The inevitable!

[tweeksound]

Well, I am a realistic person. Right now I use the Akia DPS 24 stand alone DAW for most of my studio recording. But I realize that all machines will eventually break down so I'm accepting that my next DAW will be a computer.

I'm thinking Mac but if I can get a PC that will remain stable, I'll be happy.

That's where my question comes in...

What route should I take to get the best bang for my buck with a computer?
Right now I have a HP laptop and an old Gateway Desktop.

I'm interested in a desktop that can handle a great deal of processing for simultaneous video and multi track audio playback and record. I'm assuming that the most intensive projects I will subject it to will be film scoring with many instruments.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Sonnie]

We have purchased over a dozen Dell desktops through the Small Business Division and have always had excellent service out of them. They have some really good deals going on several of their high performance machines right now that should easily be able to handle your load.

What kind of budget are you looking at and do you know how much hard drive space you will need?

[tweeksound]

I'm hoping to spend $1000 without a screen (I've got an extra).

In terms of Space, I will use 500G and 1T drives for immediate back up so 2 drives with a few hundred Gs each should be fine. I've always been told to have one drive for the system and another for the audio and video.

Thank you for the advice. The OS is also an issue. I will probably want to continue to use XP pro.

[Sonnie]

Dell Vostro 400
Intel® Core™2 Quad Proc Q6600 (2.40GHz,8MB L2Cache,1066FSB)
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz - 2DIMMs
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600GT
Primary - HDD 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Secondary HDD - 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16X (DVD+/-RW) Burner Drive
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
Dell USB Keyboard
Dell Scroll Mouse
Genuine Windows® XP Pro
Dell 20.1" Widescreen E207WFP Analog Flat Panel Display
1 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 1 Year NBD On-Site Service

$1448
-$448
$998

Sell the monitor for $200 and upgrade the system a little more.

You can buy more RAM from other places really cheap, so do not add anymore from Dell. On this system it is too expensive.

Start here and customize as you desire.

[tonyvdb]

Personally I would go with a Mac they remain a much more stable platform. I agree with Sonnie, Dell right now is tough to beat and you get a great machine for the monies plus great customer service.
I like the AMD processors better than Intel mainly because they run faster if using 32bit software. The Intel chips still have difficulties with switching between 64bit and 32bit processes and given allot of the software we use is 32bit this is something to keep in mind.
Windows Vista is a bit of a memory hog so if you do go that rout you will need to add about 2gig more of ram so you have at least 4gig. XP is running farly stable now where Vista still has issues particularly with older software.

[thxgoon]

What software are you going to use? If you're film scoring would it be beneficial to have the same video editing software as the filmmaker?

I just went through the whole Pro Tools vs Logic decision and ended up on Logic for the hardware compatiblility and the ability to mix more than 2 channels. Also, it has a lot of audio creation tools which could help with your scoring. It is only available in the mac these days though.

[Sonnie]

I just got my Dell Inspiron in today and have been playing around with it tonight a little bit and I believe I am going to like this Vista Ultimate. There are some really need features with this OS.

[tweeksound]

Thanks Sony, I will look into the Dells. Are those deals gonna last a while? I've always heard that to get a PC to work dependably with audio/video, you need to wipe it clean from everything the manufacturer puts on it and start fresh on bare bones. With the Dell, I feel I could try it out as is (with a few changes that I can make) and if it doesn't work well, wipe it clean and build it from the ground up.

I do want XP. I do not need Vista using 2 Gigs of RAM while I'm running 50 tracks of audio, 1 hour of video, a couple dozen plugins, and overdubbing 6 tracks on top of it all.

I really never got crazy into computers and these days I'm even further behind. I've always focused on the art science of audio and video production and never needed to worry about what the system was gonna act like. I'm 85% hardware based right now (the way I like it). Most of what I do is on a dedicated sf/hw DAW (akai DPS24) that is rock solid and never gives me issues. It does what it's told and does it well. Then I also use the Marantz unit for smaller jobs which again is rock solid. I've taken this for granted but the wave of the future is driving me into a reef of computers that I either need to figure out or get smacked into. I'm by no means computer illiterate, but when it comes to something as important as my studio and career, I prefer to underestimate my knowledge than suffer from possibly overestimation.
I assume maybe since I had to deal with daily Mac/Pro Tools issues at school and trying to get my PC to do anything is often a challenge, I may be over reacting.

I guess as long as I get a decent PC or Mac and take care of it, I should be fine, right?
Or do I have to be a programmer just to play solitaire these days?

Either way. My hardware based DAW will someday be gone like all machines and I need to start preparing now or I'll be out of business when that day comes.

I'm also considering another hard ware based set up (which will always be a big aspect of the way I work) but either way I do need a better computer. And soon!

[tweeksound]

thxgoon wrote:

What software are you going to use? If you're film scoring would it be beneficial to have the same video editing software as the filmmaker?

I just went through the whole Pro Tools vs Logic decision and ended up on Logic for the hardware compatibility and the ability to mix more than 2 channels. Also, it has a lot of audio creation tools which could help with your scoring. It is only available in the mac these days though.

I will probably use Pro Tools for scoring.I don't need video editing software to score. I assure the filmmaker has delivered the picture lock version and I just build upon that with the audio they have. I have had issues with getting the filmmaker to understand my needs but it always works out. As long as they can give me an OMF for multi-track audio and a compatible video file (.avi or .mov), I'm all set. I will also use Final Cut for my own video editing.
Pro Tools is pretty compatible with anything anyone is gonna give me.

I just went through the whole Pro Tools vs Logic decision and ended up on Logic for the hardware compatibility and the ability to mix more than 2 channels.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to surround sound ability?
Pro Tools, in my experience is very flexible in terms of channels of a mixer as well as surround sound formats up to 10.2!

I'm not very familiar with Logic but I liked what I have done with it and it is a great and flexible option as well.

Also, it has a lot of audio creation tools which could help with your scoring.

Interesting... please extrapolate.

[thxgoon]

Awesome, sounds like a lot of fun. I take it that you'll be using FCP that you decided on a mac?

I was referring to the ability to mix in surround sound formats. From my understanding with Pro Tools you either have to jump into the HD systems ($$$$) or purchase an upgrade for LE which if I remember right was something like $1500. Otherwise you're limited to 2 channel mixdowns. Pro Tools is cross platform and is the industry standard so those are 2 huge things it has going for it.

For music creation (I don't dabble too much with this stuff so I don't know a lot about it) it comes with several loops already built in as well as tons of instruments you can use with a MIDI interface. MIDI editing is super easy (drag and drop). I read this article about Fallout Boy using Garage Band to compose his music. Garage Band is a really stripped down version of Logic. Comes free with the mac so if you are going that route you can always play around with GB and see if you like it before buying Logic. Also, if you're filmmakers are using FCP, you can import their FCP project directly into Logic and any changes you make, or they make, automatically update in the other program. Mostly I bought it because it was cheap with a student discount and it doesn't tie you to their expensive and I think limiting hardware. An 8 channel IO from Digidesign would set you back a lot compared to something from Pre-Sonus or other companies that PT would not support.

Here's apples breakdown. Pretty basic but a few Google searches would probably tell you what you want to know. Take a project to an Apple store and play with it.

[Sonnie]

tweeksound wrote:

Thanks Sony, I will look into the Dells. Are those deals gonna last a while? I've always heard that to get a PC to work dependably with audio/video, you need to wipe it clean from everything the manufacturer puts on it and start fresh on bare bones. With the Dell, I feel I could try it out as is (with a few changes that I can make) and if it doesn't work well, wipe it clean and build it from the ground up.

I do want XP. I do not need Vista using 2 Gigs of RAM while I'm running 50 tracks of audio, 1 hour of video, a couple dozen plugins, and overdubbing 6 tracks on top of it all.

After running Vista Ultimate 32-Bit on my laptop for a few days... wow... I really like it. Everything seems much faster to me, but I have 4GB of RAM (which I really only get 3.5GB of use on 32-Bit).

The first thing I did after getting my laptop was boot it up with the Vista DVD, reformatted the hard drive and reloaded Vista Ultimate. Dell does include a lot of bloatware that will slow down your system.

There are also several sites you can go to and get tips and tweaks for improving your speed. There are several startup programs and services that run in the background that you will probably never use.

XP Pro would still be your best bet for now though... and I would reload it before I ever used the computer.

[jerome]

Sonnie wrote:

After running Vista Ultimate 32-Bit on my laptop for a few days... wow... I really like it. Everything seems much faster to me, but I have 4MB of RAM (which I really only get 3.5MB of use on 32-Bit).

You mean 4GiB of RAM, right? 4MiB is what we used 15-20 years ago on the 486 PCs if I remember well...

Matt: If I were you, I will investigate the Mac way a bit further. They now use Intel processors so you have the choice of using both MaxOS and Windows XP on these machines (even dual boot with Linux if you want this one too). I don't know anything about moving/music editing but Mac is well known to be very good when it comes to audio/video.
I will stay far away from Vista too. This OS is all about GUI and visuals but is painfully slow, buggy and incredibly irritable (ask questions about everything). Microsoft didn't really add any real useful feature there, that's probably why so many still stick to XP.
If you really want to get a flashy OS with cool visual features then buy a Mac. IMO, Vista only try to badly reproduce what Apple invented before... And no, I'm not an Apple fan-boy, I don't own any Apple product. I'm just honest

[tweeksound]

Thanks all, for the advice! I obviously have more research to do.

[Sonnie]

jerome wrote:

You mean 4GiB of RAM, right?

I edited it... yes GB is what I meant.

jerome wrote:

I will stay far away from Vista too. This OS is all about GUI and visuals but is painfully slow, buggy and incredibly irritable (ask questions about everything). Microsoft didn't really add any real useful feature there, that's probably why so many still stick to XP.

I am not seeing these negative issues at all. I also know of tons of happy Vista users. Keep in mind that many times it's the user, not the software.

My Vista Ultimate machine is much faster than my XP Pro machine. I do not contribute this all necessarily to Vista, but after getting use to it, it is much more robust with features than XP and not a bug one here. I am still running both laptops and I can clearly tell a difference. Of course you need to tweak it, but I have XP tweaked as well. Remember SP1 is out now as well... which helps improve on the minor issues that may have been evident in the original OS.

To me... Vista is laid out very well and much more convenient than XP. I continue to run across neat features that I think to myself they have been needing to do this. I actually plan to go ahead and switch my four office computers over to Vista Business. I am truly impressed thus far.

[jerome]

I'm not trying to argue with your experience Vista vs XP. But as an hardware engineer, mine is different. I don't need all these fancy visual effects that waste CPU time. I always use the old 2000 style in XP and disable most of the fancy features. I want my computer to react very quickly and my applications to run as fast as they can.
I newly got a new Dell Vostro 1400 laptop with Vista, played a few hours with it but got very frustrated and felt that it was slow and clumsy. To me, XP on the same machine is faster for the same applications/tasks. User-configured Linux (like Gentoo) is even better at doing this.

But that's only my opinion. I understand why many standard users like Vista. It looks very nice and may be easier to use for most users. It's just a matter of taste

[Sonnie]

I agree, if you are running enough applications at one time with insufficient memory, the visual effects can indeed slow things down a bit, although most will never notice it. However, I do not use it for the looks... I disable most of that stuff as well. New looks grow old quickly. I am looking for functionality and features. I am using Vista because it has more usable features that enable me to save time on things I use to waste time on with XP. Once you discover these features, you learn how valuable they are.

Jerome, it sounds like you may not have given it enough time and may not have disabled the same things you disabled in XP. You can run classic windows in Vista and still get the extra features and functionality offered. I have also seen tests where the new visuals on Vista make no difference with the latest processors and enough memory. Early benchmarks were showing Vista and XP going back and forth depending on what was tested, but the latest benchmarks I have seen show Vista clearly outperforming XP... again, on the newer machines with better processors and sufficient memory. On older and less robust machines, XP still leads the way.

[Sonnie]

Well... I guess it is time for me to eat a little crow, but I DO NOT have a problem admitting when I am wrong (although it is not very often).

Now that I have spent more time with Vista, I find that Internet browsing is sluggish with consistent time-outs and slow loading pages. This is an issue that I have not been having with XP Pro on my old laptop. I have tried about every tweak know to man-kind from various sources... all to no avail. I cannot imagine "everyone" having these issues with Vista, but I also can not seem to find a solution, despite hours of searching and asking questions, along with numerous tweaks.

This is such a waste of a good O/S to let something like Internet browsing diminish its overall performance. If I did not have two forums to run and have to be on the Internet so much, it might be different, but Internet browsing is in fact the majority of what I do.

Dell has no problem swapping me out with XP Pro, but I will surely miss the features that I was enjoying with Vista. It is my understanding that Service Pack 3 for XP Pro will add many of the Vista features, so that is promising.

Any