the purchase of a new rig! what would you do?

rapidix · Post by **rapidix** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:01 pm

welp, gang. it finally happened. i completed grad school and i got a real job! i am starting to pay off my bills. and i am now on a serious hunt for a music production computer for my home. i am hoping i can gather some input from the friendly folks on this forum. i used to frequent here a few years back, but grad school proved little time for music. but now, it's on!

so here's my initial plan. a pc. yes, a pc. i am thinking a new dell desktop with vista 64. i mostly focus on vstis, so audio recording will be mostly vocal tracks, guitar, and the occasional random instrument. because of this i am thinking the m-audio audiophile 192. it has good reviews but i have searched the forums and most posters seem to dislike m-audio. so it's got me worried.

the video card, i am not too worried about, i was just going to go with a decent one that ships with the computer. so, what do you all think? if you had about $2k to spend, what would you do? what would you recommend?

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:09 pm

Don't go m-audio

I'd also say don't go PC but you already stated you don't want to get into that debate. So debate over.

laird · Post by **laird** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:09 pm

m-audio is also the most prevalent brand on these forums, so you'd expect to see the most complaints based just on that.

Sorta like the old statistic people rattle off: "you are most likely to get in a car accident within a mile of your house", this doesn't necessarily mean you live in a death zone.

I think you have a good plan, although to be honest I'd seriously look at some USB interfaces...

like the edirol ua25, which is a little more expensive, but many are actually cheaper than that card.

Benefits: you can use them with a laptop, if you decide to buy one once your student loans are all paid off and you want to perform live.

Also, having 1/4" inputs and a box that doesn't actually sit in your computer is nice and in theory better sounding.

Do you also need a mixer? i've always liked this concept: http://www.zzounds.com/item--ALEMM8USB20 but I've never used one.

aburgener · Post by **aburgener** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:10 pm

build it yourself

rapidix · Post by **rapidix** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:20 pm

@beats me - if not m-audio, what do you recommend? and if not pc, i know mac, but what is it about mac that is better? i am up for debate, i guess is what i'm trying to say.

@laird - i have been trying to figure out the benefits of pci vs usb sound cards. i guess i was under the assumption pci would sound better with lower latency. is this not the case?

@aburgener - i don't know how...

ewistrand · Post by **ewistrand** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:31 pm

rapidix wrote:@beats me - if not m-audio, what do you recommend? and if not pc, i know mac, but what is it about mac that is better? i am up for debate, i guess is what i'm trying to say.

Either will work admirably nowdays- a modern day Mac's just a PC running OSX natively, after all.

I prefer PC myself, but that's because I have control over such things as USB latency that way.

@laird - i have been trying to figure out the benefits of pci vs usb sound cards. i guess i was under the assumption pci would sound better with lower latency. is this not the case?

You will get lower latency out of PCI cards for the most part- no doubt about it. USB traffic takes time as well; the PCI bus's more direct.

@aburgener - i don't know how...

Do you know how to use a screwdriver? If so, you can build a PC.

ew

vicz · Post by **vicz** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:34 pm

Get a Mac and become a musician - or get a PC and become a computer geek - 'sup to you!

laird · Post by **laird** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:34 pm

ewistrand wrote: You will get lower latency out of PCI cards for the most part- no doubt about it. USB traffic takes time as well; the PCI bus's more direct.

so the next question would be.... is the difference anything your standard prosumer would notice while recording or playing back 2 tracks of audio?

the thing I think would be a deal breaker: look at m-audio's Vista drivers.
Last time I checked (a year ago or so when I upgraded to Vista) their drivers did not work at all, from what i read. That helped my decision to buy a presonus firewire audio interface, and it's been awesome.

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:28 pm

vicz wrote:Get a Mac and become a musician - or get a PC and become a computer geek - 'sup to you!

he already said he's going PC.

seriously whats wrong in the head of mac users that they feel the need to make a smug comment about this every.single.time?

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:33 pm

rapidix wrote:welp, gang. it finally happened. i completed grad school and i got a real job! i am starting to pay off my bills. and i am now on a serious hunt for a music production computer for my home. i am hoping i can gather some input from the friendly folks on this forum. i used to frequent here a few years back, but grad school proved little time for music. but now, it's on!

so here's my initial plan. a pc. yes, a pc. i am thinking a new dell desktop with vista 64. i mostly focus on vstis, so audio recording will be mostly vocal tracks, guitar, and the occasional random instrument. because of this i am thinking the m-audio audiophile 192. it has good reviews but i have searched the forums and most posters seem to dislike m-audio. so it's got me worried.

the video card, i am not too worried about, i was just going to go with a decent one that ships with the computer. so, what do you all think? if you had about $2k to spend, what would you do? what would you recommend?

definitely go PCI interface, its faster and youll have less teething problems. that said, firewire interfaces can work really fast and well on PC, but some research is needed to avoid the worst combinations.

video card is largely irrelevant, in fact on PC DAWS, its normally better to run low end cards as some Nvidia chips cause conflicts with some firewire interfaces.

theres a lot better out there than M Audio, theyre not a great company for keeping up to date with drivers and support.

If youre not a techy, then a heads up that you will have more trouble with 64 bit vista than 32 bit. youll need 64 bit drivers for all your hardware and some VSTs may be troublesome. Theres quite a few people on here running it though, so someone should be able to give advice on particular hardware/software combinations.

ewistrand · Post by **ewistrand** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:34 pm

vicz wrote:Get a Mac and become a musician - or get a PC and become a computer geek - 'sup to you! 8)

No- in my case it would be buy a Mac and wait until Apple releases a hotfix for what they screwed up that was working before and/or wait for the software vendors to catch up- or buy a PC and fix it myself in a couple minutes.

The one caveat to the PC is x64 support, which is still horrible on both the software and hardware side- there, you hve to let the vendors work it out.

ew

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:37 pm

adventurepants_ wrote:
vicz wrote:Get a Mac and become a musician - or get a PC and become a computer geek - 'sup to you!
he already said he's going PC.

seriously whats wrong in the head of mac users that they feel the need to make a smug comment about this every.single.time?

More Mac users means more conversations about music, beer, and boobs and less conversations about dealing with damn vista problems and compatibility issues with every card, wire, chip, and screw in an attempt to soup up your PC.

rapidix · Post by **rapidix** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:38 pm

@ewistrand - i've searched online for a "how to" guide of building your own rig, but most of them are dated, like 05 to 06. does anyone have a recent how to? i built computers back in high school, so i technically "know how." i guess i just don't know what parts to buy. i've been searching newegg. anywhere else for parts?

@laird - http://www.m-audio.ca/products/en_ca/Audiophile192.html says "64-bit driver support for Windows." this is windows vista 64, no? i guess this doesn't say how well they work.

@vicz and adventurepants_ - i'm up for debate, but once again, the mac crowd doesn't impress with their argument.

i like what ewistrand had to say about it.

optimistic · Post by **optimistic** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:53 pm

beats me wrote:
adventurepants_ wrote:
vicz wrote:Get a Mac and become a musician - or get a PC and become a computer geek - 'sup to you!
he already said he's going PC.

seriously whats wrong in the head of mac users that they feel the need to make a smug comment about this every.single.time?
More Mac users means more conversations about music, beer, and boobs and less conversations about dealing with damn vista problems and compatibility issues with every card, wire, chip, and screw in an attempt to soup up your PC.

although I'm a PC user I find that I'm agreeing with all of this...

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:53 pm

Here's a pro Mac argument. No viruses. And no constant "are you sure?" pop-ups as a last ditch attempt to stop them. But I'm sure as we speak there is a small but determined group of Mac fanboy hating PC users programming a Mac only virus the likes of which the world has never seen. But it's no small testament that hackers sooner hacked the US military before aiming their sites on Macs....and we wait.

the purchase of a new rig! what would you do?

the purchase of a new rig! what would you do?

Re: the purchase of a new rig! what would you do?