#432485 - 09/18/03 06:20 PM
Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Charles Fleming
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Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 1
Loc: Gainesville, Florida
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Hello Forum Readers,
I have recently acquired a fast PC with a huge hard drive and a nice 21" monitor. I would like to set it up for digital audio recording. However, I am a bit confused about what I need to be able to get line and mic into the machine. I would appreciate learning how others have set their rigs up. I hope the question isn't too general. I am conversant with MIDI sequencers but have had no hands-on experience with DAWs. Any info appreciated.
Thanks,
Charles Fleming
Gainesville, Florida
_________________________
I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken
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#432486 - 09/19/03 06:46 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Bill@Welcome Home Studios
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Registered: 08/23/03
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There is very little that you need to do to a computer to ready it for digital audio/MIDI. For the most part today, it comes down to selecting the audio/MIDI input/output card.
There are numerous choices, with some of the most popular being M-Audio, RME, and MOTU. The differences mostly lie in the configurations, so you can buy with reasonable confidence from any of these vendors. Just pick the product that meets your I/O needs, and your budget.
It is worth mentioning that after-purchase support is important, too. If you look around, you will easily see who is good at this and who could be better.
My own choice was RME, due to outstanding support and a software mixer called TotalMix which I find incredibly useful.
In my opinion, one should pick their software, and buy the hardware that works best with it. In the long run, you will spend the most time staring at the screen, so if the software is not to your liking or does not suit the way that you work, you will not be happy.
None of this touches on external hardware or audio monitoring....
Bill
_________________________
"...it's easier than hitting the kids, and almost as much fun..."
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#432487 - 09/19/03 06:46 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Bill@Welcome Home Studios
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Registered: 08/23/03
Posts: 7376
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There is very little that you need to do to a computer to ready it for digital audio/MIDI. For the most part today, it comes down to selecting the audio/MIDI input/output card.
There are numerous choices, with some of the most popular being M-Audio, RME, and MOTU. The differences mostly lie in the configurations, so you can buy with reasonable confidence from any of these vendors. Just pick the product that meets your I/O needs, and your budget.
It is worth mentioning that after-purchase support is important, too. If you look around, you will easily see who is good at this and who could be better.
My own choice was RME, due to outstanding support and a software mixer called TotalMix which I find incredibly useful.
In my opinion, one should pick their software, and buy the hardware that works best with it. In the long run, you will spend the most time staring at the screen, so if the software is not to your liking or does not suit the way that you work, you will not be happy.
None of this touches on external hardware or audio monitoring....
Bill
_________________________
"...it's easier than hitting the kids, and almost as much fun..."
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#432488 - 09/19/03 10:44 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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EXAGON
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Registered: 07/03/02
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Making a DAW work in a Windows PC needs a lot of work and patience.
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 Features Are Not An Opinion. (John Hope, 2003) http://johnhope.blogspot.com/ Addresse: UIPLPPICDSS Ufficio Internazionale Per La Presa Per Il Culo Dei Sbruffoni Statunitensi Att. Tua Sorella Codice Mavapigliatelindomo Pirla Chi Legge
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#432489 - 09/19/03 11:26 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Danny M
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Registered: 05/17/01
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Loc: Salt Lake City, UT
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A big thing to do with a PC is to kill off as many of the background processes and services as you can. You want as many clock cycles as possible to actually be available for your audio. There are also certain kinds of hard drive caching that can be detrimental to performance. Turning off Windows Update is also regarded as a good move.
Having lots of RAM helps out, too.
-Danny
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Grace, Peace, V, and Hz,
Danny
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#432490 - 09/19/03 01:03 PM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Ethan Winer
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Registered: 06/12/00
Posts: 5467
Loc: New Milford, CT, USA
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Charles,
> I am a bit confused about what I need to be able to get line and mic into the machine. <
Some my recent articles will help you. One is from EQ magazine, and it explains the basics of connecting a small format mixer to a computer sound card. It's first in the list here:
http://www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html
Also see my three-part series from Keyboard magazine, a little farther down the list. It offers a very detailed explanation of configuring and optimizing Windows computers for audio.
--Ethan
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#432491 - 09/19/03 03:39 PM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Henchman
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Registered: 12/31/00
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Loc: Vancouver,,CANADA
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Originally posted by tron:
Making a DAW work in a Windows PC needs a lot of work and patience.
_________________________
IMDB Credit list President George Washington: "The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion." President Abraham Lincoln: "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
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#432492 - 09/19/03 05:49 PM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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EXAGON
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Registered: 07/03/02
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Assumed that you are not a PC nerd you will have much problems setting it to work flawless and last for long time.
_________________________
Features Are Not An Opinion. (John Hope, 2003) http://johnhope.blogspot.com/ Addresse: UIPLPPICDSS Ufficio Internazionale Per La Presa Per Il Culo Dei Sbruffoni Statunitensi Att. Tua Sorella Codice Mavapigliatelindomo Pirla Chi Legge
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#432493 - 09/20/03 03:12 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Alndln
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Registered: 08/15/00
Posts: 6451
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Originally posted by tron:
Assumed that you are not a PC nerd you will have much problems setting it to work flawless and last for long time. 
_________________________
"A Robot Playing Trumpet Blows"
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#432494 - 09/20/03 04:26 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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DigiGeek
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Registered: 06/25/03
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Originally posted by tron:
Assumed that you are not a PC nerd you will have much problems setting it to work flawless and last for long time.
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DigiGeek
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#432495 - 09/20/03 08:16 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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EXAGON
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Yes, XP is better than some older Windows versions (hopefully!) but it's light years behind other UNIX based systems.
_________________________
Features Are Not An Opinion. (John Hope, 2003) http://johnhope.blogspot.com/ Addresse: UIPLPPICDSS Ufficio Internazionale Per La Presa Per Il Culo Dei Sbruffoni Statunitensi Att. Tua Sorella Codice Mavapigliatelindomo Pirla Chi Legge
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#432496 - 09/20/03 08:44 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Alndln
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Originally posted by tron:
it's light years behind other UNIX based systems.
_________________________
"A Robot Playing Trumpet Blows"
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#432497 - 09/21/03 08:33 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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EXAGON
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The numbers are the only things that matter in computing.
So fi you see the numbers of
- hours wasted to start a new DAW
- hours wasted to keep it working
- audio latency
_________________________
Features Are Not An Opinion. (John Hope, 2003) http://johnhope.blogspot.com/ Addresse: UIPLPPICDSS Ufficio Internazionale Per La Presa Per Il Culo Dei Sbruffoni Statunitensi Att. Tua Sorella Codice Mavapigliatelindomo Pirla Chi Legge
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#432498 - 09/21/03 09:32 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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axiamusic
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Registered: 01/01/01
Posts: 102
Loc: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
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Tron,
When are you going to learn that your way is not the only way? I too am a Logic user, but on PC. Logic has worked very well on PCs since version 4 and on Win 98. I'm now on XP with version 5.5 and I don't yet feel the need to get a Mac and Logic 6.
My Athlon 2700 based system can outperform a dual 1.25 G4 plug-in wise I believe (I can load 61 Platinum verbs and play back with no glitches). It does everything I need so far. I'm sure a G5 will be even faster, but it's a lot more money. Maybe next year I will go for a G5 and Logic 6, but for now my system is extremely stable, XP needs no tweaking to work 'out of the box' although I optimise a few settings which takes 2 minutes.
If you haven't tried something, don't criticise it!
Chris
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#432499 - 09/21/03 03:03 PM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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hollywood
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Registered: 09/29/01
Posts: 336
Loc: ,,UNITED STATES
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I've had both.
My PC did nothing but give me headaches. I tried everything...it wouldn't work. All of the tips and suggestions, a second external hard drive for audio, disabling almost everything in my startup menu, trying to reconfigure IRQs, upgrading to a new version of Cubase (5.0 > 5.1). Disabling ethernet cards, ports, everything. Even with my system performance only taxing my CPU at 3%, it still would lock up while processing only 3 tracks or so.
My options were: try to upgrade to windows XP (more money), try a different type of software instead of cubase (more money), try different hardware (a lot of money). A lot of money and still no guarantees.
I decided to get a G4, and it works beautifully. I am actually recording music now, instead of trying to pick PC guys brains every day. This went on for months. I blamed MOTU, Steinberg, Dell...in the end who knows? It's not an issue anymore.
I'm not saying that it's impossible to have a PC work well, but I am also saying that there are some legitimate cases out there that make people go away from PCs. Not all PCs are capable of this. Especially preconfigured ones.
I'm not trying to start a flame war, but as a mac user I hate to be slated as a 'drone'. I fought the PC war and I lost. A lot of people do win. I wish everyone who uses one luck, more power to you.
Hollywood
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#432500 - 09/22/03 05:08 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Chuck Wagner
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Registered: 09/10/03
Posts: 2
Loc: Maryland
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It's actually very beneficial quite often to not run ACPI on a Windows XP audio based computer, which can be disabled even after install, with other minimal driver reinstalls.
The reason being that modern #D graphics cards are huge system hogs and ACPI allocated IRQ's to sound sounds very badly, even after moving the card around slot wise.
XP Pro offers numerous config options through gpedit which will allow many things to be turned off.
I striongly recommend getting rid of all the sliding menus, shadowing on the display etc.
But definitely think adding lots of ram.
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#432501 - 09/22/03 06:12 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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EXAGON
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Registered: 07/03/02
Posts: 1358
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windows pc are not good for professional AVG use
_________________________
Features Are Not An Opinion. (John Hope, 2003) http://johnhope.blogspot.com/ Addresse: UIPLPPICDSS Ufficio Internazionale Per La Presa Per Il Culo Dei Sbruffoni Statunitensi Att. Tua Sorella Codice Mavapigliatelindomo Pirla Chi Legge
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#432502 - 09/22/03 05:16 PM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Hanjong Ko
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Registered: 02/19/03
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Loc: Seoul, Korea
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http://www.musicxp.net
ACPI should be ok with APIC capable boards (most boards nowadays are APIC capable and can be enabled/disabled in BIOS)
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#432503 - 09/23/03 01:32 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Henchman
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Registered: 12/31/00
Posts: 3433
Loc: Vancouver,,CANADA
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Originally posted by hollywood:
I blamed MOTU, Steinberg, Dell...in the end who knows?
_________________________
IMDB Credit list President George Washington: "The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion." President Abraham Lincoln: "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
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#432504 - 09/26/03 09:14 PM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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schmoron13
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Registered: 04/05/02
Posts: 749
Loc: Syracuse NY
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here's what I don't get: why do we compare a g4 with os X to windows 98?! IT'S NEARLY 6 YEARS OLD!!!...look if I have problems using my lc3 with vision, it doesn't mean that my other system, a dual xeon optimized for audio makes PC's better than macs, does it?
Some like Macs, others like PC's...personally, i've found that if you work with your DAW support and soundcard support staffs, your computer should work golden.
By the way, Charles noted that he's got a new PC, so starting a mac vs pc war is pointless. PErsonally, I'd go with sonar. It's cheap and works SUPER WELL
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#432505 - 09/27/03 06:08 AM
Re: Setting Up a PC For Recording and Sequencing
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Alndln
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Registered: 08/15/00
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Originally posted by tron:
The numbers are the only things that matter in computing.
So fi you see the numbers of
- hours wasted to start a new DAW
- hours wasted to keep it working
- audio latency
- hasn't blinked in 3 years
- latencey is low as 1.5 ms.
_________________________
"A Robot Playing Trumpet Blows"
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