 09-25-2006, 03:23 AM

Gday all

After recently building a studio computer i can advise on a few things.

If you are on a budget i would do the following:

Pentium 4 Dual Core 3.2ghz (Stay away from AMD, not because of the cpu`s but because of the cheaper motherboards)

Generally NFORCE based motherboards have issues with Asio Recording and PCI bus IRQ stuff, I know because my last motherboard had these issues.

Also stay away from the Silicon Image Sata controller. Hence why i like intel, get an intel chip with a Promise or Intel Sata controller and you are laughing, Buy 2 Hard disks, 1x40gb for your OS and the other 200+ gb for your recording. keeping the two separate will assist your head seek time for recording. Also if the page file is on the 40gb there is no reason for the 200gb to be doing anything else.

Also 2gb of ram should be a minimum, with DFH and other VSTI`s you want as much ram available as possible. Stick with 2gb as a minimum. Plus if you can trigger samples from ram it will be 400,000 times faster than triggereing from a HDD.

For an audio card, please yuorself but i have an audiophile 2496 (old and dated now) but gives me 0ms latency and i love it!

Anyways i hope this helps.

Jim

rty13ibz98 · #6 09-25-2006, 12:06 PM

i built my pc about a year and a half for around $750. for the same money, you can get an even faster box. buy a good barebones system and then expand on it. go to pricewatch.com to get the best prices.

rich

Paul Secondino · #7 11-09-2006, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimmyJ

Gday all

After recently building a studio computer i can advise on a few things.

If you are on a budget i would do the following:

Pentium 4 Dual Core 3.2ghz (Stay away from AMD, not because of the cpu`s but because of the cheaper motherboards)

Generally NFORCE based motherboards have issues with Asio Recording and PCI bus IRQ stuff, I know because my last motherboard had these issues.

Also stay away from the Silicon Image Sata controller. Hence why i like intel, get an intel chip with a Promise or Intel Sata controller and you are laughing, Buy 2 Hard disks, 1x40gb for your OS and the other 200+ gb for your recording. keeping the two separate will assist your head seek time for recording. Also if the page file is on the 40gb there is no reason for the 200gb to be doing anything else.

Also 2gb of ram should be a minimum, with DFH and other VSTI`s you want as much ram available as possible. Stick with 2gb as a minimum. Plus if you can trigger samples from ram it will be 400,000 times faster than triggereing from a HDD.

For an audio card, please yuorself but i have an audiophile 2496 (old and dated now) but gives me 0ms latency and i love it!

Anyways i hope this helps.

Jim

Lots of good advice there. 40 gigs should be enough for your OS and 200 gig hard drives are usually very affordable. And 2 gigs of Ram is very desirable for guys who will be doing serious recording.

I'm not sure which processor will be best for you. I'm specing out a DAW and plan to use the Intel core 2 Duo but it's over $300.00. I believe that an intel pentium 4 cpu will be alot less money and still be pretty fast. My current PC has a P4 2.63 processor and I would advise to go with somethign faster from the P4 series. Go over 3 gigs in speed in my opinion.

guitvai1 · #8 11-09-2006, 12:03 PM

I bought my recording PC at Tiger Direct - www.tigerdirect.com They have great prices on bare bones or just pc parts. I bought a Motherboard/CPU combo there then just added the other components. I'm running an AMD 64 (3200) chip and have no issues with recording in Cubase SX2. My HD is 200G at 7200 RPM (avoid the 5200 RPM models), only 1Gig of RAM (not an issue so far but I'd like to get it to 2G. I'm also using the M Audio Audiophile 2496 and it sounds great. You should be able to build a system like this for under $1000 provided you get the OS with the bare bones kit.

megadeth · #9 11-09-2006, 01:04 PM

get ALOT of RAM. I had 2.5 GB and it used to run low on memory when I used to load the complete hard rock drum kit.
specially when you start using DKFH-2, spectrasonics atmosphere and reason 3.0 in nuendo at the same time.

Now, I have 4 GB of DDR2 533MHz RAM.

kennydoe · #10 11-09-2006, 04:31 PM

Yep...lots of Ram and HD space.

Also, make sure you save a little for the sound card - somebody mentioned an older one with 0 latency...i haven't had much latency issues with my M-Audio Firewire 410 and it was reasonably priced around $250.

~K

Ferrous Lepidoptera · #11 12-15-2006, 10:52 PM

If you get SATA hard drives, make sure to RAID them, prefereably RAID 1, or RAID 1+0. SATA drives are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable, especially if you put a big load on them. Here's something to notice -- when you have, say, a RAID 5, and one drive fails, that puts a heavy load on the remaining drives. SATA drives don't like a heavy load. They tend to commit suicide.

crevis · #12 12-15-2006, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megadeth

get ALOT of RAM. I had 2.5 GB and it used to run low on memory when I used to load the complete hard rock drum kit.
specially when you start using DKFH-2, spectrasonics atmosphere and reason 3.0 in nuendo at the same time.

Now, I have 4 GB of DDR2 533MHz RAM.

Thats diffinately the best advise you'll get.

Also Id suggest an MSI motherboard and a CPU with at least a 1mb cache, if youre on a tight budget, an old prescot P4 > 3.2 GHZ will do very well and for a fraction the price of a new dual core

, Imo you shouldnt need a dual core and it would be money better spent elsewhere.

S-man · #13 12-15-2006, 11:21 PM

I want a pure computer recording.

waylay00 · #14 12-17-2006, 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimmyJ

Pentium 4 Dual Core 3.2ghz (Stay away from AMD, not because of the cpu`s but because of the cheaper motherboards)

This is false. AMD motherboards and chipsets are just as good, if not sometimes better than Intel-based motherboards. And since when have AMD motherboards been cheaper than Intel motherboards...? Although for any sort of multimedia/audio editing, Intels are the way to go. As of lately, Intel seems to be ahead in the CPU race. However, this a constant battle, and the leader shifts about every two or so years, but as of now, Intel's Conroe (Core 2 Duo) CPU's are hard to beat. I'd also go with two SATA 3.0 hard drives in RAID 0.

Here's a rig that would get you going nicely:

ASUS P5B Deluxe Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard ($180)

Intel Conroe Core 2 Duo E6400 Socket LGA 775 ($220)

OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit ($230)

eVGA Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card ($140)

(two of these) Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive ($95x2)

SeaSonic S12-500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply ($120)

LIAN LI PC-G50B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ($90)

LG 18X DVD±R Super-Multi DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM ($30)

And then the soundcard you have that you say is good. IF you need another soundcard, you could opt to reduce the number of hard drives to one and use the saved money for a better soundcard.

Total: Exactly $1200

However, the graphics card I spec'ed out there is a 7600GT, which isn't too bad at all. You could cut some costs more by going with a really cheap PCI express card such as a 7100GS, which would bring the total nearer $1100.

Building computers is my other hobby in case you wondered.

gpenguins · #15 01-25-2007, 12:48 PM

Although you don't want to get overboard on video, keep in mind that since you're doing graphic based functions for sound editing, you will need a decent video card, so I wouldn't get a 64MB shared video mem system or even a 64MB card. A 256MB AGP card is more than affordable these days, and even a "cheap" one is good enough for what you'd need.