Anyone ever use Rain computers for their DAWs?

[DanS]

My computer woes have got me looking around.

A friend suggested I check these guys.

 

Nice machines, hefty price tag, and are they really any better than putting one together yourself?

[Ken Beaumont]

If you know how to build your own, and you know which manufacturer makes better power supplies, motherboards, cases etc. You can build your own for less. Usually though if your choosing quality parts, it won't cost as much less as you might think.

 

I usually don't by the fastest CPU, but get one with a large cache and more cores but less clock speed. The savings there will get you more memory. The more memory the better, find a motherboard that can support a lot memory. Same with cases, don't look at the flashiest. Look for one that has a decent layout inside for adding drives, one with enough space inside so that airflow is not restricted. Buy the best power supply you can afford.

 

After you have spec'd out what you want. Compare the price to build it with a manufactured one with the same specs. Then decide is the savings worth not having a warranty?

 

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Unknown - I bought a HP workstation, and added the needed audio/midi hardware and software. Win 7 Pro 64 bit. Usually, companies like this take some of the risk out by putting together a system that does all work together.

 

I started looking at their Windows 7 Compatibility List and found at least some problems. They claim that the eMu audio/midi interfaces don't work with Win 7 - I'm using an eMu 1820M in one machine and a 1212M in another - both working just fine, although a few options that work in XP are not available. One source of incompatibility is that Windows usually uses 44.1k, and the eMu defaults to 48, but that is easily changed.

 

Even though I run a computer service business, I quit building machines from scratch a number of years ago, except in special situations. Simply, it costs me almost as much for the parts (in the quantity that I buy) as it does to get a manufactured computer by HP (and possibly others). The manufactured machine has the advantage that I don't have to do anything but add the extra stuff, and a BIG advantage in (usually) a 3 year warranty where they come fix it if there is a hardware problem.

 

[johnchop]

Sweetwater's Creation Stations, from a pure spec standpoint, seem like a good deal.

[RABid]

Earlier in the week I got the EastWest Composer HD edition and when I started to install it I decided that it was time to move up in computer power. Not that my old machine is slow. It is a quad XP machine. But, I'm ready to go 64 bit and most of my software also seems ready. Sooo,,,

 

I just bought a rack mount audio computer from ADK Pro Audio and am looking forward to a fully tweaked DAW. A couple years ago I started to buy from them after someone here recommended them. Instead I built my own system. While building is cheaper there are a lot of little things that make a difference. BIOS tweaks, the right motherboard, Windows tweaks. The computer is central to my bedroom studio and I decided to treat it as such. If you are going to pay $2000 for a good ROMpler, $500 for a DAW, and $1000+ for samples and VSTi's why try to get it running on a $500 computer?

Oh, at the same time I decided to give up the MAudio 24/96 and step up to an RME Multiface II with PCIe card. That should let me play my computer like an instrument with very low latency. Im not saying everyone should run out and buy a $2500 computer, but do consider what you have invested in software and interfaces and consider a balance.

[ksoper]

I keep looking at the Cyberpower PC Mega IV. A few changes in hardware and you're rocking for about $1800. I'm interested to see how Echo Audio's 64 bit drivers work.

[mcgoo]

I can't say enough good stuff about jim roseberry from studio cat (www.studiocat.com). Off the charts good support. he's enough of a geek to know what components work well together, will give advice on where to spend extra and where to save while designing a system based on your needs. You call, he answers. Give him a try!

[DanS]

The computer is central to my bedroom studio and I decided to treat it as such. If you are going to pay $2000 for a good ROMpler, $500 for a DAW, and $1000+ for samples and VSTi's why try to get it running on a $500 computer?

Oh, at the same time I decided to give up the MAudio 24/96 and step up to an RME Multiface II with PCIe card. That should let me play my computer like an instrument with very low latency. Im not saying everyone should run out and buy a $2500 computer, but do consider what you have invested in software and interfaces and consider a balance

 

That's right up where I was thinking today. I've got so much invested in top quality plugins, the host machine should reflect that as well. Much like running all your gear through $100 monitors.

My bud suggested ADK as well.

 

McGoo, I'll check your guy too.

Thanks.

[Griffinator]

If you know how to build your own, and you know which manufacturer makes better power supplies, motherboards, cases etc. You can build your own for less. Usually though if your choosing quality parts, it won't cost as much less as you might think.

 

I usually don't by the fastest CPU, but get one with a large cache and more cores but less clock speed. The savings there will get you more memory. The more memory the better, find a motherboard that can support a lot memory. Same with cases, don't look at the flashiest. Look for one that has a decent layout inside for adding drives, one with enough space inside so that airflow is not restricted. Buy the best power supply you can afford.

 

After you have spec'd out what you want. Compare the price to build it with a manufactured one with the same specs. Then decide is the savings worth not having a warranty?

 

This, emphatically.

 

Except....

 

If you buy quality parts in retail boxes (slight premium over bulk packaging), you get the warranties on the individual parts - and this usually winds up being lifetime on the RAM, 3 years on the mobo, CPU, hard drives, and in some cases the case/power supply.

[Bill Heins]

I keep looking at the Cyberpower PC Mega IV. A few changes in hardware and you're rocking for about $1800. I'm interested to see how Echo Audio's 64 bit drivers work.

 

I'm running Win7 Ultimate 64 bit and using an Echo Layla 3G, no problems

 

Bill

[Bill Heins]

Hey Dan, I'm going to be upgrading my DAW soon. I found a nice Asus mb that will accept 24gb of Ram- http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6077058&CatId=4070

 

Lots of PCI slots, up to 24gb of ram, built in usb 3.0 ports, blah blah blah!

 

Bill

[Griffinator]

Most companies (notable exception: EMU) have updated to 64-bit drivers that are W7 compatible, even on their older stuff.

 

EMU, OTOH, flatly announced that it wasn't going to write W7 drivers for any of its older stuff. Luckily for me, my 1212M actually works fine under W7 32 bit. Not so much under 64 bit.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

My 1212M is on this computer, which is dual-boot - running Win 7 Pro 32 bit at moment, but can boot to 64-bit also. Plug-in HDs, can also boot to 32 bit Vista Business or XP Pro. The 1212M works on all of them. Hint: Windows seems to default to 44.1kHz and 1212M defaults to 48kHz - change the eMu to 44.1 and it cooperates much better with Windows 7.

My 64-bit DAW has an eMu 1820M - also works fine. They seem to use the same driver for all of the PCI and PCMCIA stuff. I'm using the Vista driver package, not the beta Windows 7 driver package.

 

 

[DanS]

Hey Dan, I'm going to be upgrading my DAW soon. I found a nice Asus mb that will accept 24gb of Ram- http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6077058&CatId=4070

 

Lots of PCI slots, up to 24gb of ram, built in usb 3.0 ports, blah blah blah!

 

Bill

 

That site has some great deals!

I decided to stick with this machine for a bit though, just picked up Win7 64bit & 4g more of ram (8 total).

Maybe in another year or 2 I'll invest in a tweaked for audio machine, but right now it's not in the budget.

Thanks.

[mcgoo]

Here's another good reason to have a complete computer / music geek build your system for you.

 

In talking over my new system, I told the builder that my primary use would be composition, using all virtual instruments & streaming large sample libraries. I asked about SSD drives that seem to be the big deal now. He told me that they're great, but still in that "darling mode" where they're pretty pricey for what you get. He recommended 2 1TB drives in a RAID 0 array that can stream samples at 235 MB / sec, which is on par with the SSDs.... for less $ and far more drive space for samples. That kinda knowledge / geekiness is stuff that most of us don't know, even if we know how to build a computer.

[DanL]

I wouldn't have critical data on a Raid 0 configuration without some kind of redundancy. With Raid 0 you have 2 drives acting as 1- it's fast, but if one goes bad, you lose all the data on both drives. If you are going to do a striping type system, I'd at least have it done as a 0+1, striping with a mirror. Or, have a 3rd big drive in there that you constantly back your data up to.

[mcgoo]

I wouldn't have critical data on a Raid 0 configuration without some kind of redundancy.

 

good point, but if this is sample drive, you'd have them backed up anyway, because they're samples from sample libraries. Not like an audio drive where the data is constantly changing.

[DanS]

A friend mentioned the SSD models as well, but I saw capacity on one of them at only 60G, my Spectrasonics libraries are well over that.

Like you said, they're in darling mode at the moment. another couple of years to become standard fair, and I'll bite.

I considered a Raid array at one point too, but not worth it for me. I don't earn a living from music.

[RABid]

I'm waiting for SATA 600 drives to become more common.

[Mark Schmieder]

I would take Rain over almost anything else out there, if I was going to buy a Windows computer for audio or video production work.

 

They are built like MacPro's: very tidy, "clean room" type manufacturing, well-specced parts that work together well, and so many ports and PCI slots that you'll never be wanting. Similar with their laptops, except no PCIe, of course.