Computer recording - new setup questions

[Drew]

Ok, so, my laptop is now officially worthless for recording, as it's now crashing on me with a single drum loop and one (short - say a minute) track of rhythm guitar, whenever I try to overdub anything. This is because I'm down to about 300mb of available disc space, on a 6-gig drive. I COULD strip everything I don't need off it (again), but that'd only buy me another six months, and still wouldn't get me enough room to do a full album. Besides, my sound card eats bass like its its job, lol.

So, I've currently got two setups in mind. The first is a Dell Insipion, probably one of the 3000's they're offering with flat screen monitors (partly because they look badass, and partly for reduced 60-cycle hum). Probably this with a couple upgrades - http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=D30PF4&s=dhs - the upgraded sound card and a CD-R drive, plus maybe more memory. This would probably come to about a grand, all told.

The second would be an Apple IMac G5 desktop - http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...OMwRg18EDklBw/0.0.11.1.0.6.23.1.3.1.2.0.0.1.0 - $1299, although I think I may be able to get a slight discount through State Street, and I know I can get a discount through my sister's school (although they'd probably load it up with all their campus-specific programs which I'd then have to delete, lol)

Either would (most likely) be used with a M-Box, as I don't really need more than two channels at a time and it comes with a fairly comprehensive software package.

So, my question is, on paper the Dell outperforms the Apple, but Apples have a reputation of being excellent for multimedia work. I'm more familiar with a PC environment than Mac, but I used to use macs to do layout back when I was a high school newspaper dork, so I can physically run one (although I miss the two-button mouses - that's probably my biggest issue, lol) with no issues.

The Dell is probably a better deal, and it's much easier to find windows software than it is Mac (although really I won't be using this for much besides recording and internet, and even then I have a spare laptop that couldn't handle recording but would probably work as a screwing around the net computer) . At the same time, word has it the next version of Windows will require 3-3.5 gigs to run, and I've never really liked microsoft (I'm a recovering commie).The Apple's a bit more expensive, but if it'd be an all-around better recording computer, it's a difference I'm willing to pay.

So, thoughts? I'm a little over my head here, so feedback from anyone who actually knows what they're talking about would be GREATLY appreciated...

-D

 

[WayneCustom7]

Well I just purchased a kick arse Dell, 3.0 Ghz ( I think) and I am happy. Their cool to deal with and they usually throw in some goodies, like free in home warranty It was only 1400.00 CDN (way less in US funds) and well I don't use it to record tunage just yet, but it runs hi-end games without effort...don't know if that helps. I thought I'd mention that casue I read how Half-Life 2 required a 3000.00 machine...well I guess it doesn't!

 

[keithb]

Seriously consider building your own machine from parts - it's not that hard, and you can save a lot of cash. I recently built a 2.4GHz athalon system with 1.5GB of ram, 120GB HD and GeForce 6800 vid card for around $500.

 

[Digital Black]

Seriously consider building your own machine from parts - it's not that hard, and you can save a lot of cash. I recently built a 2.4GHz athalon system with 1.5GB of ram, 120GB HD and GeForce 6800 vid card for around $500.

For 300 more I bought a new HP with a P4ht, 3.2ghz, 512kb ram ( spent another 60 bucks and moved this to 1 gig), 200 gig HD, and a DL DVD burner..

 

[Metal Ken]

As much of a PC guy i am, i gotta say, apple is superior for recording. The numbers on their specs might be smaller, but they utilize them better. The programs on a 'slower' mac will run just as good, if not better than a slightly 'faster' PC.

 

[BCrowell]

I agree with keithB....build your own system. Every other year I replace the MOBO & Processor....and depending on game performance the vid card too. I built my 2800+ Athlong 64 w/140GB drive, 1024 mem for 500$ Of course I already had the G-force vid card, case, drives, and M-audio card.

Because of that upgrade I have a PC (Athlon 1400+ w/712MB mem, 60GB drive, case & CD drive) that I could...well...donate to you! I was using this with Adobe Audition just fine, and could have about 4 live effects going with no glitches. Only thing you would need is a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and of course a decent A/D card (NO a soundblaster ain't gonna cut it).

 

[Vegetta]

So, my question is, on paper the Dell outperforms the Apple, but Apples have a reputation of being excellent for multimedia work. I'm more familiar with a PC environment than Mac, but I used to use macs to do layout back when I was a high school newspaper dork, so I can physically run one (although I miss the two-button mouses - that's probably my biggest issue, lol) with no issues.

Just coz they come with that garbage one button mouse dont despair.. you can use any plug and play mouse or keyboard with a mac...On my work mac I am using a logitech optical (I thought the same thing till i started using macs at work)

As far as the OS goes os x is pretty simple to pick up and is very stable

I have a dell (got it last july) I didnt get a crappy one 3.0 P4 with a gig of memory and a decent graphics card...one of my ram sticks was bad...which resulted in my Motherboard getting hosed....which required a smelly fat guy to come to my house and fix my computer...

Also the cd-r/dvd-r combo drive crapped out and the smelly fat guy had to come and replace that as well...

and their customer service is hit and miss...mainly because all of their reps are in india and it is luck of the draw how well the person you are speaking with understands computers and english...

I can't in all honesty recommend you get a Dell. There are quite a few horror stories on their support forums from people with totally hosed systems.

 

[Metal Ken]

Dell = crock. IF you buy A pc, Build it.
I agree w/ everyone who said build it.

For 300 more I bought a new HP with a P4ht, 3.2ghz, 512kb ram ( spent another 60 bucks and moved this to 1 gig), 200 gig HD, and a DL DVD burner..

Yeah, but You probably didnt get a GeForce 6800. Harddrives and ram a rediculously cheap nowdays. 250gig HD = 200$-230$~, for example. its still cheaper to build your own.

 

[006]

If you had the money, I would say get a Mac. You will not be disappointed with it. BUT do *NOT*, I repeat, DO NOT buy an iMac for recording. If you buy a Mac for recording, get the PowerMac, G4 or G5.

Macs are just more simple, and better for any audio/video/graphic production. Windows machines have a huge bottleneck after the CPU, so even if you do have a 3.6gHz cpu...it will still run "slower" than say my PowerBook G4 with a 1.8gHz cpu. Don't argue with this because it's been proven and I've tested it myself with my Dell XPS with a 3.6. Macs are designed with everything together. The CPU, the motherboard, everything is all designed and developed along with each other, so they all work together seamlessly with no bottlenecks. However, PC's are mostly consisting of a lot of 3rd party products. The mobo will be made by one company, the cpu by Intel or AMD...etc. So it's just put together with seemingly random peices. That leaves a lot of room for some peices to conflict with others as far as getting data in and out at the speed it should be going. If you are worried about the OS being hard to get use to...don't, it's very simple to pick up and you'll find it easier to use than XP. I almost dread going to my Dell after playing on the Macs at the studio all day, then getting on my G4 at home and checking mail, etc., then I want to play HL2 or Counter-Strike and there's Windows..lol. The GUI is much different on OS X than previous versions. Moving on, check this out....

Microsoft used PoweMac G5's to develop Halo and Halo2. Both are intensely graphical games that use a relatively new physics and graphics engine. Makes you wonder why they couldn't do it on a PC, especially with the money Microsoft had in the budget for the R&D for those two games, they had the ability to build/buy a freakishly powerful PC..but they didn't.

Mac's OS X is based on Unix, which is a much...MUCH more simple operating system than Windows XP. Meaning less buggy, less conflict, and streamlined performance. I'm not a Mac sales guy or anything, but I only have a PC so that I can play games on it. Once in a great while I will open up on of my ProTools sessions on it to use some plug-ins that I don't have for my Mac, but..thats it other than games and web browsing.

With all that said...a custom built PC will rock any off-the-shelf PC any day. I have yet to find a PC, OTS or custom built, that could keep up with a Mac like mine (G5 dual 2.0 cpus). It's mostly just because of the bottleneck that PC's have. I can already feel the flame replies coming on..lol.

Basically look at this...
PowerBook G4
1.8gHz G4 CPU w/ 768mb RAM

Dell XPS
3.6gHz Intel Pentium 4 w/ 2gb RAM

And my Mac runs circles around my PC. It's a laptop...cmon. My PowerMac G5 with dual 2.0's isn't fair to compare simply because it's a monster. I've lost my point somewhere around "If you had the money.." so I'll just stop typing. Hope I helped. Latah.

~006

 

[Digital Black]

Dell = crock. IF you buy A pc, Build it.
I agree w/ everyone who said build it.


Yeah, but You probably didnt get a GeForce 6800. Harddrives and ram a rediculously cheap nowdays. 250gig HD = 200$-230$~, for example. its still cheaper to build your own.

No doubt, I plan to build my own for gaming ( see my thread in OT). But not everybody can do that. Nobody needs a g-force 6800 to run a recording program. I have 1 gig of ram, I have yet to see my system use more than 75%of that (and that's rarely) -even when recording with multiple applications- ( cakewalk and fruity). I would never reccomend against the more is better approach ; but one could get by with 512 for now. Unless your storeing dvd movies do you really need 250gig's for a recording machine. I've got 35 cd's and about 100 extra mp3's on a 60 gig HD and there's room left.
Drew never mentioned building a PC for himself -that might suggest 1. he does not want to do that 2. he may not know how 3. he does not want to wait to compile everything.
Rather silly to talk about building a PC when the man asked for an opnion on something commercially built..

 

[006]

Oh also, about the software thing with Macs...there is a program called Virtual PC, it's like $80 or you can find it on the net for "evaluating" for free, and you can install WinXP on it and run any Windows program on it, cool stuff....

And, I have an MBox that I use with my laptop for voice-over spots at the studio, when the suites are filled, and ProTools LE COMES with the MBox, you essentially only pay for the hardware, all DigiDesign stuff comes with the software "free".

Word of advice...if you are looking to get ProTools, go with a Mac. PT was developed on a Mac, and the translation for Windows is buggy as hell. MBox rocks by the way, I love it. Very simple and easy to use, portable, all that good stuff. If you get it, you'll be very pleased. Latah.

~006

 

[Drew]

I'm willing to consider building a computer from scratch, but Sephi's right, I don't have the foggiest idea how to do so, lol. I'd probably have to spend a lot of time on the phone with one of you fairly computer literate types during the assembly and OS install - I'm fairly competent on a computer that's already up and running, but I haven't ron DOS in years, much less tried to boot up an entirely OS-less system.

006, why exactly do you not reccomend the Imacs or Ibooks? I think I could swing a 12" powerbook, but that thing's f'in tiny, lol. Although, that and an M-box would give me a truely portable recording studio, which would actually be kind of cool...

-D

 

[006]

Well, I meant the iMac only really. The iBooks are ok, very comparable to the PowerBooks, just slightly less powerful CPUs. In my personal opinion (coming from using high-end Macs every day at my job and at home for about two years now...) I would recommend the 14" iBook with the SuperDrive, that has the DVD burner in it, and a DigiDesign MBox. You would be very pleased, I could almost gaurantee it, hehe. I use my MBox for voice-over work, and I have used it to run a Left and Right signal from a live board into the MBox and then to my PowerBook to record a couple of band's live shows around town. In the end it IS up to YOU though, and I'm actually surprised you thought of a Mac in the first place lol. Most people that want to upgrade to recording abilities don't even think about Macs, or they snarl their nose up. So props to you for being open minded. Latah.

~006

 

[Drew]

Well, I've had some experience with Macs in the past, and at least for the first Pro Tools wave, they WERE industry standard...

...but you still haven't answered my question on why a Imac G5 wouldn't be as good as a regular G5, to the point that the price difference is justified.

-D

 

[dan5150]

It sounds like you are trying to optimize your purchase to host a Pro Tools (MBox) rig. Maybe I missed it, but is there a specific reason you are looking at Pro Tools? A few things to keep in mind with an MBox is that you have to always have it plugged into the machine in order to launch Pro Tools. This can be a pain in the ass if you are using a laptop, and just want to do some basic mixing when you are in a remote location. (Like on a plane, bus, in the park, etc.) It also uses a USB interface (and not even USB 2.0). While that makes connection easy, there are also some well documented latencey issues when using a USB interface.

Don't get me wrong, I currently have a Pro Tools rig. It happens to be the most "Ghetto" Pro Tools rig you can get as it uses an AudioMedia III card and PT LE 6.11. (Which is a configuration that isn't supported anymore, so I can't upgrade to any newer verison of the software without upgrading the hardware).

But I am currently considering switching software platforms to one that doesn't tie me to a very specific hardware solution.

My $.02

-Dan-

 

[Drew]

you have to always have it plugged into the machine in order to launch Pro Tools. This can be a pain in the ass if you are using a laptop, and just want to do some basic mixing when you are in a remote location. (Like on a plane, bus, in the park, etc.)

That's actually a pretty good objection.

Um, my reasons for wanting to go for the MBox are as follows -

-it's within my budget (a biggie )
-it comes with a GREAT software bundle
-ProTools is the industry standard, so since recording and mixing is something I really enjoy, it makes sense to train myself on what most "pro" computer based setups are using

That's really it... I'm familiar with Sonic Foundry Acid, and while I like the basic interface, it doesn't support more than a track at a time for recording, which wouldn't work (two is fine, I just want to be able to do more than a mic at a time on a cab).

So, if you've got something else to select, fire away. There's only so much mixing you could do remotely, as you'd be on headphones, and even the best are no match for a good set of speakers, but I could at least get close and get the stereo spectrum right on, say, my trainride to work.

-D

 

[keithb]

I really like Cakewalk's SONAR.

As for hardware, no idea.

 

[dan5150]

It sounds like we are comming from a very similar place.

I also have ACID, and I really like its ease of use, but I have also noticed some of its limitations.

I built my Pro Tools rig for the exact same reasons:

it's within my budget (a biggie )
-ProTools is the industry standard, so since recording and mixing is something I really enjoy, it makes sense to train myself on what most "pro" computer based setups are using

However, I am realizing that most musicians I know don't use Pro Tools for the following reasons:

You are tied to thier hardware
It doesn't support VST plug-ins out of the box
Not a lot of support outside of the Digidesign Forums
Very picky about computer hardware

This has left me looking for an alternate, and so far I have come to the following conclusions:

Software:

Sonar - reasonably priced, includes VST support, large user base. Supports a huge range of sound cards, not as picky about computer hardware. PC Only.

Cubase - A little more expensive but supports VST, large user base. Supports a huge range of sound cards, not as picky about computer hardware.

Both of the above also have lots of book, magazine and web resources.

Hardware:

Stay away from USB interfaces due to latency issues. Go with either internal PCI card, or Firewire.

For a laptop, there are also a PCMCIA cards like the Echo Indigo I/O and the Audology 2 ZS (which has digital I/O).

Not sure that any of this helped, or just make your search harder.

At the end of the day, if you settle on a Pro Tools solution, you should do yourself a favor and review the Pro Tools compatability docs, before you invest in any hardware.

PM/IM/Mail me if you want to chat more offline.

-Dan-

 

[Ancestor]

I have been running PT limited edition for the Mbox on my HP, and I haven't had any trouble. There is a latency issue, which can be resolved by muting the return signal. It's basically a very sweet piece of hardware/software.

I am having some trouble with my Mac version , which I'm going to post about in a separate thread.