PC requirements for recording

[ChlorineRR4]

well, its time to buy a new PC for myself
i am also in the market for a multitrack

i currently have a 500MHZ intel celeron PC from 1999

i have been trying to use cakewalk sonar on it and obviously it is not enough

what i need to know is, how much of a PC do i need to succesfully be able to use sonar and record say maybe a demo for my death metal band?

i figure since i am thinking about getting a new PC, i might as well eliminate the multitrack and do everything on the PC (if i could and if its within reason)

thanx! this place has been great so far

[the_drip]

Re: PC requirements for recording

what OS system does it run? and what software were you expecting to use?


I want Sonar 3.0 but since I run windows 98...I have to stick with cheap ass (free for me) guitar trax pro.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: PC requirements for recording

look at the min requirements on the Sonor box and double it [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] I'd stay away from Celeron CPU's regardless of the clock speed. Your more than likley going to get XP so you'll need at the very least 512k or ram in...its cheap enough to double it though. Perhaps if you can give a price range that you are looking in we could give ya the best bang for the buck.

The last 3 machines I bought have AMD Athlon processors and they run 24/7....without issue (exception being reboots due to OS patches etc)

[ChlorineRR4]

Re: PC requirements for recording

well, i only know the basics about PC's let me just clarify that

would it be possible for me to find just a tower for $500 that would allow me to use as a PC and record stuff on?


i will most definetly buy a pentium this time

[Bob From Accounting]

Re: PC requirements for recording

I hear that!

I have a AMD Athlon XP 2200+ it can go for weeks, works perfect!

[ChlorineRR4]

Re: PC requirements for recording

oh yeah, i am currently running XP on my machine

i guess i would like my new machine run XP, but if there is something better....give me your advice please

thanx


i guess i should also state what i want out of it

the ability to record a good number of tracks maybe like 24 and have some rather long songs

also i should ask, what part of the PC is currently holding me back?
in other words, what exactly dont i have enough of for sonar to run properly (not that i want to upgrade, i dont, but just for learning purposes so i know what i need to purchase)

500MHZ celeron 13 gig hardrive 192 RAM
guess i dont have enough of anything

LOL


also, whats a good soundcard that will serve my purpose?

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: PC requirements for recording

get a P4,
as fast as you can afford

get as fast a mother board as you can afford with dual channel DDR, and get as much memory as you can afford.

get a good quality quiet power supply.

get a pro audio recording card/interface set up(mic pre's preffered).

and a good set of monitors.

[Infernal Death]

Re: PC requirements for recording

With a $500 budget i wouldn't try to buy a Pentium 4. Yes those CPU's are very good but also expensive. I would buy a Athlon system. Buy a solid motherboard, avoid VIA chipsets. Don't know exactly how it is with the new VIA chipsets but the older ones made quite some problems when used for music recording. Get a Nvidia chipset.
Much memory is always nice. Get at least 512mb, 1 gb is better.
Also a bigger harddisk is useful. If you really start on recording a 13gig harddisk won't get you very far. 120gig is good and make sure it's 7200rpm and preferably has 2mb cache.

Like Dreamland_rebel said get a good recording interface. If you want to get into serious recording a Soundblaster card isn't enough. But i have to say with a $500 budget for the whole PC it will get very tight for a good recording card. Those can easily cost $300 and more. It also depends on how many channels you want to record at the same time. If you don't need 8 or more channels you can buy a cheaper card. A Midiman Delta Audiophile 2496 should be something solid for you. I use a STAudio DSP 2000 and have no problems with it. It can record up to 10 signals at the same time but it did cost $400 with the rack box with converters so that seems to be way out of your budget.

Flo

[axeman81]

Re: PC requirements for recording

I use a M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 soundcard, I think it's great. It's the best bang-for-your-buck home recording soundcard out there.
I would definitely steer clear of Celeron and Creative cards if you're the least bit serious about recording.
My Soundblaster gave me 57ms latency at best, with M-Audio I have 1ms !

Also I run 2x 7200rpm 80Gb IDE harddrives in RAID-0 (splicing) mode...which means everything that's saved on to disk gets divided between the two disks...thus giving an increase in disk search times. This is also a big plus when working with multimedia.

check out M-Audio pro product listing here.

good luck,

- Rune.

[ChlorineRR4]

Re: PC requirements for recording

ok, well i had my friend price out a P4 3 gig system

came to about $750........so it looks like i will be doing that (i can stretch the budget a little [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ) now, i realize $750 is not all i am going to spend because there are hidden costs, i defiently dont want to compromise anything this time either

i guess to record drums i will need a soundcard with 8 channels

[Haemonculus]

Re: PC requirements for recording

I went to M-audio site and it looks like the sound boards don't have a jack input, so to record we still have to have a mixer with that kind of outputs [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[ejs0614]

Re: PC requirements for recording

get ready to learn more about computers than any guitarist should ever have to know...the previous posts are right on - I have used a win 2k machine for about 3 years now but am in process of switching to apple. There are a number of resources on the web - check the message boards for sound cards you are interested - I learned a ton from the kind folks at the Tascam US428 board.

Happy Trails. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Eli

[Infernal Death]

Re: PC requirements for recording

Is $750 your maximum budget ? If yes then you will really have a money problem if you want a 8 channel recording card. Mine (the STAudio DSP2000) is one of the more affordable cards and will set you back around $350-400.
I strongly suggest that you look into a Athlon system. They are cheaper and this will free some money towards a good soundcard.
As ejs0614 said you should really read as much as you can about the configuration of recording computer. Having good parts is only the half of a good working recording computer. The best thing is to use the computer only for recording.I have two computers, one for normal work and internet and games and one completely dedicated to recording. Only the soundcard and the graphic card is in the slots of the motherboard, no modem or network card or anything else. Make sure your soundcard runs on it's own IRQ. That's quite important.

As for the 8 channels for recording. Most if not all recording cards that have 8 channels don't have 8 mic preamps. So if you want to mic a drumkit with 8 mics you need to buy a small mixing board or 8 separate mic preamps. You just have to observe this. Getting serious recording equipment ain't cheap [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

Flo

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: PC requirements for recording

DO NOT GET ANYTHING OTHER THAN AN INTEL CHIPSET BASED MOTHER BOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ANYTHING ELSE WILL HAVE PROBLEM RECORDING!!!!

DO NOT GET VIA, NVIDIA, OR ANYTHING BUT INTEL!!!

i know this from experience. i've had to rebiuld my comp 2ce because i didn't know i needed an intel chipset based motherboard.

[ChlorineRR4]

Re: PC requirements for recording

of course this aint gonna be cheap, thats why i appreciate all your guys help directing me with what i need [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

this place is great
thanx for everything so far [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]


like i said, i can stretch the budget....it will take a little while, but i can do it

i'm not the greatest with computers but i am willing to learn, what is meant by intel chipset?