New build for heavy sound tasks

My friend is going to build a new puter shortly. He will be needing it for serious sound tasks (qbase SX3, tons and tons of vsd-plugins - instruments and effects, and along with that reason). So I guess 4Gb of RAM and a decent CPU would be a good idea...

What I have in mind would possibly involve an AM2 4400+ along with a decent MB; But i have no idea which one. I am not even sure if the AM2 is a good idea...

Furthermore we are trying to figure out which SC to get; It has to be dedicated to pro sound production with lots of interface capabilities and very good shielding.

This has to be it people; the ultimate sound machine....

Any help appreciated.

G5 Quad, 4gb RAM, big hard drives and ProTools.

That's the best system that lives in the best recording studios.

G5 is out of the question as he has aleady purchased all the software...

I also think the 4Gb RAM will come in handy once vista knocks on the door...

But for the MB; I reckon there are quite some MB's out there that don't handle 4 memory sticks very well?

Yup, loads of ram, space, and CPU power....If he is recording on the same machine, make sure to get a nice, quiet case...Lian-Li is known for quiet cases, but the Antec Sonata is good as well.

~Ibrahim~

Cubase SX3 is cross-platform. Most VST plugins will work on either platform as well. Seriously, if this computer is only for music production, then go for a G5 Quad and a whole load of RAM.

What plugins will you be using?

SLi in a Mac? Nice.

~Ibrahim~

Precisely. A dual-Woodcrest with dual nV graphics cards....when/if Aspyr get this gaming thing sorted out, those Mac Pro units are going to PWN something serious at gaming.

Of course 4 CPU cores is going to be about multi-threaded Photoshop/Apeture/Final Cut-type pro applications, and those SLi graphics cards are more likely to be about running for Cinema 30" screens, but with a truly viable Macintosh gaming platform for the first time in a long time someone is bound to start porting some games other than Quake, Civ and Raven Shield.

[/off topic]

(EDIT - Got so used to typing Core 2 I forgot Mac Pro is rumored to be running Woodcrest)

Well I guess that statement isn't true anymore then. Unless you'll consider a Synclavier.....

Well I guess that statement isn't true anymore then. Unless you'll consider a Synclavier.....

It should have said "PC-Soundmachine".

This was not intended to be a discussion about MAC vs PC... So please; if you have any suggestions, they would really be appreciated.

We didn't make it that. We are simply telling you that the majority of the sound production world is using the Macintosh platform. Thats not a debate, just a fact of the industry.

Whats the budget?

Core2 for sure instead of AMD unless he needs it right away.

E6600 is a good idea.
4GB of DDR2-667 RAM. Either 2x2 or 4x1 (you get 2T either way)
Sound card: E-MU 1212M.
Raptor? Not if you are on a budget.
If you want to be really safe, get a pair of 200-300GB drives in RAID1. That way, even if one drive fails, you still have the backup drive; however, you only get the storage space of just one drive.

If you're going for a drive to install plugins to, then I'd get as many 250gb drives as you can afford. With 250gb drives you'll have enough space to install hefty things like BFD (or similar) and some even bigger drum plugins, and SATA is plenty fast enough for providing enough bandwidth to work sans-delay without going for a costly/dangerous RAID setup.

Obviously you can't really work from one drive (depending on the size of files/project) so perhaps get one drive for plugins, one drive for boot/software and project file storage and one drive for storing recordings (add drives to taste)

And get a bunch of RAM