Best computer (touchscreen?) for DAW?

[tylerdurden8us]

hi all!

so i have Cubase 5 and a new mbox 3 interface, and i'm shopping for a dedicated computer to use with it. i have a 2 year old HP TouchSmart 300 series all in one computer. the screen is pretty big (~22" i think), but the thing is LOUD and probably outdated already, so will sell it and get something better. i would be recording vocals and guitar with drumkit probably - singer/songwriter to AC styles.

i really like the idea of a touchscreen - maybe a new touchscreen laptop for portability, though i don't have to have that as a feature. i do think it would add alot of 'fun' to the recording process and get me in the seat and keep me motivated to record and look forward to it.

what do you guys use/like? i could spend around $1,000. for specs, i hear i5 or i7 core with a minimum of 4 GB RAM, but i haven't heard much in recommendations beyond that.

so what do you guys think?
- min RAM?
- desktop or laptop?
- USB 3.0 sockets?
- stay away from Windows 8?

- a bit off topic, but is it worth it to upgrade from Cubase 5 to 7, or maybe just work with 5 for now and get used to it?

- if you could put together the best system possible for $1,000 (with a touchscreen?!), what would you build or buy? is there an "obvious" choice out there already with all the best specs in this price range?

thanks alot everyone - looking forward to hearing what you think!

t.j.

[eeoo]

I'm not a Windows guy but I would definitely recommend as large a monitor as you can get, so I vote desk top, as much ram as possible and as large a monitor as possible.

eo

[tylerdurden8us]

thanks, eo!

[Russell Landwehr]

Make sure your software is playing happy in multi-core land. (pull up task manager's performance tab while running a hefty song on your current system and see if the software is actually using all of the cores) Otherwise the i7 over the i5 won't make much of a difference (to the point of possibly being detrimental) Another thing that is important: get the highest mHz processor you can afford. That is where the real number crunching benefits come in.

Another possibility is putting quieter components in the current system if it is working well for you. New fan, new hard drive. But then if you are really wanting a new system, no amount of polishing the old jalopy is gonna do the trick eh? I'm a gear junkie myself so I understand THAT.

Russell

[matto]

Personally I wouldn't want to run Cubase from a touch screen interface, I don't think it would provide the pinpoint accuracy I need for the constant detail oriented editing I'm doing.

As far as upgrading to Cubase 7, I don't have it yet, but I will say that 6.5 (which I run) added a number of very significant editing improvements over previous versions so I'm definitely loving 6.5...

If all you intend to do on your machine is audio recording/editing/mixing, in other words you will be using few if any VIs, then you really don't need a particularly powerful processor or a ton of RAM.

As far as the OS, all I can say is that Windows 7 Pro 64bit is extremely stable for me...

[tylerdurden8us]

Thanks, guys.

Russell, I actually haven't even ever installed Cubase 5 on my current HP TouchSmart All-In-One. So I don't have any idea how it runs... lol, nor do I have any desire to try to upgrade the components! Yeah, I just want something entirely new. And the computer will be 3 years old already in a couple of weeks, so I'm sure I could do much better component-wise now.

Matto, that's interesting about not having the precision in a touch screen to work well in Cubase. Good point, but maybe I could use a stylus - I'm still hung up on using a touchscreen as the mixing board, lol. The more I read about Cubase 7, the more I think I'll upgrade from 5.

Right now I'm looking at a Vizio 27” All-in-One PC | CA27-A4 | Windows 8. I think that size screen would be great and it also has:
- i5 (i5-3210M) processor
- 2.5GHz (may sound ~slow, but I've been reading how you really can't tell how fast they are unless you can figure out where they're "clocked" at plus some other factors
- 6GB RAM expandable
- 1TB hard drive
- 5400rpm hard drive speed
- 32GB SSD additional hard drive
- 1 eSATA port
- 2 HDMI
- 4 USB 3.0

Seems like it would be a good system - what do you guys think?

Thanks,

T.J.

[Russell Landwehr]

Thanks, guys.

Russell, I actually haven't even ever installed Cubase 5 on my current HP TouchSmart All-In-One. So I don't have any idea how it runs... lol, nor do I have any desire to try to upgrade the components! Yeah, I just want something entirely new. And the computer will be 3 years old already in a couple of weeks, so I'm sure I could do much better component-wise now.

Matto, that's interesting about not having the precision in a touch screen to work well in Cubase. Good point, but maybe I could use a stylus - I'm still hung up on using a touchscreen as the mixing board, lol. The more I read about Cubase 7, the more I think I'll upgrade from 5.

Right now I'm looking at a Vizio 27” All-in-One PC | CA27-A4 | Windows 8. I think that size screen would be great and it also has:
- i5 (i5-3210M) processor
- 2.5GHz (may sound ~slow, but I've been reading how you really can't tell how fast they are unless you can figure out where they're "clocked" at plus some other factors
- 6GB RAM expandable
- 1TB hard drive
- 5400rpm hard drive speed
- 32GB SSD additional hard drive
- 1 eSATA port
- 2 HDMI
- 4 USB 3.0

Seems like it would be a good system - what do you guys think?

Thanks,

T.J.

I think it would work for you, but something just occurred to me... are you using your current touch screen for musical purposes? I am trying to picture how much mousing I do when recording and/or editing and mixing. I know that there are times like during tracking that I'm just reaching over and clicking stop and record and similar stuff. Then there are other times that I am getting finger cramps from all the mousing during mixing or editing. So then I picture holding my arm(s) out at shoulder height for that long... does your recording budget included a shiatsu masseuse? I am guessing that you would be spending that time on the mouse for comfort reasons. If you lay the computer down, then you've got neck strain and lighting glare.

As far as the pin-point accuracy that matto is talking about, that's a thought also. When you put your finger down in the screen, you can no longer see the cursor or the thing you are adjusting because your finger tip obscures it. Plus, you've gotta place your finger exactly or suffer control jump-to-the-click functions of some software (I know this from experience from using a touchscreen for live mixing.) Some of those functions can be adjusted in the software, though. Oh! Then there's the long-press function of the touch-screen driver/interface that you would have to disable.

So really how much use would you get from the touch function? Is it worth the $$? Would you be able to get a better system with a larger monitor for the same $$? It is not my intent to discourage you from going touch screen, just trying to brain-storm the use.

Also, if you get something with an SSD in it be aware that in the past, some SSDs have had a high failure rate. Maybe that problem has been fixed by now.

For a while I had a touch screen for the software I used to mix my band. It was the type that senses touch by LEDs on two sides and sensors on the opposite sides. It was kinda cool once I became accustomed to it (see above.) I stopped using it, though, after an outdoor gig where bugs kept landing on the screen and clicking mutes and solos and moving faders.

Russell

[Len911]

"...for a while I had a touch screen for the software I used to mix my band. It was the type that senses touch by LEDs on two sides and sensors on the opposite sides. It was kinda cool once I became accustomed to it (see above.) I stopped using it, though, after an outdoor gig where bugs kept landing on the screen and clicking mutes and solos and moving faders.

Russell"

That is hilarious!! I smoke unfiltered cigarettes and am constantly spitting tobacco and having it land in the , most inappropriate places, wouldn't work for me,lol!

[tylerdurden8us]

Thanks - I think it's finally dawned on me how impractical a touch screen could be. Looking at Cubase's tiny knobs, I don't know how I thought I would be able to adjust those precisely with a touchscreen. So, I give up my quest, lol. But I do think that in 5 or 10 years it will be common to use them - they just haven't figured out how to make it really easy or practical to use yet.

I don't think I'd need portability for a while, so no laptop needed, and now I'm just looking for a quiet desktop with 6+ GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive that's ideally 7,200 rpm, and an i5 or i7 core or maybe a AMD FX core, though I've heard from Sweetwater that they're nervous about those and only recommend i5 or i7.

Right now Best Buy has a sale on a 27" LG monitor for about $220 which seems like a good deal to me, so I'll probably go pick up one of those tomorrow.

Thanks for all the help - I'll update if/when I decide on a new system and maybe let everyone know how it's working. One thing i'm not even sure about yet is, I'm pretty sure Cubase 7 will run fine on Windows 8 (maybe some plugins will cause problems, but that's just the plugins and I don't really have any to worry about), but I also have a Avid MBox 3 (not mini, not pro), and it sounds like this will not run on Windows 8 yet. But many new desktops and laptops are selling with Win8 now, so if I see a great deal with great specs on something that's running Win8, I'm not sure if i'll pull the trigger or keep looking for something "older" that still has Win7. Anyway... Later!

[mazz]

Here you go:

http://www.slateproaudio.com/

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=4HHiXqcy ... HHiXqcyu2M