system requirements

[edteja]

Congratulations on taking the plunge! It sounds like a great system. What sequencer or DAW will you be using on it?

[hummingbird]

Quote:Congratulations on taking the plunge! It sounds like a great system. What sequencer or DAW will you be using on it?Hi - I'm running Traction2 (which has a sequencer), a midi keyboard, and Soundsonline's Symphonic Orchestra Silver Edition (recommended by Dave Walton). Oh, and Jammer. I'm looking forward to not hearing the cracks & pops when playing back a few tracks... my current CPU can't handle it... which makes mixing effectively almost impossible!I'm reading up on composing and arranging.... while I wait

[soundcircel]

to add a little contrast I record everything on this system :AMD athlon 240040 Gb hardriveonly 256 Mb of RAMI have an external usb drive to store finished projects on and where i install samples and stuff on.I run Logic and also have G.P.ONormally i use a lot of tracks, and a lot of virtual instruments.( having 4-5 GPO open is normal )a normal song excists out of about 10 audio files.and 10-20 audio instruments ( virtual instruments )all running at the same time.Never have problems But............... making music is the only thing i do on that computer.Stripped Windows,got rid off all unwanted programs/drivers/tools.Tweaked the system for music, so basically i can't do anything else on that machine Keep it clean, keep it defragmentated...I am not saying that it is perfect, but it works....

[edteja]

I think you will love that new system. Enjoy!

[hummingbird]

Quote:Well, after a lot of hemming and hawing and considering... I finally went for a custom build.Specs.... Processor Type -- AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ Processor Speed -- 2.2GHz RAM -- 2GB PC4200 DDR2 SDRAM (Exp. To 4GB or perhaps 8GB) Hard Drive -- 250GB Serial ATA (7200RPM) (Exp to 320GB)Optical Drives -- 16X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer (DVD/CD reader/burner) Graphics Card -- nVidia GeForce 6150LE Cache 512KB L2 (or bigger) Fax/Modem 56K V.90 Network Card 10/100 Ethernet System Bus 2000MHz+several USB ports.Operating System: Windows XP Home(plus motherboard, etc)with 19" LCD monitor, ergonomic keyboard & mouse...Total - $1,399 Canadian +taxOnly thing we haven't priced yet is the soundcard, as it needs to be Midi capable... but they figured it would be around $100. Sound Card High Definition Audio COMPATIBILITY -- WIN (VST®2.0, DXi2™, ASIO™, MME™, Direct Sound™)Grand Total - around $1499 CA (about $1300 US) I'll be gettin' it in a few days!!! Yeah!!!! Whoo whoo!!!! Hummingbird Question: I'm planning to pick up a 320GB External Hard Drive to store my orchestra samples on. (I already have a 240GB external for back-ups).Average Seek Time- 8.9ms Data Buffer- 8MB Interface - USB Maximum Data Transfer Rate - 480Mbps Rotations Per Minute (RPM) 7200RPM HybridDrive's state-of-the-art data storage technology and advanced 16-bit RISc processor built into the exclusive USB 2.0 chip makes access and data transfers up to 22% faster than other USB 2.0 interfaces. And the strong SHA-2 password encryption gives you security as well as speed. HHot-Pluggable ConvenienceFanless Near-Silent OperationPre-formatted for both Mac and PC.Included In Box: Hard Drive Stand, USB Cable, USB 2.0 Driver CD (Needed For Windows 98SE Only), AC Adapter And Power Cord, Rubber Feet, User’s Guide, Warranty Registration CardSystem Requirements: Available USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port, PC with 233MHz+ Processor (Pentium, Celeron, AMD etc) and Win98SE/2000/ME/XP Does this sound like a good fit?thanks!Hummin'bird

[aubreyz]

Quote:Question: I'm planning to pick up a 320GB External Hard Drive to store my orchestra samples on. (I already have a 240GB external for back-ups).Average Seek Time- 8.9ms Data Buffer- 8MB Interface - USB Maximum Data Transfer Rate - 480Mbps Rotations Per Minute (RPM) 7200RPM HybridDrive's state-of-the-art data storage technology and advanced 16-bit RISc processor built into the exclusive USB 2.0 chip makes access and data transfers up to 22% faster than other USB 2.0 interfaces. And the strong SHA-2 password encryption gives you security as well as speed. HHot-Pluggable ConvenienceFanless Near-Silent OperationPre-formatted for both Mac and PC.Included In Box: Hard Drive Stand, USB Cable, USB 2.0 Driver CD (Needed For Windows 98SE Only), AC Adapter And Power Cord, Rubber Feet, User’s Guide, Warranty Registration CardSystem Requirements: Available USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port, PC with 233MHz+ Processor (Pentium, Celeron, AMD etc) and Win98SE/2000/ME/XP Does this sound like a good fit?thanks!Hummin'birdSpecs look pretty good. Is there not a fw800 port? The only thing I might suggest is that if you could install a second sata drive internally it might be cheaper and would definitely give you much faster transfer time (plus there are 10,000 rpm drives available too).Aub

[hummingbird]

Quote:Quote:Question: I'm planning to pick up a 320GB External Hard Drive to store my orchestra samples on. (I already have a 240GB external for back-ups).Average Seek Time- 8.9ms Data Buffer- 8MB Interface - USB Maximum Data Transfer Rate - 480Mbps Rotations Per Minute (RPM) 7200RPM HybridDrive's state-of-the-art data storage technology and advanced 16-bit RISc processor built into the exclusive USB 2.0 chip makes access and data transfers up to 22% faster than other USB 2.0 interfaces. And the strong SHA-2 password encryption gives you security as well as speed. HHot-Pluggable ConvenienceFanless Near-Silent OperationPre-formatted for both Mac and PC.Included In Box: Hard Drive Stand, USB Cable, USB 2.0 Driver CD (Needed For Windows 98SE Only), AC Adapter And Power Cord, Rubber Feet, User’s Guide, Warranty Registration CardSystem Requirements: Available USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port, PC with 233MHz+ Processor (Pentium, Celeron, AMD etc) and Win98SE/2000/ME/XP Does this sound like a good fit?thanks!Hummin'birdSpecs look pretty good. Is there not a fw800 port? The only thing I might suggest is that if you could install a second sata drive internally it might be cheaper and would definitely give you much faster transfer time (plus there are 10,000 rpm drives available too).AubThanks for the suggestion.... like Nomi, I'm struggling to understand all this... what's a sata drive? Should I look for an external hard drive with 10,000 rpm?

[aubreyz]

Quote:Thanks for the suggestion.... like Nomi, I'm struggling to understand all this... what's a sata drive? Should I look for an external hard drive with 10,000 rpm? I hope this isn't too detailed, but I've had a rough day and spitting out some techno talk is a great mind escape So... hard drives 101All hard drives work the same way, however there is quite a difference in how those drives connect to transfer data. The rpm and seek time of a drive is an indicator of how fast it can locate a particular data chunk. The cache is a small amount of memory that the drive can deposit data into if it gets ahead of the actual transfer capacity. That let's the drive be able to "look ahead" in a sense.So a drive gets a request for some data, it locates the first chunk, and for whatever reason the computer isn't ready to receive data as fast as the drive can read it back. Without cache, the drive would have to sit and wait for the computer to receive all of it's data finds in real time. But with cache it can drop off chunks, and then go look for the next chunk while the cache memory is transferring. So faster rpm, better seek time, and more cache mean better efficiency (as a general rule). The next important thing is the way the drive connects. That's what sata refers to. Each different type of connection has a particular transfer rate. Think of it like a speed limit for data. Here are the main flavors in order of bus speed.SCSI - from 160 to 320 MB/sec (older scsi specs range from 5 to 80 MB/sec)Serial ATA (SATA) - 150 MB/sec (SATA II is around 300 MB/sec)ATA100 (ATA is the same as IDE) - 100 MB/secATA133 - 133 MB/secThese are maximum rates, and the real world seldom sees maximum. Now what about external drives? Firewire and USB drives use one of these types of drives (usually ATA) and convert the connection so it will work on another bus. So now the drive connection is not as important as the bus limitations it is being converted to. Here are the transfer speeds of usb and firewire. It can get confusing because usb and firewire specs are in Mbits per second - much smaller than MB (mega bytes):USB 1.0 - 12 Mbits/secUSB 2.0 - 480 Mbits (about 34MB/sec)Firewire 400 - 400 Mbits (about 49MB)Firewire 800 - 800 Mbits (around 100 MB/sec)Something to remember is that with USB and firewire, you don't get the transfer speed per device, that is a total for the whole bus. Many times a computer will have several usb or firewire connections, but they all share the same bandwidth or bus.My point is this... with an external usb drive you are going to get a max of 34MB of transfer - a 10,000 rpm drive would be like driving a racecar on a gocart track. With an internal connection, like SATA you are going to get more like 150 MB/sec max transfer rate. It's a huge difference. Do you need that much of a difference? Maybe, maybe not. If you are not confused already, now I'm going to really confuse you.Just because a drive is connected to a fast bus system doesn't necessarily mean that it will do better. Drive specs are based around the external transfer rate, but there is an internal sustained transfer rate that is more important, and much more limiting. There is no drive that can, in the real world, live up to it's transfer spec. Most can't even do half in the best case scenario.So let's say an external usb 2.0 drive has an ata 100 drive in it. The usb spec is 34MB/sec and the drive is 100MB/sec. Seems like usb would choke the drive. Actually, it would be difficult for such a drive to ever be pushing out more than 34MB/sec because it has to look around for data, etc. The problem however is that in many cases, any other drive, keyboard, mouse or usb device is going to share that 34MB pipe.Even with a 10,000 rpm SATA drive, you aren't going to get close to the actual SATA spec. So what's the point? It's about headroom and allocating resources. If I could use a SATA drive that has a wide open pipe of 150MB, then I could even have two drives on that bus and still never get close to the real world transfer limit.Not true for USB or FW400. (unless you have dedicated busses for each drive).I noticed with the quick glance at your motherboard specs that it had SATA. If you could add another SATA drive, that's how I would go. Sample playback takes a lot of bandwidth. I would always go with the biggest pipe available.A 10,000 rpm SATA drive can be faster, but if you have a reasonably sized (150g or so) 7200 rpm SATA drive, the real world specs are not so dramatically different that the extra expense would be justified in every situation.If you've read all this, then you may still be wondering what is the best solution . That's the problem. There's no one size fits all answer. I would set a budget, and get the fastest drive on the fastest bus you can within that margin. Maybe all this techno mumbo jumbo will help a little in at least understanding the difference in the options.

[grandmatarkin]

When it is time to tweak XP into better suiting audio recording, check out this page...http://www.pcmus.com/TweakXP.htmDave

[grandmatarkin]

Aub,I have my two harddrives on an ATA 100 bus... My second drive in the chain is dedicated to storing audio, etc. I dual boot XP on my main drive... 3 partitions... 1 for XP for stuff like this, 1 for my DAW, and one for storage.My question is:I bought the secondary "audio" drive, which is 7200 rpm, and have it set as the slave on the main bus with the primary drive (with the OS's) as the master. The primary drive, however, is only 5400rpm. Now someone at Futureshop who seemed fairly knowledgeable told me that my secondary drive's effective speed will be limited to the speed of the main drive, 5400rpm. If this made sense, is this true? Am I not getting my 7200 rpm's worth from the audio drive because my master drive is slower?Thanks!Dave