Building a new PC for music editing/recording with a M-Audio FastTrack *help*

Possibly, let me tell you my experience. Specs are on my profile, but quick run down is i5-750, 16GBs ram, P55-UD4P board and using onboard sound. I recently started playing with Virtual DJ 7. It defaults with 2 decks. When I started playing and applying filters/effects my sound started skipping and pausing. I should have enough CPU and RAM power, so my thought is the drive my music is on or its the soundcard/driver. Probably the SC. I'm not sure what SC can handle this, I'm not up to speed on high end sound cards.

jebany,

1. AMD FX-6200 Zambezi 3.8GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor FD6200FRGUBOX $134.99
__ a. Good speed, 6-cores. This CPU includes a fan and heatsink. Presumably as this is made for this CPU it should be adequate.

2. ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M FM2 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $74.99
__a. A good board with 2 PCIe slots, and a PCI -(see note below about MIDI), supporting 32GB fast RAM and 6GB/s HD

3. Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive $74.99.

4. G.SKILL Value 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C11S-8GNT $54.99

5. ZOTAC Synergy ZT-60403-10L GeForce GT 630 2GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card $69.99
__ a. Not a screaming gaming card but probably competent to start with - good 2D performance. This has 2X DVI ports
__ b. Notice 128 bit and 2GB memory

6. LIAN LI Lancool PC-K7B Black Aluminum/ SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $79.99
__ a. This is a good quality Aluminum case and should be quiet
__ b. If your budget is tight, a less expensive case might be found, but for recording/editing use, the case should be on the quiet side.

7. SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply $69.99

8. ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk -$19.99

TOTAL= $580 (without OS)

The above should be a relatively good performer- Sonar is a big program and of course sound effects processing takes power, hence the inexpensive 6-core AMD with a good clock speed. The board supports up to 32GB RAM and has enough enough slots to add various cards, , but I suspect you're using more in the way of software processing , plus most things added would be USB.

The M-Audio FastTrack will act as the sound interface. As it's a USB device it doesn't take up a card slot. It includes a mic pre and XLR mic input, and 1.4" instrument input. However, if you're using a MIDI controller, the FastTrack does not have a MIDI connection. M-Audio makes several inexpensive MIDI connections through USB -$40-$70. The thing is, for $75- you could add an M-Audio 2496 (PCI) as a second interface- adds more inputs plus SPDIF, and there is a MIDI connection as well.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

jebany,

As mentioned, in your configuration, the M-Audio Fast Track is acting as the sound card- it's not a card, but contains the ADC- analogue to digital conversion or the digital to digital interface. Also, the M-Audio 2496- which is a PCI (not PCIe) sound card, makes it possible to add additional inputs- and the 2496 also would add MIDI since the Fast Track has none.

Cheers,

BambiBoom
_________________________________________

Recording computer > [HP Elite M9426F , Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz, 8GB RAM, Radeon HD 5850, Seagate 750GB, M-Audio 2496]

Software > [Win 7 Ultimate 64 > Cakewalk Home Studio 2 XL- the old version baby brother of Sonar]

MIDI > [Yamaha S90 > Garritan Steinway D as Piano, Hauptwerk 4 64-bit (virtual pipe organ)]

Live > [2-Oktava MC012 mics (Neumann KM 84 copies), Peavey VMP2 valve (tube) mic pre (6x ECC83, 2X ECC81)>