Need advice for home recording gear - Once more! :-)

[carlos seo]

I usually record some guitar tracks at home and I need advice about what to improve in my computer recording hardware. My current setup is:

Processor: Pentium III 1.2 GHz, Tualatin core
Motherboard: Intel D815EFVU
Memory: 512 MB SDRAM, PC133
Hard Disks: 1x Quantum Fireball lct20 (40 GB, 7200 RPM, ATA100) and 1x IBM DPTA-371360 (13.6 GB, 7200 RPM, ATA66 - for storage)
Optical Drives: LG DRD-8160D DVD-ROM and LG CED-8080B CD-RW
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Live!
Speakers: 2x Harman/Kardon HK-195 (quadriphonic system)
Video Card: GeForce 4 Ti4200, 128 MB DDR-RAM
Softwares: Sound Forge 6.0 and ACID Pro 4.0

What should I buy first? I have a very limited budget right now! :-)

[Ant711UK]

The setup looks OK for basic recording

To improve it I'd change or add another soundcard.
Go for an Audiophile 2496 for good quality audio recording at a sensible price. I'd also go for UWSCSI drives in that spec machine. Older IDE drives can't handle the data transfer and the WAV files hang during playback of large files. If you want to do it seriously and take a bit of time learning the ins and outs of audio recording with a computer, get a MAC G4 with firewire drives

[carlos seo]

Originally Posted by Ant711UK

The setup looks OK for basic recording

To improve it I'd change or add another soundcard.
Go for an Audiophile 2496 for good quality audio recording at a sensible price. I'd also go for UWSCSI drives in that spec machine. Older IDE drives can't handle the data transfer and the WAV files hang during playback of large files. If you want to do it seriously and take a bit of time learning the ins and outs of audio recording with a computer, get a MAC G4 with firewire drives

I can find the Delta Audiophile 2496 for US$240,00 and the Echo Mia for US$ 280,00. Are these really good cards? And about the HD, is a WD 800JB a good choice? I can't afford UWSCSI right now.

[Ant711UK]

I use the Audiophile, it's very good for the money. Running cubase VST24 using ASIO2 I get Zero Latency while recording audio. The Really good one is the Delta 10/10 but it is far more expensive.

If you are using a synth or sound module for keys/drum sounds I'd ditch the creative card and use the audiophile. If you are using the wavetable on the creative card then you'll have to leave it in and add the audiophile just for audio work.

As for the hard drive, I'd try your system using the existing drives first and then change them if you get severe glitching with audio.

If you have the luxury of a machine setup for music only you should dedicate one drive for the O/S and one for audio files. Clamp down on the amount of virtual memory as well in sytem properties/performance. Do whatever you can to minimize the drain on O/S resources. Turn off all the effects, screensavers and animations etc. Later versions of cubase automatically set up the sytem.ini file under VCACHE to allow a specific amount of virtual memory.

I moved from PC to MAC a while ago so things may have changed since my experiences with PC's. If you want another opinion on what to do before you spend your money, try asking some of the current PC audio recordist's on this forum.

Good luck and don't forget to post your track's for us to listen to

[GuyCool]

I agree. The 2496 is very good. I think it has the same converters as the delta1010 and the drivers are fundamentally the same so there wont be ant improvement in actual sound. A cheaper option then the 1010 is the delta 44 or the delta 66(which has digitalI/O). They both have 4 in and 4 outs on a breakout box. Good stuff. ASIO2 drivers. Lose the soundblaster!

Guy

[Doink]

Harmon Kardon speakers are "hi fi" speakers, meaning that they are designed to enhance the sound, meaning they do not have a flat frequency response, meaning you don't get an accurate picture of what's going on.
Additionally, monitoring on a "quadraphonic" system will result in a lot of comb filtering, ie some frequencies phasing eachother out and other's summing together. Again, this paints a very inaccurate picture.

I suggest getting a pair of real monitors. Event, Tannoy, Yamaha...

What kind of mic's and preamps do you have?

[JESTER700]

Originally Posted by Doink

Harmon Kardon speakers are "hi fi" speakers, meaning that they are designed to enhance the sound, meaning they do not have a flat frequency response, meaning you don't get an accurate picture of what's going on.
Additionally, monitoring on a "quadraphonic" system will result in a lot of comb filtering, ie some frequencies phasing eachother out and other's summing together. Again, this paints a very inaccurate picture.

I suggest getting a pair of real monitors. Event, Tannoy, Yamaha...

What kind of mic's and preamps do you have?

Not all Hi-fi speakers are hyped. The HKs I've heard were not. I'd rather have some home speakers like B&W 600 series, JBL S38s, or NHT SuperOnes than many "monitors" (including those icky Yamaha NS-10Ms).