Good Computer for Home Studio

[boardman]

Hey All.I bought Reason a year ago and am loving every minute of playing with it. However, sometimes my tracks crash the computer when they're too in depth. I've been thinking about updating my setup for a while now to get better sounding recordings. Anyone have any suggestions for a good computer setup that's conducive to running Reason to it's full potential?Thanks!!

[horacejesse]

Boardman,I don't have a suggestion because I am short on knowledge of this subject. But I am listening intently for what others may answer, because I also need to know this as I will be upgrading soon and trying to join the modern world. Good luck.

[lboogie77]

Hey boardman,What else are you planning to do with your set up? Will this set up be just for music or will you run other apps like Word, surf the net...?? What sound card are you using? Just running Reason or Reason plus virtual instruments, recording live audio etc...?? These questions are important to get a system that will suit you as well as any budgetary constraints you may have. (Thats unless you are matto with 20,000 deals )To answer your question, To run Reason with lots of Combinators, and other stuff.... What I would recommend is 1 drive for your OS and other programs. A second drive to store all your sample data, rex files and Reason stuff. Drives running at least 7200RPM's and depending on your needs you could use 2 250gig drives. A dual core machine running at 2.4Ghz with 2Gigs of ram would do nicely with just running reason. Are you planning on doing a custom build or go with a stock machine like a HP or Dell? I recommend a custom build that way you get the best bang for your buck and it is made to do what you want w/o all the bulk. Well, I hope this helps. If you lay out in more detail what your expectation's are for the machine, I may be able to get you going in the right direction. Happy Composing 77

[boardman]

lboogie77, Thanks for the input.I consider myself a rookie when it comes to midi recording, because the only real experience I've had with it is with Reason. For the time being, I'm not really interested in audio in recording. I'm having a blast recording with virtual instuments and I would like to improve my sound and have an OS that isn't holding me back. The computer would be strictly for recording (the one I have now would be used for everything else like internet, word processing, etc.) I've been looking at the Macbook Pro with the 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2G memory. I've always been a PC guy, but I've heard a lot of good things about these Macs. Down the road, I would like to check out the EWQLSO program as well as other virtual instrument programs. I'm very interested in the TV/Movie genre and want to be able to produce "broadcast quality" tracks.any suggestions?

[mazz]

Eventually you will want to have the ability to record audio. Trust me on this! Also when you start adding things like EWQLSO you'll need a way to host it, which Reason won't do. You'll need a DAW like Logic or Sonar or Cubase. It depends on the platform you choose. What I've advised is check out the software first, if it's Logic, go to the Apple store and ask tons of questions or check out other composers that use these types of programs. Then your choice of software will determine your choice of computer. Logic and Digital Performer only run on Mac. Sonar only runs on PC. Cubase is both. Live is both. All will host Virtual Instruments and allow you to record audio tracks as well. All give you the same eventual output (your finished mix) but the journey to finished product will be slightly or radically different depending on what you choose.Any computer you choose will need to have more than one hard drive and as much RAM as you can afford. One hard drive will hold your OS and applications (software programs) and one drive will hold your sample library and your audio. It would be preferable to have 3 drives, one for audio, one for samples (which these days stream from disk very fast), and one for your OS and programs. Drives are cheap these days and external ones are just fine for all but the most demanding tasks (IMO). Firewire is the best choice IMO.I'm a die hard Mac guy but I just gravitated to it years ago because I could relate to the way the computer responded to my input. I've never really embraced the Windows mindset even though I have a Windows machine in my studio as a sample playback device.The MacBook Pro is an awesome machine. Laptops don't offer as much internal expandability as desktops so right away you'll need to add an audio/midi interface and at least one external hard drive but lots of people use them and Macs tend to work pretty darn well right out of the box and they play nice with external devices which, in my experience, gets you up and running very quickly. After all, if you wanted to be a computer tech, you'd be one, right!?! Hope I didn't bombard you with too much information but it's a big subject filled with lots of opinions and hype and it can be overwhelming to jump in. There's lots of folks here on the forum with lots of experience so stay tuned and only bite off as much as you can absorb and you'll get there smoothly!Mazz

[jh]

I thought I´d buy mac pro (8 core would be nice ), but it has no PCI-x slots...Macs run on Intels so in a way mac is a PC and you can run Windows on Mac too, I don´t know how well that works though... Quote:After all, if you wanted to be a computer tech, you'd be one, right!?! I think that era is long gone by now. Well maybe if you build the PC yourself but...The most common reason for "non-working" PC or MAC is the user - JH

[mazz]

Quote: I thought I´d buy mac pro (8 core would be nice ), but it has no PCI-x slots...Macs run on Intels so in a way mac is a PC and you can run Windows on Mac too, I don´t know how well that works though... I think you might be confusing it with the iMac or the Mac Mini which have no expansion slots. The tech specs say PCI Express slots. Is that the same as PCI-x?http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.htmlQuote:After all, if you wanted to be a computer tech, you'd be one, right!?! I think that era is long gone by now. Well maybe if you build the PC yourself but...The most common reason for "non-working" PC or MAC is the user - JH[/quote]I'm basing this on my own experience a few years ago and of a friend who put his own PC together to save money and then had to spend 3 or 4 hundred dollars on a consultant and they still couldn't get it to work with his audio gear. Maybe with XP and Vista things are better but my time is worth more than experimenting with computers, I need someting that works right away and I've always had that experience with Macs. When I was in the market for a computer to run my orchestra library, I ordered a purpose-built DAW PC with a fully tweaked (for audio) version of XP and it's run flawlessly. I don't use it for anything but streaming samples, it's only connected to the internet when I need to download upgrades. It's a Pentium 4, probably 3 years old now but I've had zero problems with it. It's the only Windows PC that I've had that has worked as well as a Mac for me and I didn't build it or tweak it myself, I let folks that do that for a living do it for me and I'm glad I did! BTW: It's a Carillon from the UK.Mazz

[elser]

PCI-E are PCI express slots, PCI-X is the older standard. You want PCI-E slots, Logic 8 says in the system requirements that it needs PCI-E slots, as it turns out it's working with my G5 with PCI-X but I just got lucky on that one. Both the later G5's and the Intel Macs are using PCI-E. Good luck, elser

[stick]

I think the only real reason to worry about the type of PCI slots is what hardware you already own and need to run in your Mac. I've got a PCI-x ProTools HD3 rig, so I either have to keep my older G5 with the "x" slots or buy an expansion chassis that will hold the "x" cards but connect to a "e" host CPU. Logic doesn't care. Runs great on my rig. But, if you're starting from scratch, get PCI-e, it's what all the new kids are doing. Well, you won't be able to buy a new CPU with anything but "e", I think. For sure not a new Mac. Another vote for a Mac from me. Especially for a someone new to it all. Garageband is pretty freekin' cool for a program that comes on the Mac when you buy it. And now the jump from Garageband to Logic is easier than ever... a lot of the work flow is similar (well, can be similar if you want it to be).

[jh]

Quote:I think the only real reason to worry about the type of PCI slots is what hardware you already own and need to run in your Mac.Exactly. I´d need at least 2-3 PCI-x slots.Quote:I'm basing this on my own experience a few years ago and of a friend who put his own PC together to save money and then had to spend 3 or 4 hundred dollars on a consultant and they still couldn't get it to work with his audio gear.I´m sorry to hear that... There´s probably been a chipset/driver/IRQ conflict. You should always check the compatibility between the parts first.... did it run on AMD processor? My friend had problems with his (AMD) audio PC until he swithced to Intel. Though many people have AMDs that work just fine - JH