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How 'bout this for a home recording setup?

lneal

lneal

Apr 12, 2002
1,349
23
Lee County, Alabama
#1
I would like your opinions on the following I am planning to use for a DAW here at home:

Abit IS7-V2 Motherboard with P4 @2.4Ghz.
Intel 848P/ICH5 chipset
512 MB, 400Mhz PC3200 DDR RAM
Maxtor 200GB hard drive
Plextor burner
400 watt power supply

I'll use this with my Aardvark Q10 breakout box. I've consulted with a couple of folks and this seems to go over okay with them. I may get an external 200GB USB 2.0 hard drive for a backup. Also, RF wireless keyboard & mouse are in the plans so I can put the tower in another room if I want to. What do you all think of this? I'm no computer guru so be easy on me...........
 
#3
What OS are you going with? I totally agree about the separate HD for the files. Get a 40GB maxtor for the OS and software, then have all the tunes go to the big drive. You'll hate it if your OS decides to be obstreperous and "forget" all it's settings, or if the partition table gets "modified" by some rogue anomaly...

That said, it sounds like a pretty decent setup, but double up on your RAM, nothing like having the "perfect take" ruined by latency or caching...good luck and have fun!
 
#4
XP will be the OS I plan to use. I do have an extra Western Digital 40GB hard drive here so I suppose I could use that for the system.

This mobo has an on-board sound card, do you think that will create any problems with the Aardvark? Too bad they're out of business now so tech support will be nonexistent but I did find a Invalid Link Removed for it. Thanks for your input and I will consider moving up to 1GB RAM. Any other comments welcome. :cool:
 
#7
lneal said:
XP will be the OS I plan to use. I do have an extra Western Digital 40GB hard drive here so I suppose I could use that for the system.

This mobo has an on-board sound card, do you think that will create any problems with the Aardvark? Too bad they're out of business now so tech support will be nonexistent but I did find a Invalid Link Removed for it. Thanks for your input and I will consider moving up to 1GB RAM. Any other comments welcome. :cool:
Click to expand...
Just disable the onboard sound in BIOS and it'll do fine...
 
#8
You've gotten great suggestions so far. 512 is probably doable for small projects, but it really depends on the software and the workload. 1Gig would be ideal. The system/slave drive setup is pretty standard as well.

I'm curious to see what effect, if any, the wireless will have on the setup. I've got my comp in a closet and have extension wires for the keyboard, mouse and monitor. It works, but it's extra wiring to deal with.
 
#9
Well, I've ordered all of the shizzle for the DAW mentioned above except I went with 1GB of RAM, per your advice. The burner is a Plextor 52x so that should be nice. I will also have 1 RAM slot left in case I need more later. The only missing pieces are: RF mouse & keyboard, LCD monitor and the 60GB system drive. Oh, and I plan to use Cubase, but I'm not sure which version to get. $500 and change for SX seems like a lot for a private setup like mine, any suggestions? I'll report back when I get her running............... :cool:
 
#10
lneal said:
Oh, and I plan to use Cubase, but I'm not sure which version to get. $500 and change for SX seems like a lot for a private setup like mine, any suggestions? I'll report back when I get her running............... :cool:
Click to expand...

What kind of recording do you intend to do? Are you looking for something to record bass alone, multiple instruments simultaneously/seperately, with or without midi sequencing, etc.?

Here's my thing, and it may not be worth quite 2 cents, but here it goes: you want your software's capabilities to match your match well with your signal path capabilities. You wouldn't want to invest in a software package that has fantastic sample rates and bit depth (along with great editing and processing abilities) if you're using a stock soundcard with poop A/D converters. Also, it's very important that you do not do any mixing solely through headphones. It can be done, but it won't be as accurate as if you switched between phones and monitors. In that case, you want good D/A conversion as well.

Though I haven't used them myself, M-Audio is supposed to have some pretty good cards. And not too long ago, they put out a version of their hardware that's packaged with ProTools LE...check this link: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I know, I know: ProTools has a learning curve, and it's common to have compatiblity issues initially. Still, it's a great program, people swear by it, and it has a fairly high level of expandability.

At any rate, whatever you go with, just make sure the quality of your software matches the quality of your signal path, and vice/versa. Good luck!
 
#11
As far as DAW software goes, there are some lower cost ones out there that may work for you. There's Cubase SE that goes for about $99. This pdf shows the differences between the various Cubase versions. Cakewalk has Home Studio (which I believe uses the Sonar 2.2 audio engine) for about the same price. I haven't tried either of those, but I've tried Mackie's Tracktion and Tracktion2, and though the interfaces on those are quite different from the "DAW norm", they become very intuitive and have won quite a few fans. You can get a demo of Tracktion on Mackie's site. ([Invalid or Expired Link Removed])
 
#12
As I mentioned, I'll be using my Aardvark Direct Pro Q10 for audio I/O. I won't just be recording my bass, I plan to do some small sessions here at the house. I don't know if MIDI will figure in. I hope the Aardvark works and holds up well since they are kaput. :cool:
 
#13
Well, I got her running today and it seems to be fine. I goofed around with it and recorded a couple of test tracks, it works! I think the Aardvark is gonna be nice. The mixer interface is very intuitive and it came with Magix Audio Studio 7, which seems a little cheesy, but it's simple to use, seems to work fine and will get me started off. I may take it to record a live gig for a friend this weekend which will give it a full test run. I ended up with an 80 GB c drive and no wireless mouse/keyboard. I decided to go with a kva extension cable instead. I ended up with a pretty nice Nvidia graphics card because the price was right ($14.99). Now, to get that LCD flat screen in here.......... :cool:
 

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