My suggestions for anyone looking for a new computer atm

[paravrais]

Yo dudes, I have about $1300 to spend. Looking for something for a DAW. (already have a laptop) Gimmie some idears

what type of setup do you seek.
reason is quality. if your going to do a lot of automation get fruity loops, or logic if ur on a mac.

if ur keeping automation simple and dont need to many assignable cc's go with cubase.
as far as interfaces go, i come from the live musician world so i dont know what dj interfaces or watever are good yet.
u can download all of these programs, shareware, freeware, or "hookedupware". its all ur choice.

what type of gear are u looking for?

I think he meant a production oriented PC setup rather than some production software.

[gen_]

Yo dudes, I have about $1300 to spend. Looking for something for a DAW. (already have a laptop) Gimmie some idears

Self built or Brandname?

[step correct]

Thanks guys, Either or as far as brand name. I've been a PC guy through and through since the 80's TBH. Maybe a Mac is what I'm looking for..who knows? All I know is I want it to be able to handle multiple instances of anything and not go lame. Cubase, Ableton, Logic (Os permitting) I currently use Reason and bounce everything into a crappy old PC that runs Cubase sx3 that has really seen better days. Especially seeing as I record tons of DJ mixes and sampling into the poor old thing. So I'm just looking for suggestions on something that is going to work when I need it to. Hey rewire Reason into CB/Logic with a set of vsts and a freq analyzer..etc and isn't going to suck. For a few years at least. Thanks

[step correct]

:corndance

[gen_]

Seriously... Don't go mac unless you HAVE to. If your practical enough to know how to put your own PC together you'll hate it. And if you do go mac, Its for logic, no other reason in the world unless you work in the video industry.

For $1300 you wont get much bang for your buck, I bough a Mac mini (£650) after having my hackmac (don't worry mines been legal since it became legal to jailbreak your iphone) for a year, built my hack for $500 and its got around four times the power, but I keep the mini around in case anything goes wrong with OSX on the fake. I strongly suggest building one yourself.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115211 for the processor, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231314 8gb memory. Contrary to what some say any more WILL be a waste. Mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131665. Case/HDD/Monitor to taste. Dont bother with a big SSD, you will be going for sequential reads as a producer so mechanical drives will be just as good. Get a small one if you want to put Windows and your DAW on, but it wont really help.

But that and you have the equivalent to a 4-core Mac Pro with 8GB upgrade, yes the one that retails at $3000.

MIDI? up to you

Interface? You mean Fireface. RME Fireface.

Hope thats enough!

[Capture pt]

For laptops id always say go Dell or HP.


Thing is, for laptops, and ive been a pure windows guy for all my life, macs are really the only way to go for me. I dont even use my macbookpro for production but im sure if i did (and no doubt i will one day) it'll work just fine.


Just the build quality and performance is nothing like ive seen on any other laptop before. Even the high end alienware and dell xps laptops are horrible compared.


but ofcourse, if youre taking anything seriously desktop is the way forward - my laptop is do take my work to clients etc and use as a "base" for my work and then have my desktop for "play" so to speak.

If youre building a computer you can get such a good machine right now.

GET A SOLID STATE HARDDRIVE - you want windows7 to boot in ten seconds? you want your DAW to open instantly? get a SSD.

Even a small 60 gig one or somthing, and just bung windows on there and maybe the programs you use most. Shit will fly. I cba to go into a whole pc spec post right now, maybe i'll chip in later with one. I need to rebuild my pc actually, my processor is a good few years old now, but my graphics card is almost brand new (and a beast).

[dubmatters]

GET A SOLID STATE HARDDRIVE - you want windows7 to boot in ten seconds? you want your DAW to open instantly? get a SSD.

+1

Mechanical hard drives are now the main performance bottleneck. SSD is the way to go. SSD's do degrade over time so having a separate scratch disk for your samples/music etc etc is recommended(as its always been).

I wouldn't bother buying/building a new computer without one.

[gen_]

Mechanical hard drives are now the main performance bottleneck. SSD is the way to go. SSD's do degrade over time so having a separate scratch disk for your samples/music etc etc is recommended(as its always been).

I wouldn't bother buying/building a new computer without one.

Flawed perception, Mechanical HDDs have superior sequential read/writes and SSDs have superior random read/writes.

That translates to mean that as long as you keep your drive defragged, you will be able to run more tracks of audio (sequential, because your HDD is reading in one direction and has enough cache to not have to read if you've cut the track up or decided to skip bits).

SSDs have better random writes, which make programs stupidly fast. So get a SSD to put your apps on and a mechanical to put your audio on.

[dubmatters]

Mechanical hard drives are now the main performance bottleneck. SSD is the way to go. SSD's do degrade over time so having a separate scratch disk for your samples/music etc etc is recommended(as its always been).

I wouldn't bother buying/building a new computer without one.

Flawed perception, Mechanical HDDs have superior sequential read/writes and SSDs have superior random read/writes.

That translates to mean that as long as you keep your drive defragged, you will be able to run more tracks of audio (sequential, because your HDD is reading in one direction and has enough cache to not have to read if you've cut the track up or decided to skip bits).

SSDs have better random writes, which make programs stupidly fast. So get a SSD to put your apps on and a mechanical to put your audio on.

Maybe my reasoning wasn't totally sound but i was still correct though.

Also please could you point me in the direction of some specific benchmarks that deal with audio to demonstrate your point.

thanks

[paravrais]

So recently I've been looking at parts to get to build a new pc, I was hoping to keep everything under 800 quid at the most and somehow I've racked it up to over a grand and I haven't even factored in the videocard or monitor yet :s surely there must be a cheaper way?

Without all the obvious stuff like optic drive, wireless card etc this is what I've worked out so far, I've never built a pc before so this is kind of new to me. Am I going in the right direction? Have I made any mistakes? Anyone got any better suggestions or ideas to fill in the gaps?

Antec DF-10 / DF-30 case - 80 - 100

AMD Phenom II X4 3.4GHz 6MB cache socket AM3 - 100

Windows 7 64bit Home Version - 80-100

Asus Motherboard M4A89GTD PRO - 100

Antec EA 750 - GB Power Supply - 100

VIdeoCard - ?

SoundCard - 100 / 150

Harddrive
- HDD - 1TB SAMSUNG F3 - 50
- SSD - 60GB - 100

2x4GB RAM - 100

(Sorry for the thread hijack here btw, was gonna post this in the 'building a pc' thread dza started thats in the bible but seeings as this thread is on the front page anyway I figured it would be more economical to drop it here)

[gen_]

Can the mobo, its for gaming and unless your looking to jam two graphics cards on it, your paying £25 for a slot youll never use.
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Componen ... ctId=40261

You can chop another £35 off if you forgo the single USB3 port. If you ever need to transfer HDD contents at high speed, e-satas your man and it comes with your case i think. (btw this board has 10 USB 2.0s!)
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Componen ... ctId=41498

Dont spend on a videocard for no reason, but dont grab a mobo with one on-board cos it'll slow down your memory badly, here's a cheap as chips one that will do the job fine.
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Componen ... ctId=37255

AS for the Sound, DONT buy it from the same guy you bought your PC from. All vendors I've seen so far will sell you a vastly overpriced 'Gaming' sound card with absolutely no uses in the real world. I endured a 4 month stint with a creative X-Fi and it got to the point where the ASIO gremlins were so bad I didn't want to produce at all.

[paravrais]

Cheers dude! that's got me down a bit, will I need any extra cooling fans if I buy a case and a power supply that have fans built into them?

[gen_]

Shouldn't do, oh and your Case is server-size. You may like it that way or you may want to swap it for the equally as good NNXT M59 on that same site, I've got one under my desk right now, saves ya £30-£50 and it looks the shit too.

Go 100watts lower with your PSU to 650, its already plenty as your graphics card isnt a beast and your CPUs max load is 140watt anyway. Antec do the truePower series there for £70 but its on offer today only for 60. http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Componen ... ctId=40313

Mushkin Memory -£78
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Componen ... ctId=41882

cba to do more, I'm interested where your getting your 3.4ghz phenom from tho, I cant find it for any less than 145

[ninjadog]

I knew someone would join in and say don't buy mac, so I'm chiming in to say I wouldent but a PC unless I had to.
My GF's macbook is still running strong after 3 years, the only issue she had with it is when I dropped it and made the HD crash. She had the apple care, sent it in and within 5 days it was back with a brand new drive, it was a great experience dealing with apple and has a lot to do with why I think there so great.
I'm not sating PC's are shit either because mt production rig was a PC that lasted me 7 years before the power supply went and fried the mobo. Ease of upgrading a tower is always a plus.
Which brings me to my new production rig, an old MDD duel 867 G4 power mac, this thing has been running since 2001 or something! I was able to swap in my ATA drives from the PC, found more RAM for super cheap, basically it is as easily upgradeable as any tower. I sold my interface before I bought it but thats no biggie because I get along just fine with the standard core audio. Was able to install OSX 10.5 and it is still running like a champ.
I can't go back to PC now because I love Logic and just hate WIndows.
I think Macs are worth every penny. :smurf

[paravrais]

Shouldn't do, oh and your Case is server-size. You may like it that way or you may want to swap it for the equally as good NNXT M59 on that same site, I've got one under my desk right now, saves ya £30-£50 and it looks the shit too.

Go 100watts lower with your PSU to 650, its already plenty as your graphics card isnt a beast and your CPUs max load is 140watt anyway. Antec do the truePower series there for £70 but its on offer today only for 60. http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Componen ... ctId=40313

Mushkin Memory -£78
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Componen ... ctId=41882

cba to do more, I'm interested where your getting your 3.4ghz phenom from tho, I cant find it for any less than 145

Cheers for all the advice man. I don't think I did find one for less than 140 though actually, just rounded all the numbers up/down when I was writing that out cos I was in a rush.

Things are starting to come together a bit more now. Only need to decide on the soundcard, monitor and case. Still leaning towards the Antec DF-30 though, it just looks so badass...

[decklyn]

Recommendations for ALL users, as stated in the article I wrote:

if you're on a laptop get iether an SSD or a hybrid SSD and HDD (see: seagate momentus XT 7200 hybrid SSD hdd).
At the very least upgrade to a 7200 hdd if on a super tight budget.
If you get a momentus xt do an install from scratch or you won't see nearly the performance improvements.
I did this to my macbook and it runs AMAZINGLY well now. No more spinning wheel of boredom.

If you're a desktop PC skip SSD and run RAID. I would say run Raid 0, two or three disks, and just back up what you need regularly.
(Risk of total system crash is high). But striping with parity isn't a bad bet iether.
If you're hell bent on SSD run one SSD and one HDD. Put your system on the SSD and everything else on the HDD.
If don't feel you're not technical enough to install RAID, then keep your system intensive apps and samples on a different hdd than your system still to max out hdd bandwidth.

You can run SSD in raid but you have to be rich and crazy.

[decklyn]

did you all get that?
buy a better hdd for you laptop damn it.

[paravrais]

I'm still gonna buy an SSD and an HDD for my new build XD later down the line I wanna buy a second HDD to use as a mirror for the first so if one goes down the other is still there with everything backed up. No need to backup the SSD cos all it's gonna have on it is programs that I can easily re-install.

[decklyn]

I'm still gonna buy an SSD and an HDD for my new build XD later down the line I wanna buy a second HDD to use as a mirror for the first so if one goes down the other is still there with everything backed up. No need to backup the SSD cos all it's gonna have on it is programs that I can easily re-install.

If you're going to run two hdds why not run raid striping with parity?

[paravrais]

I'm still gonna buy an SSD and an HDD for my new build XD later down the line I wanna buy a second HDD to use as a mirror for the first so if one goes down the other is still there with everything backed up. No need to backup the SSD cos all it's gonna have on it is programs that I can easily re-install.

If you're going to run two hdds why not run raid striping with parity?

Because I have noooo idea what that means. Was just gonna use my helpful friend the internet to help me set up a RAID1 to make sure my ting is backed up and then leave it at that...