Building a new system

  • brento73
Posted: Sun, 06/01/2008 - 03:57
I'm looking at building a new system for recording, and was curious to get opinions on some of the things I'm considering. I'm looking at a GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 motherboard and wondered if anyone knew if 64Studio+the onboard SDIF+a digital mixer would work out for multi-track recording? Here's the board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128081 The other option I'm looking at is the M-Audio 2496, but the less I have to spend, and the less I have to put in the case generating heat, the better.
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Okay :)

  • Icemouse
  • 08/04/07
  • Sat, 06/07/2008 - 07:35
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If you need support this might be fine. My AMD is an Model: 15.107.2 "AMD Athlon(tm) X2 Dual Core Processor BE-2350" Features: fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,apic,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36, clflush,mmx,fxsr,sse,sse2,ht,syscall,nx,mmxext,fxsr_opt,rdtscp,lm, 3dnowext,3dnow,pni,cx16,lahf_lm,cmp_legacy,svm,extapic,cr8_legacy, misalignsse Clock: 2100 MHz Cache: 2 * 512 kb If you think 3,2GHz are overkill, you should buy a CPU like the one I have got, because this new CPUs are specified with 45W and the older once are specified with 65W, but I think more speed isn't overkill. A self-made computer with a quad-core in Germany will be less expensive than the once with Ubuntu support. By the way, I don't like Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth is a capitalist and the interchange with the Linux community gets fewer and fewer. You might be better with http://www.64studio.com/support and you should subscribe to http://lists.64studio.com/mailman/listinfo/64studio-users, that's for free :). To get more impartial informations you should use Firefox or Iceweasel with the CustomizeGoogle add-on and the Linux Google http://www.google.com/linux. Cheers, Ralf

The Price

  • Icemouse
  • 08/04/07
  • Sat, 06/07/2008 - 04:55
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You'll pay for support. And for people from the EU, the warranty isn't up to date. They aren't complete without a sound card. If you have so much money you better should buy newest AMD or Intel stuff. Avoid ATI GFX cards. Cheers, Ralf

I'm not sure I understand

  • brento73
  • 04/03/08
  • Sat, 06/07/2008 - 06:35
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I'm not sure I understand all of that last reply, so I'll respond to what I got out of it: Yes, I'm paying for support. I could build a system for less, but then if anything goes wrong, I have no one to call about it. Since I'm building a DAW, I think buying a sound card is a given, the plan being the M-Audio 2496. As for buying the newest AMD or Intel stuff, I'm not sure what you mean? I'm not willing to pay for a quad-core at this point, since they are more expensive, and the higher end systems at the link I posted at dual-core 3.2GHz, which by most accounts is overkill for the average home studio. Last but not least, I never used an ATI card, and that was BEFORE I started running linux.

Eight Virtues

  • brento73
  • 04/03/08
  • Sat, 06/07/2008 - 00:02
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While I'm on the topic, has anyone heard anything, good or bad, about Eight Virtues computers? Looks to be a fairly small outfit, and while not DAW specific, they do built machines just for linux, so I figure the basic system would be free from compatibility issues. http://sales.eightvirtues.com

Envy24control

  • Icemouse
  • 08/04/07
  • Fri, 06/06/2008 - 17:29
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It's a pleasure to work with this mixer :).

Cases, noise and the ICE1712

  • Icemouse
  • 08/04/07
  • Fri, 06/06/2008 - 17:25
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I have an AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 with the boxes fan, an ASUS M2A-VM HDMI and a low-coast Jersey CP4-420 power supply with a 12cm fan. My case is a non-good no-name one. You can't hear my computer. I don't think that there is the need for an expensive case. I've to say, that I don't have a fan for the integrated graphics and the graphics has to be used with the vesa driver. I'm fine with the Envy chip, but there's the need to use envy24control instead of the ALSA mixer. Cheers, Ralf

Heat? large case, slow fans.

  • picothinker
  • 08/22/07
  • Fri, 06/06/2008 - 15:29
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I can't comment on that particular board, I have no experience with it. In general, M-audio 2496 (or anything with Envy 1712 chipset) works well. Depending on what kind of recording you are doing, you may want more inputs. While it's very cool (pun intended) that modern PCs can cram so much into a small case, it can become louder to keep it all cool. Apart from the http://www.silentpcreview.com/ crowd, one of the best things you can do is get a fairly large case, have larger diameter fans, and run them slowly. Fan controllers abound. Antec and Lian Li both make excellent cases that can be very nice to work on, and be very quiet/cool running. Some of the Antec cases have insulated sides, and rubber-mounted hard drives.