GEAR UPDATE ADVICE

[Mark Kaufman]

In the end, as always, it's not your equipment that matters, but what you do with it. Never lose focus on the writing. These machines want to steal your time, so pick the one that feels most comfortable...

[mojobone]

Tracktion 3 ultimate bundle has some advantages over Reaper in terms of the bundled instruments, though they're limited versions of commercially available programs; having heard your stuff, I feel comfortable suggesting that RMIV's drum samples won't excite you, but you may like Drumcore. GPO Mackie has a quite a nice Steinway sample, etc. No comparison, pricewise, though.A larger concern with ProTools is that software for TDM is upwards of 40% more expensive than native versions of the same software. TDM allows the use of 'farm' cards, which are proprietary and sold by Digidesign only, and are hence kinda spendy as well, but can take some of the processing load off yer 'puter, if you have PCI slots. (I believe there's a Firewire farm in the works)UAD, Waves and T C Powercore also make accelerators that don't require TDM-compliant software. (also available in both Firewire and PCI flavors)+1 to Mark and mazz, above. If you don't expect clients and guest engineers, ProTools and TDM will waste a BUNCH of your money.You'll probably want three drives rather than two if you'll be using samplers, and you will. (won't need to back up samples that come on disc, though.) You could play in all the MIDI from your MPC, but it'd sure be faster to get a USB floppy drive, I wouldn't clutter up your comp with an internal floppy. The motherboard is an important consideration, Kontact and Gigastudio both have issues with certain motherboards.I recommend eight simultaneous inputs when it comes to interfaces, simply because the price differential between four and eight is insignificant, and two is not enough if you entertain the idea of recording with even one other person. If your interface handles audio and MIDI I/O, you don't need the snazziest soundcard. Sound quality will have more to do with the interface you select than any other component, and good converters come at a premium. Emu, Lynx, Aardvark, Apogee, T C, Lexicon, MOTU and RME are among the best. (though I'm sure I left out a couple of really good ones that come with non-converting hardware, like Avalon and Focusrite)You might consider a liquid cooling system, as well, though pumps are not completey silent. As far as video cards are concerned, you mainly want one without a fan of its own.There was a really good thread on here a while back about building Nomi Yah's DAW, I leaned a ton from it while spec'ing out MY rig.The complexities of a DAW, and we've all been through this, are far outweighed by the convenience and utility, once everything works together. Make an outline of what you need your system to do, select the software first, spend some time with compatibility charts, and you should be thrilled with the results.

[milfus]

yeah just remember, READ THE MANUALyou dont know, how many times i get asked stuff a day, that is in the freakin manual, and the person could have been done and mastered that plus everything else, MONTHS ago, if they would just sit down and read it, and reference it.

[hotjams]

Hey Windowman...Im looking at a new system myself, though Im going to go with a laptop..I dont need the power...however there are some very key things that are going to really impact the speed of computers..First and foremost are the new Solid State drives...they are comming down in price and the performance levels are astounding. I suspect you can get one 32G for around $500 now and a 64G for 8-1k. Just make sure that the interaface to the drive is set up to maximize the speed. Next load up on as much memory as you can...8gig, 16 gig...go for it.CPUs are generally more than fast enough the biggest slowpoke in the entire computer is the hard drive, by a huge factor. Going with a solid state drive really changes this factor significantly, provided you get the correct interface. Also, Windows is a virtual opertating system, which means it's constantly swapping info in and out of the "memory" from the hard drive. The more memory you have the less swapping and the faster the "drive" well, it all adds up. To sum it up, with a PC system, spend your money on a super fast drive and load up on the memory, the CPU is not the bottelneck.

[mojobone]

I'd be leery of solid-state drives; I'm hearing about durability issues, and magnetized mylar has been known to last upwards of fifty years. I tend to leave the bleeding-edge technology to gamers and n00bs, YMMV. For DAWs, the bottleneck is almost always RAM, BTW. A note on drums: My opinion is that 16 bits is plenty for drum sounds, but 24 bit cymbal samples sound far more realistic, if realism's what yer about. (I use 24 bit samples across the board, cuz I record at 24 bit) It's also important to use a sampler that can interpolate or alternate samples of the same velocity so you don't get the machine-gun effect on rolls and multiple strikes. Most do, these days, but you'll want to be sure. I really love the Larry Seyer drums, I want 'em dry so I can tweak 'em to taste. I'll be looking into the Andy Johns' Oceanway collection for BFD in the near future, I believe there's a deluxe 24 bit edition in the works.Last hard drive I bought was a Seagate Barracuda 320G. IMO, you're better off with three of those (@$99.95 US or thereabouts) than with one or two 500g drives.(Glyph and Western Digital make good ones, too) The more drive heads, the faster you can write data; you're not wearing out a single head that's both reading and writing, so the theory goes. Many music apps prefer 7200 RPM drives, though I've heard of lotsa folks with slower drives and zero problems.I'm pretty sure the MC-500 II reads and writes SMFs (that's standard MIDI files, for you smfs out there) so you shouldn't need anything additional, though you might want editor/librarian software for your synth patches if you haven't already.Motherboards I can't help with, it's been too long since I've done any research on 'em. (meaning the time to do it again draws nigh)MIDI ports, I do mostly small combos or simulations thereof; I've never used up 16 MIDI channels. Then again, I don't put each instrument in a kit on it's own channel. I've got four ports and doubt I'll need more than two, 'til I get as mighty as mazz. Burners, I can't tell you much, mine came with the Gateway. You might wanna go with a dual-layer DVD burner, some of the larger sample libraries are headed that way; Blu-Ray might be overkill. I'd actually like to hear some others' thoughts on the topic, myself.Some of the best oddball sounds I have, I found online for free. I've got an old Korg X5 I picked up for nearly nuthin' and took advantage of some generous programmers on the web. I've got dozens and dozens of banks of some pretty spectacular stuff, I just need a good librarian to weed out the dupes.What can I say 'bout those Jean-Michel Jarre fans, they're such a great and talented bunch a people. Disclaimer: I am not, nor am I the current pelvic affiliate of a computer expert, I'm jes' tryin' to pass on a little of what I struggled to learn. YMMV, moisten before use, not for use as a suppository, yadda yadda etc.

[sirj]

Get 2 PCs or 1 PC and a Mac!!Why?Get 1 PC or MAC as your DAW to run Logic or Sonar and another PC to run big audio libraries like GigaStudio or Kontakt.Your DAW will control all the tracks on the second PC.With this setup I'm able to run around over 250 tracks when combining the 2 computers.Why go this way?Most the best samples or libraries come for computers like I mentioned before Gigastudio or kontakt newer libraries come with their own GUI or player.I remember trying VSTack which allows you load up to 16 tracks of you favorites libraries and remotely controlled by MIDI from a second PC or DAW.This will be cheaper and better than buying a keyboard module which is limited, take space and sounds will be cheassy.On a pc you can always remove and add libraies as needed.Now the question is how you control thru Logic or Sonar 250 tracks?Very simple instead of using MIDI interfaces I use Ethernet (a hub with four network connections, which means I can add 2 more PCs latter with more libraries if I need more tracks!!!)Software that alows you do MIDI thru Ethernet are very cheap and I think they work faster than regular MIDI interfaces!

[suzdoyle]

Is there a reason to have the sound libraries on a separate PC or Mac instead of on an external hard drive?Thanks!Suz

[mazz]

Suz,The idea is that the separate computer takes the strain off of your main computer. Just think of the slave computer as if it were a synth or sampler instead of a computer and it may make more sense. When you trigger an external synth or sampler, the only strain you're putting on your main sequencing computer is a little MIDI data going out and some audio coming in. Way less stressful on the CPU than trying to stream dozens of audio tracks and tons of samples from an external drive.So the slave computer can run a huge sample template and since it doesn't have to do anything else besides spit out samples, it can be tweaked and optimized for just that purpose. I have two Windows machines dedicated to just this and nothing else.Lots of composers go this route, many of the big film composers use 8 or more slave computers to run massive orchestra libraries. They need all their sounds at their fingertips at a second's notice so they go that route.Hope this helps,Mazz

[sirj]

Aug 27, 2008, 4:04pm, mazz wrote:Suz,The idea is that the separate computer takes the strain off of your main computer. Just think of the slave computer as if it were a synth or sampler instead of a computer and it may make more sense. When you trigger an external synth or sampler, the only strain you're putting on your main sequencing computer is a little MIDI data going out and some audio coming in. Way less stressful on the CPU than trying to stream dozens of audio tracks and tons of samples from an external drive.So the slave computer can run a huge sample template and since it doesn't have to do anything else besides spit out samples, it can be tweaked and optimized for just that purpose. I have two Windows machines dedicated to just this and nothing else.Lots of composers go this route, many of the big film composers use 8 or more slave computers to run massive orchestra libraries. They need all their sounds at their fingertips at a second's notice so they go that route.Hope this helps,MazzMazz couldn't have putted it better!! Right on the nail!!It is the best route to go!...just one thing it may be complicate to setup and to get use to run tracks from a different PC.I use RealVNC to remotly manage the desktop of the 2 PC from the main PC.I also use RealVNC when I get customers that need my help but I'm too far to reach them. But with their IP address and a password they give me I can access their computer from any web browser.