Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

[Tekky]

OK. I'm getting a new computer very soon. My Comcrapq Pieceofcrapario is going to be decommissioned. Now comes the question of what to do with it. It's possible that my brother-in-law will need it until his computer woes are solved, but unless I recycle it somehow what would my options be?

- One thought I had was to replace the hard drive and some of the guts to make a pure recording computer.

- Another thought is to scrap that mutha with an offer from Dell.

- Still, I could try and wipe the memory and send it to my nephews in North Carolina...

So right now I've got a computer with an Intel Celeron processor and a handful of hard drives of various storage values. So WWYD?

[hippietim]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

stick some big ass drives in it and make it a backup computer.

[shreddermon]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

I wiped the hard drive, and gave it to my daughters' day care. Now the kids get to play (educational) games on it.

[Sandman0170]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains..

Toss it and don’t look back.. Not gonna be able to run any recording software on it...recording software uses a ton of resources.

[Tekky]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains..

You don't think the Celeron processor is capable?

[jgcable]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

Scrap it all and buy a new one if you can't build one correctly yourself.
Don't scrimp on the harddrive, the processor.. heck. don't scrimp on anything. If you are using it for music recording get the best stuff you can afford.
I run an Athlon 1800 MP+ dual processor system with a ton of DDR2 ram and several hard drives. I have a 120gig for home stuff, an 80 gig for music files and an 80 gig for gaming.

[Tekky]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

Well, I am buying a new one. This is just one that I've got now.

[blindmuddy]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

Get a Mac for recording

[Inazone]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

I'm going to step in to disagree here. If you are looking for a basic recording PC, there is NO reason a Celeron can't handle the task. You'll need a decent amount of RAM (I've had decent results with 512MB with nothing else running except the OS), a dedicated hard disk for audio data, and a good sound card. The most resource-intensive aspect of recording is when you are recording multiple tracks at once or editing multiple tracks (EQing, applying effects, etc.), at which point the RAM and CPU are getting pounded. Fast hard disks are beneficial as well.

To give you some idea, I have had no problems recording two guitars at once while playing back drum tracks, or recording vocals or guitar overdubs to full guitar/bass/drums with the following: AMD Athlon 1800+ (1.5GHz), 768MB SDRAM, two hard 5400rpm hard disks, and an Echo Mia card. More recently, for a "scratch pad" setup, I've been using a PIII 1.2GHz laptop with 512MB, single hard disk and onboard sound, which has been fine recording a single guitar track directly from a Johnson J-Station over a click track. I use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 for both systems.

It's not suitable for a serious studio environment, but I would be comfortable recording a demo with the AMD and use the laptop to record melodies and arrangements for my bandmates.

[txcharvel]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

The Celeron processor might be able to handle it, but chances are the chipset and motherboard won't be able to handle it. Trust me, I've been down this road.

The chipset, being the interface between the processor and the motherboard, acts like a funnel. If you try and cram too much at once, it get's backed up. When it gets backed up your track will have lots of pops and clicks. Usually, a system purchased off the shelf with a Celeron or Duron (AMD) processor does not have a high end motherboard.

Get a Pentium or Athlon and the best motherboard/chipset you can get.

I'm not saying it won't work, but I would be hesitant to make a really big investment in it. Actual mileage may vary [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Tekky]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

I think some of you aren't understanding what I'm trying to do here...

I am buying a new computer. (not a Mac) The computer that I'm buying is for everyday use for my wife and myself. On this system I'll have my games, website building applications, and other software. With this system, I don't need any advice. All is cool with this, I know what I want...

What I need help with is the system that I currently have, the Comcrapq Pieceofcrapario 5000POS. It has a Celeron processor and an 8GB hard drive. I'm thinking of putting a 160GB hard drive in it and maxing out the RAM. With this I'll need a new OS and such, but would all of this be worth it for recording or should I just clear the hard drive and send the thing to my nephews?

[jgcable]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

[ QUOTE ]
I think some of you aren't understanding what I'm trying to do here...

I am buying a new computer. (not a Mac) The computer that I'm buying is for everyday use for my wife and myself. On this system I'll have my games, website building applications, and other software. With this system, I don't need any advice. All is cool with this, I know what I want...

What I need help with is the system that I currently have, the Comcrapq Pieceofcrapario 5000POS. It has a Celeron processor and an 8GB hard drive. I'm thinking of putting a 160GB hard drive in it and maxing out the RAM. With this I'll need a new OS and such, but would all of this be worth it for recording or should I just clear the hard drive and send the thing to my nephews?

[/ QUOTE ]

Me gets it now. If you could get the hard drive and the ram super cheap and your processor is sufficient and you can upgrade your sound card if you have too and add an interface card like an Audiophile card and if your system is pretty stable... go for it. If not, its cheaper to clear it out and give it to your nephews and build or buy something specifically for recording.

[Budman68]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

<font color="aqua">What is the actual processor speed, Todd? Since it's a celeron, I'm thinking anything under 600-800 would be too slow to run GTpro comfortably. </font>

[GregM]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

What is the processor speed? What is the max ram that it will handle?

[txcharvel]

Re: Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

I still don't think the motherboard/chipset would handle it. If it could, there would probably be latency problems (timing between tracks).

If you added the Audiophile soundcard, I'd bet there is no way it would work.

I have an old 1.0 gigahz AMD Duron processor I tried to use for recording. The latency problems where workable if you didn't make the tracks beyond the first one too long (record short takes). I tried to add a 24bit Audiophile sound card and just about choked it to death. Every track had pops and clicks. It was just too much data to process.

It's funny, you can have a 300 mghz Pentium with a good chipset and motherboard and make decent recordings. But a much faster processor with a cheap mass produced motherboard will choke up.