Computer recording guys, lend me your brains...

[rjohnstone]

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

Tekky... I know this PC very well.. send it off to your nephews.
Don't waste your time with it.
It will not support a decent OS and it will only frustrate you in the end.

[jjw]

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

i use a P3 800 with 512mb memory running on windows 98 2nd edition and protools digi001 setup.Hardrives are two 40's-i tend to record off the main system hardrive.
This machine is now over 5 years old and has never let me down(its streamlined just for audio-nothing else!my other pc is the one i am using now running xp pro that is used online only)
A pent 3 800 is plenty good enough with the right memory and 98 2nd edition isnt buggy.You dont need a mac to record audio now-PC's caught up with them over 5 years ago and are more future proof with plugins easy to get hold of

[LouSiffer]

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

Tekky, I haven't read all the posts ,but, I built my PC strictly for recording pruposes. I may have some overkill here.....nah...there is no such thing as overkill. Here is what I am running and it is super smooth:

3.4 gig 775 socket Pentium 4

dual 200 gig hard drives

over a meg of ram

An Audigy Sound Blaster Platinum with the external drive. ( Yeah, there are better boards out there with more inputs, but, if you are only going to record your guitar, this is all you need.)

Windows XP

And a G-Force 6600 video card.

I think your best bet is to buy a bare bones kit from somewhere such as Tiger Direct for instance. You get better hardware. You will have to supply your OS. You also won't get 5 megabyte of free software you will never use anyway. Well, at least I have no use for Quicken or TaxPro and all the other junk that comes with a pre-package PC. -Lou

[Tekky]

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

I thank you and everyone else for their input.

Lou, bottom line, I don't have the $ to buy two computers. The situation is (again) that I'm getting a computer for the wife and I for daily use. I was checking here to see if I could possibly convert the current computer I have into a recording machine. Everyone seems to be in agreement that with these components that it's best that I clear things off of it and ship it to my nephews.

[ApeDosMil]

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 ]

A 160 gig harddrive will probably not work in that system, it may but I think it won't use the harddrive to its full capacity.

Its not worth it, send it off.

[LouSiffer]

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

I don't know how much you are looking to spend, but, here is a breakdown of my costs:

Motherboard w/CPU: $420

Hard drives: $200

RAM: $170-ish

Audigy: $75.00 ( refurb direct from Creative )

Video card: $120.00

Case: $45.00 ( it has all the cool lights and extra fans :P )

I got a little over a grand in it ( took me forever to scrounge the cash and get it built )

It can be done cheaper than I did and still get you a good all around PC for the whole family. Assuming you are not needing to purchase a monitor.

My only recommndation is to run at least a gig of RAM. Recording software is hard on a PC ( Cool Edit Pro 2.0 seems to be a little harder on the system than Cakewalk Producer 4.0 in my opinion ). The big issue you will have to deal with is all these people using it and downloading God only knows what.....which in turn eat up all your resources.

Again, I realize you said that you dont have the money to buy a 2nd PC, but, Wal-Mart is supposedly blowing HP laptops out the door on black Friday for $300.....maybe you could downgrade the home PC a little and buy a dedicated laptop strictly for recording. Just a thought.-Lou

[ApeDosMil]

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

Your prices are pretty sharp Lou.

A stick of 512 megabytes of ram is about 50 bucks.

Processor is about 150 to 200 and a motherboard is about 150 or so.



Walmarts HP laptops are big time garbage, they are cheaply made compared to the best buy Hp computers.

[Tekky]

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

Guys, the point is moot. My question has already been answered, in spades. I have the home computer picked out. The computer that I wanted to convert into a recording computer (IE, the computer I'm using now) is not worth the powder to blow it up.

[Newc]

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

[ QUOTE ]
Your prices are pretty sharp Lou.

A stick of 512 megabytes of ram is about 50 bucks.

Processor is about 150 to 200 and a motherboard is about 150 or so.



Walmarts HP laptops are big time garbage, they are cheaply made compared to the best buy Hp computers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends on what brand of component you get and where you get it.

And I bought 3 laptops from WalMart - one for myself, the same one for my dad, and one for my brother (that is slightly better than mine [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]) and aside from my dad's laptop needing a new inverter, no problems.
Of course, they're just Celerons with 256MB, but hey, it can run 6 tracks in Guitar Pro 3 fast enough to control an Alesis QSR and SR-16 via USB MIDI. It can also run Cool Edit 2000 Studio just fine.

It's a bit slow with 3D programs (rendering, using high-res models in a scene, etc) but for audio *editing* I haven't noticed any bugs.
Haven't tried *recording* into it.

Lou - When's this Black Friday supposed to be? Today? I might grab myself another laptop at that price [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

[Newc]

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

Ah - nevermind. Found it. It's the day after Thanksgiving. I thought it may have been some sort of Chicago anniversary [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[LouSiffer]

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

[ QUOTE ]
Your prices are pretty sharp Lou.

A stick of 512 megabytes of ram is about 50 bucks.

Processor is about 150 to 200 and a motherboard is about 150 or so.



[/ QUOTE ] It all depends on the board, the CPU and type of RAM. For what I chose to utilize, those prices are the cheapest I cold find.-Lou

[OnlineStageGear]

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

I was using a 433MHz PII for the longest time for recording and it would do great up to about 8 stereo tracks, but we mostly used it for live recording so it did the job nicely. That was also a few years ago and with some older recording software, so if you are gonna use anything newer, I wouldn't recommend a 566 processor.

I now run on a 1.2 GHz with 512 ram and the ram is really the biggest factor. You want to keep as much of your work as you can out of Virtual memory which can lead to skips and noise in your recording.

Matt