Recommendations for music recording/editing system.

[Denithor]

This is a long one, please bear with me...

A friend wants me to build him an Athalon64 based system to use for recording and editing music. He already has the input hardware (Digi 002 Rack, here) that connects to the PC by Firewire. I have a few questions about the best way to go about this, as I have never built an AMD system (I have considerable experience on the Intel side of the fence, however, so it should not be too much of a stretch).

One option is to use a Shuttle barebone system (SN85G4, nForce3 150 chipset) for this build but I want to make sure that heat will not be a problem. If heat is not a problem this will be the easiest (and most fun) system to build. Any comments on this, and recommendations on best memory for this box?

Secondly, I may instead do this in a regular case (Lian Li, with Antec TruePower 430W PS). In this case, what is a good, solid, trouble-free motherboard/memory combination to use? I have heard all about the various problems with memory incompatibility with the specific motherboards. I don't plan to OC this system, so I am looking more for boring but stable components.

A third option (that I have only just glanced at so far) would be to build an 2xAthalon XP system, which appears to be slightly cheaper (granted, it is with 32-bit processors) but may be faster. The only boards I can find for this feature the AMD 760-MPX chipset and only support 200/266 fsb, does this mean the fastest chip that will work is the XP 2400+ or will the Mobile XP chips work as well (up to 2Ghz with the Mobile XP 2600+ with 512K cache instead of 256K)? Again, anyone with experience in this type of system build is asked for input.

Thanks a lot for the assistance!
Matt

 

[Zebo]

Id try here.

 

[ProviaFan]

In general, SMP will not be of much help in an audio system unless you are multitasking. Programs like Soundforge et. al. tend not to be multithreaded.

I just got a Lian Li PC-60 and love it. Only problem now is that my external drives look like crap against the nice aluminum finish of the case.

As for motherboards, a well known brand such as Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, or a few others would be a good bet. For stability and speed, stay away from any of the "value" RAMs, but especially Kingston (at least some of that stuff is horrible on certain nforce2 implementations). Corsair XMS, Mushkin, and Kingston HyperX are good high-performance RAMs that you might consider. However, be sure to search forums for incompatibility reports before purchasing your selected combination (it would have saved me lots of grief if I'd have done that before getting an Epox 8RDA and Kingston PC2700 ValueRAM).

For quietness, you're not going to have it if you intend to also have any good drives for audio editing. That means either a WD Raptor or some SCSI drives, and neither will be terribly quiet. Either your friend will have to get the computer out of the room (ideal solution) or settle for less-well-performing drives (not so ideal, obviously).

BTW, I'm happily using an Abit NF7-S with Corsair XMS PC3200, but YMMV and you may want different features that that setup provides.

Edit: I'm not familiar with Protools, but some sound cards (Aardvark in particular) do not have SMP-compatible drivers. Aardvark has been promising such for a while, but I'll believe it when I see it. In the meanwhile, also be sure to check the compatibility of your A/D interface (I guess those racks can't really be called "sound cards" ), though I don't think it will be a big problem with a firewire device.

 

[DanceMan]

Originally posted by: jliechty
In general, SMP will not be of much help in an audio system unless you are multitasking. Programs like Soundforge et. al. tend not to be multithreaded.

Typically true, however, there are some sequencers (like SONAR) that are multi-threaded, and really can benefit.

In addition, you will probably run more than 1 program at a time, so SMP might help here.

Also, multiple VST and DX instruments can probably benefit from SMP.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: DanceMan
Typically true, however, there are some sequencers (like SONAR) that are multi-threaded, and really can benefit.

In addition, you will probably run more than 1 program at a time, so SMP might help here.

Also, multiple VST and DX instruments can probably benefit from SMP.

True. I'm more of a recording-mono-or-stereo-audio-live type of guy, so SMP would be useless to me in that situation (not that I couldn't find a use for it when I go into the digital darkroom mode and fire up Photoshop ). For the MIDI musician who likes to use digital effects, I could see how SMP would be quite useful.