Digital Audio Workstation Hardware

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:30 am

There's so much nerdy music-computer hardware talk going on in the DSP thread that I realized we don't seem to have a thread dedicated to the subject. This should be the place to debate the merits of dual- versus single- core processors for audio applications, Mac versus PC, Intel based Macs verse IBM flavored ones, more ram versus faster CPU, etc etc etc. Most of all, I really hope that more people than just myself post here.

I'll kick things off. What is your ideal DAW configuration? I haven't settled on mine yet, but at its heart is a Dual-Core Opteron 165 processor modestly overclocked.

Post by **Lunkhead** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:45 am

I'd "settle" for a quad-core PowerMac G5 with as much RAM as possible. That's quite a beast of a computer for tasks that can take advantage of symmetric multiprocesing.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:00 am

OK, so there's this new Miko from Open Labs. Trying to be an all-media production / playback center for you and I. The specs look good. Overkill? You know you want one

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:21 am

Yes. Yes I do.

Right now I use one of these digital 16-track dealies. It was affordable, and it came with a package of studio accessories and stuff. I still don't really have my 'recording room' set up right though. (Could you tell?)

blue · Post by **blue** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:52 pm

ouch @ the all-in-one dealies. modular 4tw.

there are a ton of 8-24 channel sound cards out there now, and Shuttle is making better and better XPC form factor computers.

then you can mix and match front-end gear as you need more/better or whatever, or even combine a nice live-sound setup with your recording setup, and it'll last a ton longer.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:25 am

Happy Freaking Birthday to me.

I'm building a new PC. In the last couple weeks my ideal CPU has inflated from the Opteron 165 to the AMD X2 4200+, which is about 25% faster in the GHZ department (not a bad gain for the 40$ difference, methinks, especially considering these are AMD gigahertz and not P4 gigahertz) but has half the CPU cache (:?). I also shelled out a bit to get a ram kit with lower timings, and also a new quieter case. Lets see if I can break it all when I put it together.

My New Baby:
AMD64 X2 4200+ (Dual Core @ 2.2ghz, but hopefully higher)
2x1 GB DDR400 Ram (Dual Channel)
1/2+ TB Storage (250 GB SATA2 + 200 GB SATA + 120 ATA133)
Antec Sonata II Quiet Case
The Awesome Power of On-board Video (although it should be noted that it can run multiple monitors)

Anyway, the dual core AMDs are supposed to be a very good CPU for building a DAW when you are working with a sane budget. I'll report my findings when I get this bad boy built. As you can see, I'm excited.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:30 am

I recently got a new Dell Dimension E510, Pentium 4, 3GHz and 1GB of RAM. I got it for work, but I've been doing some *other* work on it musically speaking, and I've been very pleased with it. I've thrown a lot of apps at it at once and it never gets sluggish on me. THen last week I picked up the Line 6 TonePort UX2 and plugged that into it. This week's fight is my first experimentation with that, but can I just say that it's nice to finally get to be able to play thru "real" amplifiers. Obviously they're simulated, but the sound is incredible. Now if I can' just get my mixing chops down...

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:13 am

Puce wrote: Antec Sonata II Quiet Case

Man, my desktop machine is crazy loud. I wonder if I should replace the box with something like this. I always have to do my vocal recording on the laptop because of the vast amounts of noise generated by the comp...
Is this a highly regarded brand?
-bill

a bebop a rebop · Post by **a bebop a rebop** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 10:16 am

HeuristicsInc wrote:
Puce wrote: Antec Sonata II Quiet Case
Man, my desktop machine is crazy loud. I wonder if I should replace the box with something like this. I always have to do my vocal recording on the laptop because of the vast amounts of noise generated by the comp...
Is this a highly regarded brand?
-bill

It's one of the most highly-regarded brands out there, actually. Antec makes really nice cases and the best thing about them is that when they come with a power supply built in you're getting an Antec power supply instead of some no-name built-to-fail PSU.

I have the original Antec Sonata, and I absolutely love it. It's not completely inaudible but definitely close enough for me. I should mention that I haven't done any actual recording with it but that should change in the upcoming week.

Plus it's just classy, the piano black finish is beautiful if you're nice to it.

ken · Post by **ken** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 10:26 am

Yeah, that Antec Sonata 2 is on my list of purchases this year as well.

Congrats Puce!

Ken