Computer Choices
I have been running N-Track for about five years on a 6 year old Dell PC. I am looking for suggestions on purchasing a new computer! I normally only record two tracks(stereo) at a time through an M-Audio 24-bit card.
Thanks
Have a groovy day!
Peace & Blessings
david
Eyup!
If it’s any help, here are my computer specs:
Pentium III 933 Mhz
512M ram
Intel mobo (828xx series chipset)
6G IDE drive for audio ( I forget the speed, but it’s NOT 7200RPM)
Windows XP
Soundblaster Live! soundcard with kx drivers.
With this rig I can record aprox 20 tracks (mono 16 bit / 48kHz) with enough cpu left for a few effects.
A larger, faster hard drive would make life a little easier and a P4 processor would also be nice.
Steve
if you’re gonna’ get a new one, I’d recommend getting an AMD because they offer more bang for your buck, get a 64 bit version because you’ll help yourself when 64 bit operating systems are standard, and everything else is preference.
If you’re gonna’ drop some dough,
get a board that supports:
SATA 2 (otherwise known as sata300)
ddr2 ram
PCI-Express (preferably two 16x slots and some 4x and 1x slots as well.
firewire800 (board may not have it, but if you have a pci-e slot open, you can install a card
get two hard drives, one for operating system/apps, one for data/audio
get at least 1GB of Ram, if you can spring for more, you won’t regret it
video card is really up to you, if you play games, get a nice one, if not, doesn’t matter too much
a nice high wattage power supply that is quiet is preferable. Water cooling kits aren’t that expensive these days, that’ll give you a really quiet system.
anyways, much of this is overkill for 2 tracks, but you’d be surprised how quickly you’ll want to turn it into recording a whole band with live effects… even then, you may have a bunch of tracks in a song by yourself.
anything less than these specs and you’re pretty much outdated already. that doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from a lesser computer though.
Be careful. It seems to be reported that AMD64 (not dual core) + PCI express is problematical for recording. Particlularly NForce4 chipsets. Google up, or have a look at the Sound on Sound forum
I have just built an AMD64 3000 on an NF3 mobo with DVDR, 1gig RAM and my audigy2ZS PPro, and it’ll do anything I want it to.