desktop DAW recommendations

[-evil-duerr-]

attention Tech heads, I'm shopping for a new pc for the specific purpose of multimedia production. I'll be using it for:
-audio recording, editing
-real-time digital music creation (using vsti/dx host apps)
-DJ'ing
-video and animation editing/production
-image editing/production

budget is approx 500$

I don't know much about computer technical stuff, so I welcome any tips and advice to help me find the best machine for my needs/budget. thanks folks...

[meth0dical]

i dont have much to offer but i do know you'll need more money than that

[ebbomega]

Generic Technology
Best deals in town.
$400 gets you Athlon64x2 dual-core with Radeon x1250. That's basically the model I got a while back and it's worked great for me so far. If you've got another 100 before tax you can either splurge on more memory or a better audio or video card. I dunno if those systems have Windows though or if you need to add it on.

[cubed]

^generic's customer service phenomenal too.

[dj_soo]

if you're serious about music/video production, you'll probably end up wanting to spend more after a few months on a cheap machine anyway.

Might as well spend more on a system that will last.

[-evil-duerr-]

Originally Posted by meth0dical

i do know you'll need more money than that

ya maybe 10 years ago, dumb shit.

I bought an expensive computer 5 years ago that is now only worth about 10% of what I originally payed for it.

I'm not going to drop 3 grand on another system again any time soon, because I know for a fact that I can get a sufficient system for LESS than 500$....

[-evil-duerr-]

Originally Posted by dj_soo

if you're serious about music/video production, you'll probably end up wanting to spend more after a few months on a cheap machine anyway.

Might as well spend more on a system that will last.

the funds aren't there at the moment to get a top of the line system, and my current machine is on it's last limbs. troublin times!

i like the looks of the computer ebbomega suggested. It's a helluva alot more powerful than what I'm working with right now, and 400$ is looking really nice!

[dj_soo]

that's the beauty of financing :)

[dj_soo]

Originally Posted by -evil-duerr-

ya maybe 10 years ago, dumb shit.

I bought an expensive computer 5 years ago that is now only worth about 10% of what I originally payed for it.

I'm not going to drop 3 grand on another system again any time soon, because I know for a fact that I can get a sufficient system for LESS than 500$....

the one thing is you may get similar specs, but it's the quality of the parts you're also paying for...

[-evil-duerr-]

Originally Posted by dj_soo

the one thing is you may get similar specs, but it's the quality of the parts you're also paying for...

yeah that's true. the last thing I want is a computer that craps out on me prematurely. I'm gonna do a bit more research fo sho

[ebbomega]

The nice thing about going to mom & pop stores is you normally can interchange the hardware on them super-easy. So if say you get something with an above-average consumer grade sound card, for instance, you can always buy a stupid-awesome one later on for $500 when you can afford that.

Start with a simple, cheap but quality system sounds like an excellent idea to me. A couple of tips I usually go with for that is:

Check your mobo specs. And I'm going to go ahead right now and say if you're not gonna get something with an ASUS card on it put your money in your wallet and don't bother. The kinds of things you want to look out for on a mobo are:
FSB (Front Side Bus) speed (basically the speed at which the processor speaks to your computer at, not the speed of the processing itself)
RAMbus speed (how fast your RAM talks with the rest of the computer) - you don't need to get memory at this speed at this point, but you could probably buy a couple of sticks for under $200 later on)

Onboard sound and video are pretty common, but not necessary. Make sure you have a PCI-Express slot, you're going to want it (two if you're wanting to do HEAVY video processing eventually, but that's gonna start running you hella cash).

beyond that, you don't need much. Network card, sound somehow and video, but you can always expand on that later. Make sure the power supply has enough wattage to last a couple of years worth of hardware upgrades.... 350 is good but 400+ leaves breathing room (also runs up electric bills though).

Dual core processors are your friends. I like amd64x2, but a lot of people are screaming about core2duos too.

Don't worry about hard drive or memory just yet - that stuff is ALWAYS upgradeable. A gig is enough for anybody in this day & age unless you're running Vista (don't. run. vista).

And then there's always the save-money-and-get-a-pimp-laptop argument, better for live settings at least.

[Revolver]

oh lordy..

i remember back in the day when i built my first DAW. i spent months on forums reading reading reading about all different kinds of motherboards,with different kinds of chipsets,bus speeds,soundcards.

back in those days athalon was the top dog but there were alot of compatibility issuses between via chipsets,kt133,midiman soundcards,types of chipset controllers on certain hardrives blah blah blah....i was forced to become a psudeo-DAW building expert.

now i just use macs and be done with it.

but duerr,how heavy dose your 'production' get?....i have a feeling one of those 500 dollar mcboxes will be fine so long as you focuss on a really fast hardrive and fast system bus speed. those two are critical, much more important then processor speed.

or, you might even want to look into a used mac. you can get some pretty decent g4-g5 boxes for around 400-700

check this out:
Selling PowerMac G5 dual 1.8GHz - w/Leopard

that looks pretty rock solid and will certainly last you a longtime.

*edit* the add said that hes open to offers. if your comfortable with negoitiating id offer a low-ball of 480...he would probably counter with like 560 or something then you could close at 545 or a little less. that would be the way i would do it and at 545 thats a GREAT powermac.

[tiedye]

While I'm usually wary of proprietary computer companies, my buddy has been having a positive experience financing with Dell on his new laptop. He pays about $130/month for a $4000 machine. The audio/video quality is phenomenal. I'm considering jumping on one as well, despite the fact that I generally put my own rigs together from scratch.

[Richard_Pyra]

Originally Posted by dj_soo

Might as well spend more on a system that will last.

No matter what, it's only a matter of time before you're "obsolete".
That being said, I've been running the same single-core Pentium 4 3.2ghz PC for five years. At the time it was the best 'performance vs price' value. (and have since only upgraded RAM & hard drives)

I use it professionally for graphic design, and have used it for video editing/after effects. More recently I've been also using it as my DAW, with a Vista/OSX dual boot, and I'm running Logic and recording multiple channels at once... no hiccups yet. (it actually runs OSX faster than the dual-G5s I used where i went to school). So basically I use this box for everything you intend to do (except that I use my old Celeron laptop with 512mb of RAM to run Torq and have not had any problems whatsoever. I'm sure any modern box will be able to handle DJ apps no sweat).

The technology is evolving so fast that you can get away with using 'mid-range' hardware for pro applications (most of the time). One thing I will say though, is that if you get a pre-configured machine (ie: you're not getting something with a solid motherboard like an Asus), I would suggest investing in a decent Firewire card for stability. Other that that, it's like Revolver said.. Make sure you have 7200+rpm hard drives, decent bus speed, and a good amount of ram (2+ gigs.. preferably 3 or 4). Also, make sure that you're getting something with a video card (not onboard video/shared video ram). If you're doing any video editing or heavy image manipulation, you're going to want some dedicated video ram to ease some of the load on your ram/cpu.


-edit:

Originally Posted by ebbomega

Don't worry about hard drive or memory just yet - that stuff is ALWAYS upgradeable. A gig is enough for anybody in this day & age unless you're running Vista (don't. run. vista).

I agree here.. except that I have mixed feelings about Vista.. For graphics I find it runs Adobe CS3 faster (although CS3 is faster than CS2 by a long shot anyway), but I haven't had too much experience using it for audio besides quick and dirty 'Cool-Edit'ing. (I now do all my audio work in OSX)

[-evil-duerr-]

Originally Posted by Revolver

but duerr,how heavy dose your 'production' get?....i have a feeling one of those 500 dollar mcboxes will be fine so long as you focuss on a really fast hardrive and fast system bus speed. those two are critical, much more important then processor speed.

I write and produce music working with vsti's in real-time using midi controllers. I basically pack as much into a song as my cpu will allow me to work with, and although there are ways around having to use all live vst's (bouncing to wav and sampling) my work is still somewhat stifled by the limits of my pc. I have a P4 1.6ghz single processor with 512mb ram, and external audio interface. Suffice to say I'm fucking stoked to get a new machine.

now by really fast harddrive and really fast bus speed what exactly do you mean? like whats specs should I look for?? for all the work I do using computers I'm pretty inept when it comes to computer tech shit.

[dj_soo]

^ the faster the HD spins, the faster your comp can read or stream the data. The bus speed also determines how fast your processor interacts with other hardware (in layman's term). You can have a super-fast processor, but if your BUS speed is too low, you won't be using your processor to the fullest potential.

[Revolver]

*outposted by soo cuase i was typeing this long ass shit*

if you want to save some money you can still get by with that 1.6 processor. sounds like you should upgrade 'the big three'

for your hardrive make sure its at least 7200rpm. with a good buffer and fast seek time. this is how all of your audio is stored and played back on your machine and if your limping along with a slow 5500rpm drive with slow access times thats when you get the hick-ups and drop outs.

its best to use a 5500 rpm drive for system,application,puggin storage and then have another 7200 or 10,000 rpm screamer as a media drive. thats what i use in my system. a 7200rpm system drive with a 7200rpm lacie external for all media,samples,audio,video clips. this takes alot of stress off your system and makes it alot faster.

it is the RAM wich is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. try upgrading your ram first and formost and you will notice a HUGE performance increase.

the system bus speed is what tie all your components together. a 400mhz bus allows less info to travel then a 800mhz bus speed and so on. think of it as like a 'HIGHWAY' upgrade so all the bits of information(comuters) can travel to their destination faster. to upgrade your system bus speed you will need to look into a motherboard replacement.

those are the three most important factors when building a DAW.

HARDIVE
RAM
BUS SPEED

[Richard_Pyra]

Originally Posted by Revolver

for your hardrive make sure its at least 7200rpm. with a good buffer and fast seek time. this is how all of your audio is stored and played back on your machine and if your limping along with a slow 5500rpm drive with slow access times thats when you get the hick-ups and drop outs.

its best to use a 5500 rpm drive for system,application,puggin storage and then have another 7200 or 10,000 rpm screamer as a media drive. thats what i use in my system. a 7200rpm system drive with a 7200rpm lacie external for all media,samples,audio,video clips. this takes alot of stress off your system and makes it alot faster.

I would put the faster drive as your media/work drive.. Since all your apps are going to be running off it, the faster your computer can access those system files and plugins on it, the better. You'll also want a 7200rpm + drive for anything your 'working files' are going to be on (if that's not your system drive). if you have a 5400rpm in the mix, just use it as long-term storage/archiving.

On the subject of HDs, you can gain some performance by having seperate dedicated partitions (or better yet, different drives altogether) for your system (XP/Vista), system page file (where windows dumps all the scratch files), software page file (you set your 'temporary scratch file' in apps like Adobe to this drive), software drive (install your programs here), and finally, media drive (keep all your files here).

[Revolver]

Originally Posted by Richard_Pyra

I would put the faster drive as your media/work drive.. Since all your apps are going to be running off it, the faster your computer can access those system files and plugins on it, the better. You'll also want a 7200rpm + drive for anything your 'working files' are going to be on (if that's not your system drive). if you have a 5400rpm in the mix, just use it as long-term storage/archiving.

On the subject of HDs, you can gain some performance by having seperate dedicated partitions (or better yet, different drives altogether) for your system (XP/Vista), system page file (where windows dumps all the scratch files), software page file (you set your 'temporary scratch file' in apps like Adobe to this drive), software drive (install your programs here), and finally, media drive (keep all your files here).

what the heck are you talking about?...

basically i said all of that already. lol...

and i dont beleive in drive partitions. why would you want to stress out a HD read head bouncing around to different partitions on a drives disk?...even if at that point it becomes more of a RAM issue.

drives are so cheap now-adays its a much better route to go with a dedicated drive.

the formula is simple.

system drive for apps,pluggs,pre-set templates

media drive for all audio,samples,video clips,pictures

[jenai]

the MAC suggestion was right on the money for digital audio, tho most midi adapters are midi to serial (i think).

i was looking at a usb audio device once, and realized that it is almost a complete digital audio unit.

yes, 7200 rpm for the HD -- for digital, SCSI is the best but not at 500 bucks, so IDE is it.

1GB of RAM will give you some room to play with but save up and add more. Make sure the MB has 4 slots of SDRAM or at least, a maximum of 1 GB per slot. 2GB is on the lower end up optimum. 100 for 2GB?

A 160 GB or better hard drive. 320 is optimum, though prices are falling. I saw a 320 GB going for under 120 and it was external. So let's assume 150.

A $150 MB and a nice 100 box, KB and mouse to put it all together.

These are guesstimates. Your mileage will improve if you shop on Craiglist. I once saw a P3 basic system go for $50.

[tiedye]

Western Digital puts out a SATA HD I favour above all else called the Raptor. Now, you can go for the new X models if you want to spend half your budget on storage, but you can get the older models for relatively cheap, considering what you're paying for. 10000rpm coupled with vibration tolerance is seriously useful for long-term audio production. With one drive set to a RAID 0 configuration, you're looking at about a 78Mbps write speed as well.

[ebbomega]

Western Digital is quality for HDD. I don't buy anything else (well, Hitachi are good too for 2.5").