Building Up A Production PC

[Zyon Base]

Easy

I've now post-exams got a full year to concentrate on gettin some money together and making beats.

I'm lookin to build up a computer with production in mind. Softwares not a problem, I'm getting copies of Reason, Logic, Cubase etc. But I need some help knowing what hardware will be necessary. Keep in mind that I'll be using this machine for the next 5-6 years probably.

Just want to know which sound cards, what size hard drives and what minimum processor speed I'll need to use these programs efficiently. (And what I'll be looking to spend).

Oh yeah and I don't need speakers either cos I'll run it through my seperates.

I'm sure people on this board will have done the same thing before, and hopefully there'll be some experience and techniques y'all can share.

Cheers. :tea:

[Projekt]

One things for sure mate, whether ur using hardware or software u need a meaty machine!

get the highest u can afford really, ram wise, an chip wise anyway!

im not too sure what sound card u need or anything coz i just use soft synths with logic an im only jus starting properly now ive finished college n that

but definately get plenty or ram coz the synths an software sucks it up more then an amsterdam whore on a friday night :agree: :tea:

ill try n find out from me mate for ya an let ya know aight :D

[Frisk]

no processor less than a 1.2 Gig, as much ram as you can pack, and no less than say a 10 Gig hard drive (once you start collecting samples etc, they start to take up shit loads of space.)

[Sol]

U want to get a PC like mine . . . ..

2.4 Gig Pentium 4
512meg (RIMMS)
1 x 120gig 7200rpm HDD 1 x 40gig 7200rpm HDD
ATI Radeon 128meg + Matrox G500 Dual Head
2 x Dell 17" Black Monitors
DVD/CD 4x/32x Re-writer
ECHO gina 8 out 2 in Soundcard

That will do nicely ;)

One things for sure mate, whether ur using hardware or software u need a meaty machine

Not true - u can run all your hardware from an Atari ST with cubase and it would work as well as the best PC ever ;)

[Frisk]

you forgot to mention the other hard drive that you have that's full of gay porn....

[Sol]

Oh yes - and a 300 gig HDD full of gay porn :gay:

[Frisk]

wow, it's grown since last time. you only had 400meg last week !

[poi]

Yeah RAM is important but bear in mind its probably the easiest and cheapest thing to upgrade in a computer at any time. 512mb is a sensible amount to have.

I'd say pick a nice Motherboard and CPU combination (Abit and ASUS are my choices of good motherboards), and build things from there. Try to get one without all the bells and whistles on board (Sound, graphics etc) - get them as seperate cards if you can afford it.

With music it's probably a good idea to go for something like a 333 or 400mhz motherboard, that way you can match it with fast DDR memory and the whole thing will be able to shift loads of chunks of data (music) around really fast - fast loading times and good at handling large WAV's etc. This is a different story from the CPU which just crunches numbers (used for effects and stuff no doubt) - which is of course important too.

Top place in Manchester to buy components is Micro Direct (http://www.microdirect.co.uk/).

A few suggestions:

Harddisk: 80 - 120 GB 7200rpm harddisk - Maxtor are good, DONT BUY IBM!! £70 ish

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2500 / 2600 - £70-80 (these are 333mhz CPU's - 400mhz are still well expensive)

Memory: 512mb DDR PC2700 - £50 ish

Motherboards i really cant comment on, not bought/read about them for ages. Abit / ASUS were always my choices.


As for soundcards, i really dont know! Not being a production person.. Graphics cards probably wont bother you, geforce2 should suffice.


One other thing that people often overlook when building their own PC's is a good case - it can make life so much easier when building / upgrading / planning your machine. The Verre V770K cases are a joy to build with, and look pretty nice too!


Right enough from me, sorry if this is too technical, have a browse round the microdirect site..

[poi]

Wow about 5 posts appeared on this thread whilst i was writing that

[Sol]

AMD . . . . . .

The poor man's Intel

:p

[Sol]

wow, it's grown since last time. you only had 400meg last week !

Yeah - I'll cut you a cd of the new stuff - but your going to have to pay for it this time. . . . . ok ?

:bender:

[Frisk]

i fear you confuse me with Dj Xample Lee.

[Tom-R]

seem to be the only one in the world who is trying to write tunes on a mac, got a new g4 imac cos heard that logic is only being updated on mac but kinda regret it now cos everyone else is on pc and therefore cant really help me out with all the technical stuff. want to get my decks and electric guitar (mmmmmmm fender strat) hooked up to my mac but having troubles, apparently i need a audio interface and loads of other shit. it all seems so much hassle, but then again im extremely lazy:drewl:

[Tom-R]

ps can anyone help me to get my tunes up on the review ring, need some input abput what ive done so far, only been doing it for a few months now and have a very special LK (2003 al greene VIP mix) :agree: sounds strange i know buit im quite proud of it.

[poi]

Originally posted by sol
AMD . . . . . .

The poor man's Intel
Yes everybody buy Intel, it costs more, doesnt do anything extra, and is partly owned by Microsoft!

[Zyon Base]

ok from what i gathered i need 500 gigs of megaRAM, Speakercards, and a whole lot of gay porn. thanks everyone.

[Sol]

You want something like this . . . .

[Zyon Base]

haha on the cpu im producing on at the moment i can't even run two vsts at the same time.

plus your chair is nicer than mine.

[lekke]

Originally posted by poi
Yes everybody buy Intel, it costs more, doesnt do anything extra, and is partly owned by Microsoft!

and doesn't heat your room to +50 C :D

[lekke]

sol thats a real neat workplace

i should clean up mine and take a photo just so i remember how it looks when its clean :D

[djrene]

Originally posted by sol

ECHO gina 8 out 2 in Soundcard


he he... Snap!! Been using mine since day one and it still sounds great (especially with the nifty extra spdif at the back...)

[corea]

@ Sol, I wonder how much do that colored walls influence your production. My room is all warm yellow by the way (ceiling excluded). :)

[Tom-R]

:boh: thats a nice set up sol, how much time and money did it take to get it to that, shiiiitttt im jealous now.
ps someone please reply to my thread earlier on in this thread,
does anyone know if edirol audio interfaces are any good, mate just got one, cost him 125 i think, might get the next one up which is like 225, ps for the mac?

[Sol]

how much time and money did it take to get it to that

It a collection of about 3 years or so. I got everything in a strange order but it's all there now :)


Regarding the sound card - I'd go for a delta 4x4 PCI - U can use em in the Mac and a PC.

check digital village for prices

www.digitalvillage.biz

:guitar:

[lekke]

Originally posted by sol
Regarding the sound card - I'd go for a delta 4x4 PCI - U can use em in the Mac and a PC.


I did some small research on M Audio after this reccomendation and I feel kind of drawn to the USB Audiophile (the 4 by 4 wouldn't be of much use since I have no intention of building up a hardware studio in the short term).

USB because of the portability - the possibillity of using it on either a PC or a Mac, desktop OR laptop. But I couldn't find any "official" information on how these USB things behave in the real world. They obviously don't have the bandwidth of PCI cards, and are definitively USB 1.1-based (only 12Mbps..) [even if i'm getting this wrong, the Macs don't come with usb 2.0 unless they're G5, so it's still very limited bandwidth]

anyway, this is just thinking out loud. I'd love to be able to switch to Mac (a powerbook g4 mmm) but the $$$ needed for that is simply ridicilous. Plus I'd have to get rid of my current soundcard (Terratec DMX 6fire 24/96) because it does not (nor will, I've asked) support Mac OS.

We shall see what happens when the G5 hits Croatia.

Or am I plain crazy and should give up Logic Audio and just use Cubase? How many of you guys use Cubase?

[supressor]

im told that the usb audiophile is actually quiter cos its seperate from all the crap inside the pc so id get that anyway, and i hate cubase..tried to get into it but logic seems easier?! and more stable plus its easier to go from logic to pro tools, learning-curve wise anyway..my 2 cents.

[DJ-DS]

ive bin using Cubase VST32 v.5.0 R6
just got a decent copy of cubase sx only ever used cubase sequencers.
ive got a shit pc with only 10 gig hd soundblaster live soundcard
and a casio keyboard i use as a midi controller.
i need to get some new insides for my pc. once you got about 5 fx inputs and 3 or more vsti,s my comp goes crazy it does me for now but im gonna be upgrading it for sure soon.
get a copy of computer music (August) its got a feature on building a computer for music production from a beginers PC up to a top of the range home studio well worth a look.



:tea:
good luck

[Dylan]

Big up the AMD Massive!!! :agree: