Building a computer used for music recording and editing

[Postmand_Per]

Hi,

My brother and some of his friends are into recording and editing their own music and now one of them want his own computer so he can sit at home doing it. Now, a lot of the people who's supposedly "in the know" only recommends Mac's or Intel based solutions because they are afraid AMD is not compatible with the software (Emagic Logic). Pure FUD IMHO! The only thing there makes me hesitate to go for an AMD based solution is the chipsets. I was thinking of going with a Via KT266A based board but I'm a bit afraid of how well it will work with the soundcard which is going to be a Emagic AudioWerk 2. So, does anyone have any thoughts about how well this soundcard will work in a KT266A board or should I go with another chipset such as AMD 760 or the one from SiS?

I was thinking of using these parts in the computer:

AMD Athlon Palomino XP 1600+
2xApacer 256MB DDR (PC2100)
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 40GB
LiteOn CD-RW 16/10/40X Retail
ATI Radeon 7000 TV-Out Retail
LG Flatron 99G FST White Monitor
Da Floppy
A cordless keyboard and mouse (maybe some of the stuff Logitech has)

The computer will only be used music-things and perhaps some internet-usage (surfing, reading e-mails). It wont be used for gaming (hence the relatively crappy video card) and overclocking wont be considered either. All I need now is a good, stable motherboard...what's worth getting?


TIA

 

[thirdlegstump]

For recording with a pro audio card, you'd better stay away from the VIA chipsets. You WILL get pops and crackles when recording and playing back multiple tracks at a time even with the latest VIA patch. This will be accentuated if you start to record at 24 bits. I've heard people using AliMagik chipsets without a problem with Athlons but for THE BEST in audio recording, I'd suggest a TUSL2-C with a 133 fsb P3. I'm running a 440BX (check my rig) and I am recording 4 tracks at a time while playing back over 20 at the same time while running real time DSPs. With a VIA based DAW, forget about it. A 500Mhz processor running any other chipset will yield much better (or in this comparison, useable). You don't have to listen to anyone else regarding this issue. I've been doing the DAW thing for too long. For a good DAW setup, here's an overall list of what you'd need:

P3 933 with 133fsb or better
512mb quality PC133 memory (crucial, corsair, mushkin etc.) try to get CL2
Asus TUSL2-C motherboard (the one without the on-board junk)
Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM with separate partitions for OS and programs and if you can, another drive dedicated for the audio files
Teac CDR-W - I say this because I find the recordings to be a bit cleaner than the Liteons but it's barely noticeable even with high end monitors. Plextor is even better but not by much.
Promise ATA100 PCI controller - it just performs better than the on-board controller. Make sure that the drives are on different channels and try to avoid slave/master configs.
Since you're not gaming, I would suggest the Matrox G450 dual head video card. They have the best 2D image quality and no-nonsense drivers. I've never had a single glitch with these cards.

Make sure you get the quietest PSU you can get and stay away from those high performance fans for the CPU. They're just too loud for DAW use and are very distracting to musicians. Try to find fans that are below 28db. There's a site called quiet pc that sells these things. www.quietpc.com I think. There's also a group that builds and sells DAWs but they're quite expensive: www.dawbox.com. I also build DAWs if you're interested but I usually build them for local users and haven't really shipped them elsewhere. It's definitely do-able though.
Anyway, let me know if you have any questions or if you're even interested in my DAWs! Good luck.

Yoshi

 

[frazzled]

I use my machine more for video than audio (darn tin ear of mine) but I know from hanging out on the Sonic Foundry and Creative Cow forums that the audio guys go on and on about making sure that your audio card is truly not sharing IRQs. Many of them have switched over to non-ACPI installations to gain more control. This seems to be an ongoing debate as to whether the makers of high-end audio and video hardware fully conform to the ACPI standard.

I have found the folks over at Creative Cow to be *very* helpful and not too dogmatic .

FWIW, even for my much more amateur fiddlings I have gone standard PC (non-ACPI) on my 8kha+ .... no audio problems so far, but I defer to deathkoba in terms of the "serious" audio.

Good luck,

fraz

 

[Postmand_Per]

deathkoba,

I was planning on getting a quiet PSU and HSF since those high performance, high noise fans are too loud for anyone IMHO I'm gonna have to pass on your systems since I live in Denmark and I don't want to have the hazzle with the shipping...

Anyways, I had a feeling someone would say something bad about Via but I've been looking at www.dawbox.com and the stuff they sell and they do sell high-end machines with the Asus A7V266E motherboard (KT266A chipset) so it can be that bad or...? They are also using Asus A7M266 which is using AMD 761 chipset and I'll probably get this unless someone has anything bad to say about it.

Teac vs. LiteOn isn't really an issue since I can't find anyone who sells Teac

As for getting two drives, that's something I've already have considered but since I don't know how much he wants to use I only put one disk on the list. You mention getting an Promise ATA controller instead of using the built-in controller but how much better does it perform?

I was debating with myself if I should pick the Radeon or the G450 but since the Radeon was like $5 cheaper I picked that Having the ability to use two monitors would be nice though.


frazzled,

Uhmm....what is it ACPI is? I must have forgotten it

 

[(M)]

ACPI is Windows 2000's way of assigning all of your PNP devices to a single IRQ. For audio recording this can cause dropouts, pops & crackles when one of these other devices is accessing the IRQ at the same time as the audio card. To correct this, most people recording in Windows 2000 change their computer to "Standard Computer" in the device manager - this allows the IRQ's assigned by your BIOS to be used - and ultimately your audio card to be alone on an IRQ (preferably 9).

I've never tried using a AMD/VIA system for recording, so I can't comment from experience. I use an Intel BX/P3/Voodoo3 system with a M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card. I get very clean recordings and low-latency with this setup, so I dont change anything if I don't have to. The Voodoo3 is a good low-cost solution (the 2D is actually very good and the drivers are very mature/stable).

The Audiowerk2 card you plan to use is pretty old (and quirky from what I've read). I'd recommend to invest a few bucks in something more recent (with better driver support):
Maudio Delta Series
Echo MIA
Terratec EWS88..
EGO-SYS

Just my 2E.

 

[thomsbrain]

Here's my audio setup:

Celeron 566@850
Abit 815 board
512 MB CAS2 memory
Maxtor 40 GB 7200 RPM
old Acer 8x CD-RW
Echo Darla 24

Works very well. i've been up to 48 tracks with real-time effects while recording and not any problems, as long as I shut down unneeded background programs.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Well the pci latency issue isn't going to affect much depending on how you're going to be recording too. If you're doing strictly midi and using the pc as a sequencer only to control external sources and effects, any pc would be fine. If you're going to be using both (most cases), then just to be 100% sure, get something with an Intel chipset. If you are going to later add a realtime DSP PCI card, then definitely get the Asus TUSL2-C. I guarantee you you're not going to get much with a VIA southbridge. I've seen benchmarks that fully test the chipsets that fully utilize the saturation of the PCI bus in audio applications and the results can get pretty ugly. BX chipsets were able to run about 6 realtime reverbs while 815E(P) chipsets get over 10. A VIA chipset motherboard (specifically the Epox 8K7A which has AMD 760/VIA686B) were able to get 2 and sometimes 3 after exhaustive tweaking. AliMagik revealed similiar results to the Intel chipsets. SiS wasn't tested but I'm sure it'll yield good results. So, the choice is yours man. I'm not going to push Intel on you or anything. I'm just giving a suggestion that'll save your butt in from the get go. Another thing, for the OS, I use Win98 SE and prefer it's DAW performance over 2000. I'm using Vegas to record using a Delta 44 card. Apparently Vegas runs better in 98 SE.

 

[Pabster]

Unfortunately, for high-end audio ... a Mac is a better choice. PCs just aren't well suited for professional audio editing.

That said, if you decide to stick to the PC platform ... avoid VIA at all costs. The amount of issues surrounding a plethora of sound cards and audio devices leaves one to wonder how they could get it so wrong. Some might report success with a given card, but I wouldn't take a chance. The PCI latency issues alone surrounding VIA chipsets are enough to reconsider such a purchase.

SiS 735 would be a better choice, as it doesn't have the issues with sound cards and audio devices like VIA.

Again, however, let me reiterate ... a PC is not the best platform for high-end (read: professional) audio editing.

 

[oldfart]

A friend of mine built one recently. He went with a:

Intel D815EEA2U i815E motherboard and uses the onboard video.
Celeron 1.2 256K cache CPU
512 meg ram
60 Gig HD (I forget which)
Midiman Omni Studio Delta sound setup.

He is very happy with it.

 

[Postmand_Per]

M,
Thanks for the explanation. As for the AudioWerk card then it's something I don't decide...


deathkoba and Pabster,

Okay, the Via based boards are definetly out. How is the IDE performance on a motherboard like the Asus A7M266 which is using AMD's own southbridge?

The people I've talked to who claims to know what they are talking about also likes the Mac's. However, they did say Mac's was slower than PC's but they were more stable than a PC which was what they liked so much about the. The only problem with Mac's is that they are so expensive and since this dude is on a budget, which I don't know exactly how large/small is yet, the prices for those Mac's I've looked at is definetly above the budget. This is also the primary reason I've been selecting AMD since it is quiet a bit cheaper (and faster ).

 

[Postmand_Per]

Two other things:

Anyone tried using WinXP to do music-stuff in yet?

What about SCSI? I know what's good about it but is it worth getting for a "semi-professional" dude who don't have a whole lot of money?

 

[thirdlegstump]

Right, I would too suggest Mac's if you're a true recording engineer but in this case, a PC DAW would be a better solution. As for IDE performance, anything other than VIA should be fine. AMD southbridge would be great. As for the stability thing regarding Mac's and PC's, if you can't configure your computer right, then neither would be stable. If you can though, then a PC DAW should be just as stable and even more so (in terms of restarting the computer.) Mac's are great out of the box though. They're just more expensive and a bit limited in features but does it's job perfectly without any fussing around. With a PC, prepare for some serious tweaking! (which may or may not be fun) As for Win XP and audio, I wouldn't suggest it. It uses up too many resources just for the OS alone. 2000 would be better if you want NT.

 

[thirdlegstump]

No, SCSI ain't worth it if you're on a budget BUT...if you DO NEED IT, get it. (You'd know if you need it) For most purposes, an IDE RAID 1 would be more than enough.

 

[Pabster]

Guys, I recommend a Mac for a Professional Level setup. Obviously, if that isn't the intention, there's no reason to spend that kind of money.

Just avoid VIA. A dual AMD solution might well be a good idea, if only for the AMD north -and- south bridges. Good luck finding an AMD760 board that doesn't utilize the ubiquitous VIA 686B -- and you know the story behind that

 

[Kwad Guy]

Once again, AMD speed/price advantages are done in by crappy
motherboards to support their chips...

If you like the dual BX- setup, you should consider something
based on the Intel i840 chipset (dual channel Rambus, dual
PIII/133Mhz, etc.) This board is faster than the BX, is at
least as stable as the BX and can push at least as much data
around as the BX-...

Kwad

 

[FishTankX]

Note:Read toms article on comparison between the 24/20X Burners. Youll find Yamaha's 24X Burner to be *VERY* atractive for its audio master capabilties!

 

[FishTankX]

Emphasis: http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/01q4/011213/cdrw-14.html

http://www4.tomshardware.com/storage/01q4/011213/cdrw-19.html

Read both of these. Theyre a great insight into Yamahas new baby technology. This is so awesome! Unparallelled recording at a minor sacrafice of time.

"The charts above show the theoretical effect of Audio Master Quality on a CD Audio. In practice, the gain is definitely noticeable on playback, but can vary depending on the equipment used. In any case, you need adequate audio equipment to notice any difference at all. On a standard hi-fi, the gain in quality is fairly significant, especially with regard to instrument location. But you can hardly tell the difference between a CD burned conventionally in 4x and one burned in Audio Master on a top-range CD player like the Denon DCD1550AR. This is undoubtedly because a player of this quality already has an effective error correction system.

"

 

[hoihtah]

i've read lots of threads with people having problems with via solution.

but hasn't anyone figured it out yet?

i'm about to build a system with amd cpu in it.
i was going to go with either EPoX EP-8KHA+, or Iwill XP333-R or KR7A-RAID.

kr7a-raid
VT8366A North Bridge,
VT8233 South Bridge

EPoX EP-8KHA+
VT8366A North Bridge
VT8233 South Bridge

Iwill XP333-R
ALi M1647 North Bridge
ALi M1535D+ South Bridge

i'm just wondering if it is impossible to configure via chipset to work flawlessly.
or just difficult.