New Build for Music Production, Casual Gaming and TV

please fill out the build template provided above in the forum. helps us when we are throwing together the rig

mushibu09,

It would help to know what you're MIDI interface, soundcard, and outboard effects processors / interfaces you're using.

But, as a kind of generic, high performance music production platform, >

1. CPU > You mentioned that you are running up to 120 tracks simultaneously and with the probability of processing and the fact that version of Cubase after 5.x are optimized for multi-core threading, I'm going to approach the CPU recommendation slightly unconventionally and suggest that you buy a used i7-3770K. These are in the top performance category, good amount of cache, reliable, can be overclocked if necessary, and as they use 77W, run in the relatively cool category >

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-3770K-3-5-GHz-Quad-Core-BX80637I73770K-Processor-/171061820386?pt=UK_Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item27d4143be2

> which is a completed Ebay listing for £135. I have over the years bought a total of eight used CPU's- some in systems, some as components, and never had a failure. You may find that the i7-3770K will be adequate for your uses without overclocking and if you're doing effects processing, I would recommend that for stability. It's better to wait a bit longer than to have to run processing again, as I found with my current sound computer (Core 2 Quad Q6600)

2. Motherboard > Asus P8Z77-V LE S1155 Intel Z77 DDR3 ATX £122

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-p8z77-v-le-s1155-intel-z77-ddr3-atx-80TJ.html?utm_source=awin&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_content=AW00&awc=3044_1372004556_1a11b1156828a7ff4f359d1b8023d54b

Very good performance, SATA connections, and selection of slots

3. RAM > With 3Rd generation Intel, the maximum native RAM speed is 1600 and all other speeds are overclocked. With processing, again I would stay with the native speed of 1600 and low(est) latency>

Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory £108.64 CAS = 9 This is 2X 8GB modules to allow in future adding another 8 or 16GB
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-memory-khx16c9k216x

4. Drives > In my view, the ideal situation would be to have Samsung 840 Pro 120GB for the operating system and applications, and a pair of 2TB 6 GB/s mechanical drives for the files. You could begin with one drive but the second The reason for the pair is so the pair can be configured in RAID 1 mirroring so that there is a continuous backing up. I'm very particular bout this point as over the years, I have lost almost 30GB of sound files, due to drive failure and poor backup procedures.

5 . Power supply > If you have an Alienware 1000W and can not afford another, that's sounds like the best choice!

6. CPU Cooling > If you stay with the native speed of the i7-3770K, a relatively modest air cooler will be sufficient >

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 600 - 2000 RPM 9.0 - 36.0 dbA £24.49

This was selected because of the first dB number- at low loads it's very quiet.

7. For the mechanical drive(s) >

Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 3.5" 7200RPM 2TB 64MB £66.91

or better >

Seagate ST2000NC001 Constellation CS 3.5" 7200RPM 2TB 64MB £100.88

8. Graphics card > While many would think that music production does not require a good graphics card or monitor, I would be first in line to say that they have never had to look at a column of 20 tiny waveforms, selected editing points within ms nor had to display ten various windows packed with menus with dozens of virtual sliders, switches, and dials.

If you can use the current ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 then that will have to do. The graphics card is a poser as you need a card that is very good in 2D, but if this system is also for games, your demands extend to 3D and a higher performance. In my view, a card with CUDA cores is an advantage as in Cubase that can take graphics demands off the CPU. A good compromise is >

Asus GT640-1GD3-L GeForce GT 640 1GB 901MHz £70.18

or in the AMD world>

Asus EAH6670/DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 6670 1GB 810MHz £58.97

9. Monitors> To this I would suggest as a best solution, a 27" 1920 X 1080 for the waveform monitor, and the 22" Samsung as menu monitor. This may be substituted with a 24" and 22" combination. In my use, I only ever use two tracks, so I have an ancient 22" CRT and 17" LCD which is adequate.

As for make and model, I always think it's absolutely essential to see monitors in person. If that's not convenient, Samsung, NEC, Viewsonic, LG, and Asus are quite good. The way to select is to see a lot of them a once, find the one with the best image and ask the make and price after- it's surprising- I've often preferred a less expensive model. A good budget brand seems to be Acer. I really recommend strongly trying for a 27"- once you try it, you'll find so much time is saved by not having to zoom and pan as much- you'll never go back to smaller.

_________________________________________

It appears you are a serious composer and using sophisticated software, which I why I recommend against a budget or AMD CPU and use a proper i7 so this kind of system can accommodate and expand with your use. An impotant consideration is the system's own sound and that is a good reason why to avoid overclocking and a lot of case fans and large air grilles- the system can become distracting with self-noise. In my future, I am planning to use my current main system, a Dell Precision as these are very quiet, the fans being carefully located inside custom ducts/shrouds at the most interior positions, whereas game oriented cases place the fans on the exterior against open grilles sometimes on three or even four sides- that noise would make editing for sound quality impossible. An important feature of a sound computer is that if you could somehow separate this system from gaming and ordinary Internet use, the performance is significantly enhanced. You can delete antivirus, updaters, schedules from running in the background. I once had Adobe updating pop up to update Adobe Reader and it halted my recording and I lost more than an hour's work.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Main system> Dell Precision T5400 > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @ 3.16GHz, 16 GB ECC , Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB), WD RE4 / Segt Barcd 500GB > Windows 7 Ult > AutoCad, Revit, Solidworks, Sketchup, Adobe CS MC, Corel Technical Designer, WP Office, MS Office]

HD Recording system > HP Elite M9426 > Core 2Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz, 8 GB RAM, Radeon HD 4650, 2X Seagate Baracuda 750GB RAID 1, M-Audio 2499 "Audiophile" MIDI / soundcard / Oktava M012 (Neumann KM 84 copy) microphones > Peavey VMP2 valve microphone preamp > Audio Research LS3 solid state or SP8/ rev. 7 valve preamplifier > Audio Research D130 power amplifier, Vandersteen 2C monitors, Kimber 4TC speaker cables, Audioquest Diamondback Interconnects > Windows 7 Ultimate > Cakewalk Home Studio 2 XL , Garritan Steinway D, Hauptwerk virtual organ > Kawai KG5C (6'8"), Zuckermann Flemish single harpsichord, Zuckermann "King of Sweden" fretted clavichord, Juan Eustrach, Barcelona, 1974 Classical guitar, Yamaha S90 synthesizer > music room 13' X 19' ]

mushibu09,

I must have dreamt that there was a budget of £150 for the CPU!

In any event, in looking at benchmark and reviews, the AMD A-10 6800 may have a high clock speed, but on Passmark CPU benchmarks it is ranked No. 173. Perhaps you would consider a used i5-3570K (rank No 92)>

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/CPUs-Processors-/164/i.html?_sop=2&_from=R40&_nkw=i5-3570K&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

ebay UK -wherewith careful shopping they sell used for as little as £65.

In the US it's possible to buy the excellent i7-2600K 3.4 (Rating = 54) used for £80-90>

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=i5-3570K&_sop=15&_osacat=164&_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR2.TRC0.A0.Xi7-2600K&_nkw=i7-2600K&_sacat=164

> and I would buy a used i7 in a minute for the same price as the new AMD.

The thing is, your use is far closer to a workstation than gaming system and I believe an i5 or i7 will be better performing and more reliable than the AMD. Personally, I would not overclock when working with many tracks and heavy processing as there is not enough bandwidth and threads- and processing errors will occur in Cubase that can use all the cores and threads. I was using a single core, hyperthreading P4 3.0GHz, and it crashed during processing with only two tracks, hence the HP Q6600 quad core.

If you need a new MIDI interface / soundcard, I highly recommend the M-audio 2496 PCI (not PCIe) which has MIDI, SPDIF, is duplex, and a very good ADC. I've had four of them and they are ultra-reliable >

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_sop=2&_sacat=0&_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&_nkw=m-audio+2496&_lncat=0&_arm=1&_armm=94&_ruu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fsch%2FCPUs-Processors-%2F164%2Fi.html%3F_sop%3D2%26_from%3DR40%26LH_Complete%3D1%26_nkw%3Dm-audio%2B2496%26_arr%3D1&_armi=CPUs%2FProcessors

> where there are many for £20. You can run multiples as well. I've had an Emu 0404 and other cards that cost 3X as much, but they were all fussy and the sound wasn't any better. I've made hundreds of hours of recordings on these both live and MIDI from the Yamaha S90. I've forgotten the ASIO version. I'm streaming BBC3 through one at the moment that goes to a Logitech Z2300 computer sound system (stereo, 135W, + subwoofer)- very nice.

You have what appears to be a very home studio and impressive array of instruments- keyed, blown, plucked, and hammered on. I take it you're compositions must be symphonic. I have yet to venture into anything except keyboard improvisation, which I describe as a combination of Scarlatti, Prokofiev and Chico Marx.

Groucho Marx was invited to the premiere of a modern clarinet concerto in the late 1920's and the wealthy patroness of the arts who had invited him leaned over and commented, "You know Mr. Marx, this concerto is extremely difficult." Grouch replied , "Madam, I wish it were impossible!"

At least goldfish don't voice their protests. My cats used to jump on the keyboard when they'd had enough of my playing.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Mushibu09,

"Is there anything you can recommend for me to get for home studio? " Yes >

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-PRECISION-T3500-DELL-WARRANTY-QUAD-CORE-XEON-3-07-GHZ-12GB-RAM-WIN-7-PRO-/111104940190?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item19de5ed89e

A Dell Precision T3500 with a quad core Xeon @ 3.06 /3.33 GHz, 12GB RAM, and a 500GB HD for £375 leaving
£125 from your budget for an SSD, storage drive, or graphics card if necessary. The Quadro FX 580 is superb in 2D- I used one for 6 years for both 2D and 3D CAD including in Solidworks 2010. You can set the anti-aliasing to a higher setting and waveforms become smoother and editing points more accurately determined.

When you mentioned how many complex tasks you run simultaneously, it's seem clear to me that a rugged workstation of high accuracy and reliability is the best thing. If you were only using the system for office tasks and Internet, I'd say the AMD is appropriate. An important consideration is that with a DIY system you have to shop, research compatibility, order, have shipped, assemble, configure, troubleshoot, load applications, and configure applications. With this T3500, you take it out of the box, add the applications and concentrate on work. And, the build quality is such- that T3500 was probably £1,600 new- that these run for years and years. Of course, there are risks in buying used, but I've had a used Precision T5400, that new was close to $5,000, purchased for $500 when two years old, running almost continuously for more than three years and while I've had applications fail- rarely, the system itself has never failed.

The M-audio 2496 for me is one of those amazing coincidences of low cost with very good features and performance >

frequency response: 22Hz-22kHz, -0.4, +/-0.4dB
dynamic range:
104dB (A-weighted) (D/A)
100.4dB (A-weighted) (A/D)
THD: < 0.002%

"All M-Audio audio devices (including the 24/96) have native low latency ASIO drivers. The 24/96 is compatible with Pro Tools M-Powered 8, but not LE8. Pro Tools LE is only compatible with the Digidesign hardware with which it is bundled (e.g. Mbox or Digi 003). See www.avid.com/compatibility for more information on Pro Tools compatibility and system requirements. " <<

In the U.S. these are selling now for only $60, perhaps because they are PCI rather than PCIe and buyers may expect high latency- which is not the case, but I never had any problem with that and the four of these I've used all still work perfectly. I have one on a 1998 Pentium III t700r (750MHz, 768MB RAM, 30GB, 80GB HD) that still makes excellent 2-track live and MIDI recordings. Yes, old technology, but, refined and reliable.

I had a listen to ten or so selections- well done! Excellent orchestral textures and beautifully crafted. Piles of work!

The thing I find very difficult with a home studio is having good microphones- they're so bloody expensive and none seems to be a all-rounders, there has to be a pile of them to suit keyboard, strings, brass, percussion, etc. As I am not a fan of digital sound as it has to me an undercurrent of what I call "frying bacon"-a kind of harshness. It is so wonderfully easy to manipulate though and not being a professional musician I forgive it for being flexible and fast. I also would like to have valve microphones, but again, expensive. There are however, bargains in the microphone world and I use Oktava copies of Neumanns KM 84's. A pianist/ composer friend had Neumann KM 184's on a MOTU 828 interface and when I ran my Oktavas through a Peavey VMP2 valve microphone preamplifier to the M-audio 2496, he was actually quite perturbed as he preferred the Oktava / Peavey / 2496 which cost less than 1/3. I think there are some good microphones made by Studio Projects as well, including the T3, a "budget" valve model. They have designs that seem based on some of the great Neumann and AKG's.

I could go on and on, but am straying too far from the computer realm.

Cheers,

BambiBoom