My new Studio-PC

i have a friend of mine who runs his studio with apple type stuff...you can really crank out some cool noises. it makes for a pretty diverse set up

 

Sounds like a cool setup AllodoX. What all do you plan to do with it? Record your band or use it more for the sample stuff you mentioned with the drummer, or something in between?

I use a Mac G4 for my audio stuff, and it's amazing. I scrimped and saved for it, but it was totally worth it.

The program for your drummer sounds cool. How is it homemade, did you actually design/program it? If so I tip my hat to you. I'm doing something similar but plan on doing it the hardware way. I'm going to get a keyboard workstation that allows me to put sounds I create in it, then via a MIDI foot controller I'll cue up single hits or sequences for entire songs. I plan on using Cubase to make my sequences since I prefer a computer interface.

Have you seen Cubase 5.1 yet? It's got some cool virtual instruments in it, which is Cubase's strong point in my opinion. I haven't been able to get deep into it at all, I've just seen a bit of it but what I saw looked cool.

 

nice!!

but one thing I need to say... you shouldn´t have bought a celeron... it´s much slower than a real pentium processor...

but dual though.. it should be good enough..

 

If you have an OS that supports, and software that utilizes it, yes.

 

That's a really good point. I'm not sure on the dual processor support of the programs mentioned earlier. It actually doesn't help, and in some cases can decrease performance, to have dual processors with certain software.

I had to turn off one of my processors so Pro Tools LE would run smoother. In an empty session with no tracks my PCI bus was maxed out, but now in my largest sessions (around 15-20 audio tracks, 1 or 2 MIDI tracks, 2-3 aux input tracks) it stays at around half usage. I haven't noticed any change in performance with the rest of my programs so I don't feel like I've lost anything.

 

Great setup, but you'll want something better than that Audigy card soon, especially for recording.

 

<b>CAUTION: extreme geek talk follows - if you're not interested in this stuff, please move on...

Nails said...</b>

That's a really good point. I'm not sure on the dual processor support of the programs mentioned earlier. It actually doesn't help, and in some cases can decrease performance, to have dual processors with certain software.

I had to turn off one of my processors so Pro Tools LE would run smoother. In an empty session with no tracks my PCI bus was maxed out, but now in my largest sessions (around 15-20 audio tracks, 1 or 2 MIDI tracks, 2-3 aux input tracks) it stays at around half usage. I haven't noticed any change in performance with the rest of my programs so I don't feel like I've lost anything.

Interesting. I'm a professional geek with the proper certifications and a few years of experience. I've been running (and servicing) multiprocessor PCs longer than I've been playing bass - which might not be saying much for either I have three of them at home right now - two WinXP machines (850, 1000MHz) and a Linux box (800MHz).

Nails, Digidesign is pretty clear about only certifiying ProTools on single processor Windows machines - although it runs fine on an SMP Mac. I guess that's why it says "uniprocessor only" on the hardware requirements page I think the application was ported from Mac to PC and that would explain why SMP operations are flaky - PCs and Macs don't do multiprocessing the same way and no one apparently bothered to build this support into the Windows version. This is an application problem, not hardware or OS.

Even if an application isn't multithreaded, WinNT/2k/XP, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, BeOS, OS X and all currently available flavors of UNIX are - so single threaded applications get a performance boost because there's less processor overhead required by the OS. That performance boost can be measured - and should average about 40% over a single processor machine with the same clock speed.

Most gamers currently get more bang for the buck with single-CPU machines for a few reasons I won't go into here - but if anyone *really* wants to know they can email me privately. This is getting boring and way too technical anyway

Cubase VST supports multiprocessor operations - some Cubase plugins don't, though. FruityLoops is not multithreaded but if you run more than one instance they should run on separate processors. I couldn't find an SMP answer for CoolEdit pro.

<b>and The_Bass said...</b>

but one thing I need to say... you shouldn´t have bought a celeron... it´s much slower than a real pentium processor...


This hasn't been true since the Celeron 300A was released - I think it's the reason that Intel disabled SMP support in Celerons starting with the 533 MHz PPGA chip. Real-world Celeron performance is pretty impressive. About four PCs ago I had a dual 450 and my friend had a dual Celeron 466. We benchmarked both machines and the difference in performance didn't justify what I spent buying real Pentium II chips. About the time I decided to build a dual Celeron Intel turned off SMP support in the processors. Best Celeron to buy if you're looking to build a dualie? The PGA 533 - but the 466 is no slouch.

I think AllodoX has made great choices.

allan

 

i still wouldn't buy a creative labs card for serious recording.

The recording input converters are crippled and I haven't heard good things about the drivers.

 

<b>JMX said...</b>

i still wouldn't buy a creative labs card for serious recording.

The recording input converters are crippled and I haven't heard good things about the drivers.

<hr>
That may be true - I haven't tried any serious recording with a creative card - but the SB Live! cards in two of my machines and the SB32 in the Linux box don't appear to have driver problems.

If I were doing serious recording I'd probably use something else, but for playback they seem to work just fine. I occasionally plug a bass into my sound card just for grins - and it seems to work okay.

I'd like to know what a good sound card for recording is - I see some offered on musiciansfriend but am a little skeptical.

allan

 

Get something like a Midiman Audiophile or Delta.
The Audiophile can be had for under 200$. 24bit and 96kHz capable for recording and playback (unlike the Audigy which can only do recording with up to 16bit/48kHz).

It has ASIO (Cubase), EASI (Logic) and GSIF (Gigastudio) support and drivers for MacOS, Linux, Win98/Me and 2k/XP (WDM).

Very good ADDA converters.

www.midiman.com

Here's a review of the Audiophile 2496:

http://midiman.com/company/media/reviews/computermusic_ap2496/cmreview.html

SBlive drivers have high latency, and there is a hardware bug that can mess with the PCI bus on certain chipsets.

Creative promised ASIO drivers for the SBLive for more than 2 years, but nothing came of it.
So it's fair to say that the driver support is bad, at least for those customer who want to do more than gaming.

The quality differences between the Midiman ADDA converter and those of the SBLive! are audible!