Spec out your "Dream PC" for your home Studio

LowDown Hal · #1 04-09-2008, 07:33 AM

I use Windows at work not Mac

, my other home machines are windows, so I plan to stay in that comfort zone.

I'm planning to build a new Windows (or Linux) based computer for my "practice room"

What is your dream system, in terms of components?

I plan to buy parts and assemble it myself so I am looking for suggestions on, processors (I tend to only use AMD's), motherboards, sound cards, graphics cards, etc., etc.

I haven't really paid attention to what's new in the last few years so I'm looking for some

THANKS in advance

i_got_a_mohawk · #2 04-09-2008, 08:06 AM

If your going with windows, stick with XP SP2, Vista is still too buggy for most peoples liking.

Also, i wouldnt stick to AMD, Intel are SLAYING AMD right now, Intel processessors are just all round better.

My dream system would be using one of the new Intel Nehalem processors when they come out.

But using current processors, this is what im planning on doing:

Intel Q9450 - Quad core, 2.66 Ghz with a 12 Mb L2 cache (built using new 45nm process)

Asus motherboard, not sure which model yet, there are a couple grabbing my attention, all using the slightly older P35 chipset.

Would use 3 Gb of ram, probably Crucial (great quality and price)

For harddrives:
Two WD Cavier 160 Gb (8 Mb cache) drives in Raid0, giving a fast 320 Gb drive, used for storing programs and currently used data only.
Two Seagate Barracuda 500Gb (32 Mb cache) drives in Raid1 for storage of files.

Graphics card would be an overclocked EVGA 8800 GT

For soundcard my Presonus Firepod and a Creative X-Fi

thefruitfarmer · #3 04-09-2008, 08:37 AM

XP operating system.

Asus mobo.

Intell dual core processor.

2Gb of RAM

Two 160 Gb hard drives.

Echo Layla 8 in 8 out pci sound card.

Quality case with silent fans and quiet power supply.

Maybe liquid cooling, but probably not really necessary.

Graphics card - well, it's a music PC so why get a resource hungary graphics card?

Visirale · #4 04-09-2008, 09:08 AM

http://www.zzounds.com/item--RAIX1

Something with these specs but not 10 grand.

hunta · #5 04-09-2008, 10:46 AM

I spec'd one out a few months ago and I was able to config a pretty bitchin audio PC for around $600 (just the case and components inside, no audio interface or monitor or anything). It was in a nice little cube case too.

Roughly:
micro ATX Case - $100
2.66 Intel Core2Duo Conroe CPU - $190
micro ATX mobo - $70
2 gigs ram - $60
500 gig WD internal SATA HD - $90
DVD burner - $25
SIIG 440012 TI FW PCI card - $30 (MAKE SURE you get TI)

There's $565 total, get some random cables if you need to and bring it up to around $600. This is more than enough PC for most people, and way cheaper than you'd get from a vendor for the same specs. Use the onboard video, most likely you don't need a fancy video card for audio work. Add $100 for XP if you don't have it. Use Vista at risk of spontaneous combustion.

LowDown Hal · #6 04-09-2008, 11:49 AM

thanks for the input, I'll check in again....

Visirale · #7 04-09-2008, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hunta

I spec'd one out a few months ago and I was able to config a pretty bitchin audio PC for around $600 (just the case and components inside, no audio interface or monitor or anything). It was in a nice little cube case too.

Roughly:
micro ATX Case - $100
2.66 Intel Core2Duo Conroe CPU - $190
micro ATX mobo - $70
2 gigs ram - $60
500 gig WD internal SATA HD - $90
DVD burner - $25
SIIG 440012 TI FW PCI card - $30 (MAKE SURE you get TI)

There's $565 total, get some random cables if you need to and bring it up to around $600. This is more than enough PC for most people, and way cheaper than you'd get from a vendor for the same specs. Use the onboard video, most likely you don't need a fancy video card for audio work. Add $100 for XP if you don't have it. Use Vista at risk of spontaneous combustion.

I'm pretty new to all this, but aren't multiple hard drives preferable when samples are brought in? A lot of the nicer audio PCs I were looking at had separate hard drives. One "smaller" one to load the actual programs on, one for actual recordings, and one for all patches and samples. I'm not too sure as to why one would do this but I think it optimizes speed by having dedicated drives.

BryanM · #8 04-09-2008, 03:25 PM

Visirale, it helps performance for scratch disks to be separate from system disks because it prevents fragmentation of files to a certain degree, since it's not seeking back and forth from system/program files to sample/data files over and over. It works the same way with most data intensive programs, it's also best to have the highest yet most stable read speed possible on system drives, to minimize lag when running programs, this is absolutely essential when using any software based VSTs, since lag can cause stutters in the mix.

Visirale · #9 04-09-2008, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BryanM

Visirale, it helps performance for scratch disks to be separate from system disks because it prevents fragmentation of files to a certain degree, since it's not seeking back and forth from system/program files to sample/data files over and over. It works the same way with most data intensive programs, it's also best to have the highest yet most stable read speed possible on system drives, to minimize lag when running programs, this is absolutely essential when using any software based VSTs, since lag can cause stutters in the mix.

Ok, that makes sense. If my production setup is going to be Reason 4.0 rewired into a sequencer (either ableton or cubase, not sure yet) should I be aiming for dedicated drives?

svtb15 · #10 04-09-2008, 03:52 PM

im in

LowDown Hal · #11 04-09-2008, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Visirale

I'm pretty new to all this, but aren't multiple hard drives preferable when samples are brought in? A lot of the nicer audio PCs I were looking at had separate hard drives. One "smaller" one to load the actual programs on, one for actual recordings, and one for all patches and samples. I'm not too sure as to why one would do this but I think it optimizes speed by having dedicated drives.

I ALWAYS use multiple hard drives (programs, data, data backup) on any machine I build for my own home.

seamonkey · #12 04-09-2008, 06:27 PM

I'm going to keep as much as possible peripheral to the CPU.

Esata drives.

Firewire audio interface - many good ones these days. Only requirement for me is one with "Directwire" which is like a virtual patch-bay. It's very handy to patch things around with the virtual cables.

External standalone RAID for backups.

Everything can move between between a different CPU.
Built in graphic cards are good enough for any software I use.

For my current music CPU, with XP optimized I get 30 second from cold boot time.

I've been thinking Solid-State Hard drive just for the boot. Also to get rid of one mechanical component, but hard drives are very reliable these days. Still, SSD's are going to be the wave of the future for speed and to save power. It might be a little soon for them at this point.

And there's a lot of software technology going on these days for networking to share load between systems.

I ran across these the other day
http://www.smproaudio.com/index.php?...ask=view&id=73
These, and Muse Receptor, are just little Linux boxes setup to load VSTs.
Just like Network routers these days are little linux boxes.
I recently bought a network backup drive. It too - just a little linux box to run the RAID.

i_got_a_mohawk · #13 04-09-2008, 06:55 PM

My only problem with SS drives is the cost (and relatively small size right now). However, the theoretical limits of SS drive capacity are much higher than that of mechanical disk. So, yeah, as you say, the future looks good for them

hunta · #14 04-09-2008, 09:05 PM

I definitely agree you should have separate drives, I use an external eSATA drive myself. I was just showing a budget way to get started, you can always add more drives and peripherals.

BryanM · #15 04-09-2008, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Visirale

Ok, that makes sense. If my production setup is going to be Reason 4.0 rewired into a sequencer (either ableton or cubase, not sure yet) should I be aiming for dedicated drives?

Yeah, I'd definitely recommend having two drives, another thing is you might wanna bypass rewire and just save your source files to disk to transfer from reason to cubase. Rewire tends to be very memory intensive and unless it's changed, not the most stable program.

seamonkey · #16 04-10-2008, 12:13 AM

Just a hint when looking for a soundcard.

ESI Interfaces and soundcards with DirectWire work with all IN/OUTs, both physical and software, and don't rely on REWIRE or some common protocol between the devices or software.

It sure can make things easy at times. Just drag a wire where you want to patch. Handy is if you need to do this kind of patching: