Setting Up Your First 64-Bit Digital Audio Workstation
Building a digital audio workstation is an exercise in eliminating noise, minimizing latency, and designing for ergonomics. One of the first steps is to realize that the workstation is more than just the PC itself. There are many components to connect and configure. Even the layout of your workspace is important as you fiddle with a keyboard (the musical kind), sing into a microphone, and play a riff on a guitar, all the while easily clicking options with a mouse or punching buttons on an external controller. The good news is that all of the pieces can come together quite nicely as long as you avoid one of the most common pitfalls: using hardware that was never meant to go together in a studio.
Now, before I get started on the workstation design, here’s some background info. As a journalist, I’ve covered many of the best software and hardware options for about eight years. I remember testing one of the first versions of Cubase SX in 2002, and I’ve stayed current by either writing articles on recording or by creating my own songs. I’m a guitar player and songwriter and I also play keys and drums. A few years back, I even went to Nashville to perform for a record label. I use some PreSonus gear (it’s on long-term loan from a friend) mounted in a rack and situated in a separate room in my house.
One of the main lessons I’ve learned is that exceptional equipment does not make you a better musician. However, when you do have a moment of inspiration and creative brilliance, having gear that works well will help you to really appreciate the investment, minus the clicks and pops so common in amateur recordings. That said, it is also really easy to use mismatched gear, such as a microphone that records the subtle frequencies in an upper registry plugged into a low-end audio interface without phantom power capability and recorded with a computer that’s crippled by a slow processor and minimal RAM.
As with any serious computer project, it’s critical to think about the components because there are a few gotchas: a motherboard with a four-pin instead of the more common six-pin FireWire port, for example, or a hard disk drive with loads of capacity but not the cache you need to capture audio accurately.
You might be tempted to go with a small form-factor (SFF) PC. After all, space is usually an issue with a music workstation and in your recording space. The fact is that an ATX case is easier (and faster) when it comes to upgrades, which in my case are frequent. For a simple four-track recording session, I might want to use the main disk partitioned for data and the operating system. I may then decide to add an extra internal drive or two for a more complex project. I also like to be able to adjust fan speed, add or remove more RAM, and replace processors. I like this flexibility for another reason: I don’t always use a music workstation just for recording. I may want to upgrade my rig with an SLI graphics configuration with enormous fans not intended for a recording PC to play the latest first-person shooter.
www.reaper.fm
You can also forget about disk problems with Linux, as it is and remains light years ahead of Windows in disk access - especially when using low latency file systems.
So, while your hardware choices are excellent, you cripple your system by using an inappropriate system. It's like putting a truck driver in command of a Formula 1 car: he may be used to drive powerful and costly machines with precision, but not THIS kind of machine.
More data at http://linux-sound.org/ (obviously)
That's bull - no system has zero latency - not even DSP-based ProTools.
All soundcard-hardware has at least 32 samples of latency.
Apart from that, you will achieve VERY low latency figures by carefully selecting the right PC, with the right add-on-hardware with Windows as well. And if you have the right card with the right drivers, you can even use that 32 sample latency (less than 1msec) for tracking.
Also IMHO 99% of all virtual instruments/effects existing are Win/OS X only, so you will not have the same range of tools to use when limiting yourself to Linux.
Dogmatic thinking is never smart. Use the right tool for the right job. Linux is (currently) IMHO not the right tool for DAW work (at least not if you want to work in a somewhat professional level)
Have to agree with this. Linux isn't supported by the majority of major plug in makers, so if you use it you'd be pretty limited in what you had available in that area. I'd also rather not spend any more time dealing with getting drivers that run properly than I already do using Windows.
Anyway, the article seems like a good intro for those who may be new to building a DAW and it's nice to see Tom's put up an article not geared towards gamers or IT. I didn't think I'd ever see an article relating to music production on here so I appreciate the effort, but there are some things that I would have liked to see mentioned. For starters, Cubase isn't the only 64-bit recording program. Reaper was already mentioned in the comments, and Sonar was 64-bit before Cubase ever made the move. Might be some others that are or are moving to 64-bit, but those were the major ones when I was looking into a recording program last year.
Also, although I could understand going with a processor that doesn't require some pretty massive cooling when you're going to be recording real instruments or vocals in the same room as the PC, I wouldn't recommend deliberately limiting processing power if someone is working largely, or even completely with midi. Once you start throwing in some VST synths and effects, the processor can be taxed pretty easily. You can get around it by bouncing tracks to wav as you work on other parts, but it can be a pain when you want to edit multiple parts in real time.
FFS, that CPU is a lousy choice if you really do need low latency... Minimum latency acheivable is directly related to CPU power, a fast quad(like a Phenom II 940) would do much better...
First of all, much of this information is either inaccurate or just plain irrelevant. Let me see a show of hands from the Audio Engineers in here that actually use a Roland SonicCell for their recordings.... anyone?
On another note, you can take advantage of the 64-bit audio mix engine in Sonar 8 with a 32-bit system. Unless you have stupid amounts of RAM and you know how to really tweak windows vista (barf), then you're only making problems worse for yourself by using a 64-bit OS.
Also, for the windows nay-sayers out there. Wait for WaveRT in Windows 7. It should help turn the tables on OS-X.
If you want a good PC for your DAW, look into ADK, Sonica, or Sweetwater. (Rain Recording tends to be more expensive for what you actually get)
I didn't find many that would even remotely compare to the windows/mac offerings.
Only if your DAW process will consume around 2Gb or more when running, the vast majority will get by just fine with 32bit, and it's not THAT hard to get your Alsa drivers working(not sure about 64bit drivers...):
Install through Synaptic: libalsa(?) alsa-mixer alsa-mixer-gui jackd qjackctl alsa-utils
Go here and get your Alsa driver, and follow the instructions to compile and install for your specific soundcard:
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page
I'd also recommend going the extra mile and installing the latest dev version of wine:
www.winehq.org
Then search the internet for the latest wineasio.dll.so file(compiling it requires obtaining the ASIO sdk from Steinberg, major PITA), then place it on your desktop and paste the following command into the terminal:
cd ~/Desktop; sudo cp wineasio.dll.so /usr/lib/wine; regsvr32 wineasio.dll
Now you have working Asio drivers for wine applications... Too easy, right?
You can now download reaper from www.reaper.fm, and install your plugins as normal. If any of them don't work properly, try logging in as root to do it.
PS: I'll do a Tom's article on how to do Linux audio for $600
Very true. Though, I would recommend at least 2gb for newer Sequencers and plugins. In my experience, it's always been the CPU and Hard drives that really bottleneck things while recording.
(To other readers):
When building a system like this, you need multiple cores. All worthwhile Sequencers have been designed to take advantage of them, so use it to your advantage. Also, DO NOT use a 64-bit OS unless you are sure the plugins you're using support it. AND, do not use a 64-bit OS with less than 6GB of ram. Why? Because the benchmarks show that a 64-bit OS actually eats up more RAM in the first place. The benefits come with large amounts of RAM... something a 32-bit OS can't take advantage of. Using 4GB of RAM in a 64-bit system is kind of stupid. A 32-bit OS with 4GB will actually be a smidgen faster and much more compatible.
Further, they are whisper quiet from the factory, have all the necessary firewire ports already, and OS X has a far better audio driver stack implementation than Windows could ever dream of.
Heck, even Linux is a better choice than Windows for pro audio applications lol!! Several pro audio vendors have released their apps on Linux now, and even sell Linux-based recording stations.
please, use some REAL audio interfaces, you can't play a rig whit 13ms of lag and you can get 2 ms whitout any glitches. It's not about windows audio subsystem, is abuot the ASIO drivers of the audio interface. you can use a little information there.
you could also give some benchs related for example, to do an audio mixdown in cubase, and how much time it takes in a phenom, c2d, i7, etc.
please take it seriously. use people who really work whit DAWs
thanks for everything
Augusto
www.mclrecords.com
As for hardware, RME and M-Audio have had 64-bit drivers for months now, and even M-Audio (which does have its downfalls) makes better hardware than that Roland interface used in the article.
For the hardware, that low-end dual core may be fine for light recording, but quads are so cheap these days that there's no point in going lower. Could have also gone with a lower-end GPU, as there's not much needed for a DAW...
Good intention, bad execution.
Cubase is a good solid program even though there are others that are 64 bit it is still a good choice.
There is more than performace at stake, a daw has to be STABLE above all. All of your components need to be chosen based on stability.
Even though 64 bit has been around for a while there are still too many drivers lacking and that are a work in progress.
One thing that was not taken into account is that you should have a secondary audio interface to run all the windows noises through so they are not happening through your audio interface. There is nothing worse than a dialog box going "BING" through your $2k plus studio monitors at a loud level.
The audio hardware often includes some kind of 'direct monitor' feature which takes the PC out of the monitor audio path. In this case latency is no longer relevant at all.
DAW projects that are running into the 32-bit architecture memory limits are large and complicated. Usually employing many 'plug-in' audio processing and synthesizer DSP programs, often samplers with multi-gigabyte sample sets.
Those plug-ins are often heavy users of the CPU and a good reason to choose a current, fast processor.
Unfortunately, none of the various schemes that allow 64-bit DAW hosts to employ the 32-bit DLL's of older plug-ins seem to work very well And most plug-ins are still only available in 32-bit form.
Many DAW users are finding it wise to stick with a 32-bit platform for the time being.