Hard Disk Recording

[Guest]

Hi All,
This is my first post........ I have many questions, but the one that I am most interested in asking, is....
Do any of you use the PC for pro recording of music, using a software platform such as Cubase??? I am interested in using this software, for my Home Studio, and am interested to know if any of you have any suggestions for upgrading/building a pc using this recording software???
Right now, I use a Asus P5A motherboard, AMD K6-2 400 mhz processor,Win 98, 128 MB PC-100 mem, D-Man PCI audio sound card...... I am told by people on the Cubase forum that the AMD K6-2 400 will struggle with this program as it is very CPU intensive...... Any thoughts ?? Suggestions????
appreciation in advance.....
DrZeemo

 

[mpjesse]

They are correct in saying the K6-2 will struggle. The K6-2 doesn't have a great FPU (floating point unit) which does complex mathmatics. Anyways, graphics and music/video editing can use a great deal of the FPU. So, it's a good idea to have a processor like an Athlon or P3 to do the stuff your talking about. If you wanna go cheap, I would recommend an AMD Duron CPU, primarily because it has the same FPU/core as an Athlon. If you wanna spend a little cash- go ahead with a Athlon 1Ghz or more. Also, for hard disk recording, you obviously want a very fast hard drive. While ATA100 is probably sufficent, you might want to look at RAID. RAID bus that supports extremely fast hard drives, like drives that spin at 10,000 RPM. ATA100 is a fast bus, but few hard drives are available for ATA100 at 10,000 RPM; more like 7,200 RPM. But, it's all relative to how much you can spend brotha.

But you'll get great performance off of a RAID hard drive system and a processor of at least 1Ghz. Another factor to look at is if your software supports SMP (multi-processors) and if the software will run on Win2K. I'm suspecting yes, since most high end software is designed for SMP and a <true> 32 bit OS like Win2K. Dual processors can make a WORLD of a difference, IF the software utilitizes them.

Good luck.

-MP Jesse

 

[CLTEK]

Hey DrZeemo...

My interests are similar to yours. Workin' on th Home Studio thing myself. There are a couple of places that have VAST amounts of resources that are specific to audio needs.

One board that is loaded with audio-types is <A HREF="http://www.audioforums.com" target="_new">http://www.audioforums.com</A>.

Another wonderful source of information is <A HREF="http://www.prorec.com" target="_new">http://www.prorec.com</A>.

As far as computer specific information goes, I use Tom's Hardware and <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com</A>. these are the best places that I've found on then net with the coolest collection of participants.

Respectfully, Cory

 

[Diablo]

Harddisk recording is indeed very cpu/fpu intensitive.
If you want real good performance you should first invest in a setup using scsi hdd's. they require not as much cpu time as their IDE counterparts. This will lighten the load on your cpu (which then can be used for other tasks)

Visit me at <A HREF="http://casemod.tripod.com" target="_new">http://casemod.tripod.com</A>

 

[Guest]

Cory,
Thanks for the links, I expect to be able to take a look at them tonght. I appreciate it.......
What are you using for a Home Studio set up??
What kind of music do you do??
Do you have anything uploaded to mp3???
Let me know I'll give it a listen..........
If your interested, my url is:
http://www.mp3.com/rickzandtheelasticba
--------or-------
http://theelasticband.iuma.com
If you go to iuma, be sure to click on the "Album" link, that shows all the tunes......
If your interested, if not that's OK too
Regards,
Dr. Zeemo

 

[CLTEK]

Hey there DrZ!

Uh... Well, at the moment I'm in the process of rebuilding my home studio. I used to have a Roland VS880EX running in conjunction with my PC. I would use the PC for all of my looping (ACID Pro 2.0, Sound Forge 4.5, etc) and MIDI stuff. Then I'd throw that suff over onto the VS or sync them up and record all of my guitars, bass, vocals, etc on the VS. Mix it down on the VS. Shoot it back over to the PC and then Master it in SF and burn with CD Architect. However... I've gotten rid of the VS and most of the other stuff. Right now, I'm reduced to my POS Compaq, ACID Pro 2.0, and SF. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. But I now have to record all of my guitar work with SF and then place the tracks in ACID as loops. Kind of a pain in the astroturf when a person is used to recording things in a semi-analog-friendly environment (ie, VS Digital workstation).

Right now, I'm in the process of building either a Duron or T-Bird system. Not really a big deal. I just want lots of FPU and speed so I can throw a lot of DX plugins on my acid stuff and edit huge wav file in SF in a matter of seconds as opposed to minutes. Then for all of the live recording, I'll be using Vegas Pro. Not necessarily the high performance software of the universe, but I'm familiar with everything and I like the interface.

No... I don't have anything on MP3.com at the moment. I have some wave files on the HD that I've had for quite some time. But being a husband, father of 3 and working two jobs... My time budget is pretty thin. However, my wife and kids are taking an extended holiday for three weeks in December... I imagine these three weeks will be quite productive. Heh. In a nutshell, my life will consist of work, studio... Sleep. That's it.

I'd love to check out your stuff. I'll do so as soon as I get home tomorrow. If not tomorrow then I'll check everything out on Friday.

As far as the music I do? Well, musically, I'm all over the place. Everything from unaccompanied Classical Guitar, Drum'n'Bass, Dance, Tehno, Industrial, Blue-ish, Metal-ish, etc... One of the things I love to do is mix styles. That's why I love the ACID stuff so much. I can put some interesting Industrial things together and segue into some bluesy slide guitar and toss in a few samples of cartoons and sound effects then back to Industrial then maybe some baroque stuff. It's a free for all! I do it for my own enjoyment as well as to share with family and friends.

Anyway, now that I've delivered my life's story... If you'd like to keep in touch, just gimme a private 'e'... corman_98_30@yahoo.com.

Much Love and Respect... Cory