# What do i need in a recording PC?



## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

So i'm looking to get a PC up and running ASAP. Basically i've put aside getting a proper 'amp' to instead get aPC that i can (finally) record guitar on. What i need, is just a bit of help figuring out what would be handy/essential to have in a recording computer mainly in regard to sound cards etc..

I'll be using a Pod X3 Live to record, and also an M-Audio Axiom Pro keyboard when it arrives.

So far as specs go, this is what i'm sort of looking at at the moment:

- Cooler Master HAF 932 case
- 6GB DDR3 RAM
- Intel Core i7 920 processor (2.66GHz)
- 2 x XFX GTS-250 1GB DDR3 graphics cards (not for music, obviously )
- MSI X58 Motherboard
- 3 x Sony DVD/CD Burners (CD to CD burning and a spare )

Also some hard drives (4 of them), and a couple other things that dont affect the actual operation so much (Power supply).

What else should be in there? what knd of sound card? anything i haven't thought of?

Your help is much appreciated, o wondrous members of 7string.org


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## djpharoah (Aug 5, 2009)

I think all that is a bit much if you are just going to record with the POD X3. But if you are making a gaming+recording its cool.

One thing is make sure you get a high end power supply. Dont cheap out and use the shit Chinese made one that comes in your case. Get something like a PC Power & Cooling PSU, or Antec. They'll make sure your computer runs smoothly by giving everything the required power.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

Well, it will be a gaming PC too, i thoroughly enjoy it  And i would like to be able to keep it up for a little while  I also do graphic design and digital art, so the RAM and so forth is for making massive art files too 

the power supply i'll be using is a Gigabyte Odin 1200 Watt supply.

More than anything, what's confusing me/what i'm not sure about is what to use as a sound card or interfaces and so forth. Is there anything i should be looking at getting rid of or adding?


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## xtrustisyoursx (Aug 5, 2009)

is there any point to 6GB of ram?


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

^ I don't know about recording, but it will help with photoshop/illustrator/indesign/corel painter/3DS Max work


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## damigu (Aug 5, 2009)

xtrustisyoursx said:


> is there any point to 6GB of ram?



not for recording. for recording, fast hard drive speed is more important than ridiculous amounts of RAM.
if you want a truly bitchin' recording system, look into solid state drives. drive read and write times is the major bottleneck for recording. SSDs put magnetic platter drives to shame (even RAID0 arrays). really expensive, but super-fast read and write times (they have a tiny lag when deleting, but still way faster than standard HDDs).

for gaming and graphical work, 6GB RAM does result in better performance.

also, one important point of 6GB RAM is bragging rights.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

^ Cheers for that dude, i'll have a look at a solid state drive.

I saw some when looking, but the sizes were rather small, so i sort of ignored them  I'll be having a dedicated hard drive for the OS as well, so just a small hard drive for that  Maybe even another SS drive? 

Cheers though, appreciate the help 

Any other tips/hints/suggestions?


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## Harry (Aug 5, 2009)

You don't really need a good sound card, anything that comes with the computer will be good enough, because it's assumed you're going to be using the POD as your soundcard through studio monitors for mixing (and also gaming if you so desire).
You're better off putting more towards better studio monitors than you are spending money for a sound card to put in your computer.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

^ Kickass, yeah see that's what has been really confusing me  Now that i know i don't need to expend money on some hideously pricey sound card, it leaves me money for both a) better monitors, and b) the aforementioned hard drives, which are much_ much_ mroe expensive than normal ones


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

Don't spend too much money on the sound card unless you plan to use it for most of your work. In fact, spend as little as possible on the computer since it is guaranteed to become obsolete very soon - save that money and put it towards other gear with a shelf life greater than a few years.

If you'll be working with a FW interface, research the best cards to use for those - TI chips are the ones I usually hear recommended.

Using 6GB in a recording session is not unheard of - it just depends on what kind of recording you're doing. GIven the price, though, it's much easier to just throw in extra RAM than face hours of optimization to make sure you don't run out.

Don't expect to use 64-bit for recording, though - if I understand correctly, bazillions of plugins simply do not work well (or at all) in 64-bit.

I'd still wait a while for SSDs, since some applications run slower with some models and others have a hard time handling smaller writes. I would, without a doubt, have separate OS and audio drives, but SSDs still need a little time to be truly foolproof - especially with the usual DAWs acting as foolishly as they can.

Don't skimp on cooling, power, or the case. Period.

EDIT: Harry, don't leave out the nontrivial problem of getting a decent sound to the monitors - 'stock' sound cards just won't do too well there. I'd still go for an Audiophile 2496 for versatility and value.

Jeff


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

^ Ok, thanks JBroll.

With a 32 bit OS, will it actually recognise/push/use 6 GB RAM? I was considering going with a 64bit system.

Harry has convinced me of going with something other than a SSD, so that saves me some money. What i have in mind now, is a small dedicated drive for the OS, a larger drive dedicated to recording, and one dedicated to music listening/movies, and one for games. Like i said, the PSU will be a 1200W Odin one, so plenty of power, and the case in itself is a well cooled unit.

So for the soundcard, what would go there?

Thanks again man, the help is much appreciated.

EDIT: I just read the "Audiophile 2496" part again, ignore my ignorance


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

You don't need a soundcard at all, for recording... the Pod *is* a soundcard, at least, when you connect it to the PC via USB.
I assume the Axiom keyboard you mention also has USB, which effectively makes it a midi interface to the PC.
That covers both midi and audio interfaces, so you're done 

For gaming you may want a 'conventional' soundcard (Sound Blaster X-Fi or such), but as already said, onboard is generally good enough (usually you'll get a Realtek 7.1 HD audio interface on most motherboards these days, or something similar to that, which works fine).

Other than that I'd advise against the dual GTS250s and instead go for a single GTX260 or GTX275. Dual cards are less efficient, and have various performance/compatibility issues. A single card will generally run cooler, be more silent, and give you a smoother, more reliable experience. In most cases it's cheaper aswell. A single card can also drive two monitors, so unless you want more than 2 monitors, I really don't think you want to go the dual videocard route.


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

There are ways to use the extra RAM (in fact, I'd have a separate OS for recording if at all possible, and you'd get to use a 64-bit operating system for things like Photoshop) but it's a bit mushy and I don't know of a way to have software like a DAW use the extra RAM easily.

Unless you plan on playing games, watching films, and recording at the same time I see no reason why a single OS drive and a single 'other' drive wouldn't work. The fuckers come pretty big these days, and as I said before you should spend more money on good gear because it'll last much longer and go obsolete much later - if ever - while maintaining a good computer is a losing battle.

Jeff


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

Scali, how do you plan to get audio to the speakers easily, with decent fidelity (ruling out SB cards, notorious for their abysmal recording abilities), and with low latency? Even if he isn't using the 2496 inputs (which are damned good converters for the price - the same chip is used on cards costing several times as much!), the outputs are going to be hard to use happily.

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

Demoniac said:


> With a 32 bit OS, will it actually recognise/push/use 6 GB RAM? I was considering going with a 64bit system.


 
No, the upper limit for a 32-bit OS (assuming a standard desktop Windows OS, there are exceptions) is 4 GB... but you lose some memory due to hardware requiring some memory-mapped addressing aswell. This means that in practice you'll have about 3.2-3.4 GB available at most.


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

The exceptions will be things like Windows Server (I assume you're using Windows here) and those aren't used much for recording audio. Until plugin makers generally do better with 64-bit systems, there's no happy way out of this situation.

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

JBroll said:


> Scali, how do you plan to get audio to the speakers easily, with decent fidelity (ruling out SB cards, notorious for their abysmal recording abilities), and with low latency? Even if he isn't using the 2496 inputs (which are damned good converters for the price - the same chip is used on cards costing several times as much!), the outputs are going to be hard to use happily.
> 
> Jeff


 
Well, the Pod X3 has line output, doesn't it? I thought that would be good enough.
That's what I do with my Zoom G9.2tt anyway... I run its stereo output to a standard hifi amp with speakers. Could also be powered monitors.
Alternatively I suppose you could use spdif on the Pod? (G9.2tt doesn't have that).
You get an ASIO driver for the USB interface, so latency problems should be no problem (my G9.2tt gives me 3 ms latency over USB1.0, good enough for me... I think the Pod would actually be lower, as it's a newer unit, probably more advanced USB interface).


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

The line out would only give the input signal, unless I'm horribly mistaken about what it tries to put through there.

How is he going to use S/PDIF? How well does his POD work as an audio interface for a whole DAW?

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

JBroll said:


> The exceptions will be things like Windows Server (I assume you're using Windows here) and those aren't used much for recording audio. Until plugin makers generally do better with 64-bit systems, there's no happy way out of this situation.
> 
> Jeff


 
It's still better to run a 64-bit OS, because it doesn't impose limits on 32-bit applications.
Every 32-bit application in a 64-bit OS can use the full 4 GB, regardless of what hardware you have in there, and what other 32-bit or 64-bit software runs there.
So even if you're only using 32-bit DAW software and plugins, the 64-bit OS still is the better choice.
I run a 32-bit version of Cubase LE on Vista x64 myself.


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

If the plugins and DAWs worked well in a 64-bit OS (which I have yet to see happen) then it's certainly better to run 64-bit. (I do the same on my desktop for non-recording uses.) If he's using Vista he might survive - but that's not a torture I'd wish on the worst of my enemies and with XP there's just no hope.

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

JBroll said:


> The line out would only give the input signal, unless I'm horribly mistaken about what it tries to put through there.
> 
> How is he going to use S/PDIF? How well does his POD work as an audio interface for a whole DAW?
> 
> Jeff


 
Well, I'm just working from the assumption that a Pod works the same as the G9.2tt via USB (safe assumption that Zoom and other brands simply copied the Pod concept).
On the G9.2tt the USB interface IS the soundcard, so any sound that the PC wants to play, is heard over the G9.2tt's outputs.
Therefore I can use its outputs to monitor multitrack recording via headphones or monitor speakers. I hear the tracks the PC is playing, along with the guitar that I'm playing at the time (which the PC may be recording on a new track).
As for the SPDIF, I assume it will just have the same output as the analog outputs, so you could use that to connect to an external amp or powered monitors with SPDIF, which may be better than the analog outputs.

The G9.2tt actually has an 'aux in' aswell, which is basically a stereo line-in, allowing you to also record things like synthesizers and drum computers through the G9.2tt. The only thing it can't do is record a microphone directly (although you could connect a preamp to the aux in, in theory).
I'm not sure if the Pod has that, or if it's required (if you only use VSTi's for synths, drums etc, you won't need analog recording capabilities at all).


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

I guess we'll see how that works, but the 2496 is a steal and would simplify just about everything greatly so I'm sticking by that one.

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

JBroll said:


> If the plugins and DAWs worked well in a 64-bit OS (which I have yet to see happen) then it's certainly better to run 64-bit. (I do the same on my desktop for non-recording uses.) If he's using Vista he might survive - but that's not a torture I'd wish on the worst of my enemies and with XP there's just no hope.
> 
> Jeff


 
I haven't had a problem with using a 32-bit DAW and 32-bit plugins in a 64-bit OS, and I've used both XP x64 and Vista x64 over the years for recording.
The 32-bit compatibility of Windows is very, VERY good.
You mainly run into problems when using a 64-bit application, because then you're generally required to also have 64-bit plugins, which are not as readily available as 32-bit ones.
But it all depends on what you want to do. Eg, if you are going to use a 64-bit version of the latest Cubase, it will come with a truckload of 64-bit plugins anyway, so maybe you won't even need anything else.



JBroll said:


> I guess we'll see how that works, but the 2496 is a steal and would simplify just about everything greatly so I'm sticking by that one.
> 
> Jeff


 
I have an E-mu 0404 USB 'on the side' myself, for recording microphones, using MIDI and other stuff (and for being portable, so I can take my laptop and the E-mu and record on location, eg at a jam or practice session).
So yea, it's useful to have such an interface... but you don't specifically NEED one, depends on what you want to do, I guess.


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

If you're using a 32-bit DAW you're not using more than 4GB of RAM anyway - if I recall correctly, it's possible to set things up so that the system leaves 4GB for the OS and apps anyway. I haven't had positive experiences with 64-bit XP at all (and I've tried - not for audio but for mathematical computations, which need the extra push far more than any recording I've encountered) so I'm hesitant to recommend it.

Jeff


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## Harry (Aug 5, 2009)

Jeff, based on what I imagine Mischa's budget is going to be, I think it's better he just use the POD for all his interface/sound things for the time being and get the best monitors he can get for his dollar.
The USB 2.0 interface of the POD is fine for achieving low latency if you want to just record directly from the POD to the computer using ASIO4All(I get easily under 3ms with my POD).
Where it does fall down is recording dry, because you need to use the Line 6 ASIO driver which doesn't let you decrease the buffer size below 128 samples, which for me at least, results in latency over 10 ms, which is unacceptable IMO, so I just tend to avoid recording dry. Why Line 6 hasn't changed this about their ASIO driver for people wanting to record dry with their POD, I have no idea.

That, and the DI of the POD isn't the best anyway, if you planned to record dry on a more serious level and wanted to reamp with software amp sims, chances are you'd have gotten a more serious, Firewire interace, proper DI box and some kind of splitter to monitor through an amp or whatever as you record dry.
Mischa says he's happy with the POD tone anyway, so I think he'll be fine there.


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

That's odd though... 128 samples at 44.1 KHz should amount to about 2.9 ms latency.
At 48 KHz, you should get about 2.7 ms latency, and at 96 KHz it should be 1.3 ms.

So there might be something wrong in their driver... Technically 128 samples should be 'good enough', but only if it's working like it should. I think I have my G9.2tt set to 128 samples aswell at 44.1 KHz.



JBroll said:


> I haven't had positive experiences with 64-bit XP at all (and I've tried - not for audio but for mathematical computations, which need the extra push far more than any recording I've encountered) so I'm hesitant to recommend it.
> 
> Jeff


 
While I wouldn't recommend any XP at all, I had no problems with XP x64.
I'd recommend going with Vista x64 for now, and upgrade to Windows 7 x64 later (you probably get a free upgrade voucher if you buy Vista now).


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

^ Yeah i'm more than happy to stick with the Pod's tone 

If i can save some money on the video card though, i may well spend the money on a half-decent sound card anyway (that audiophile one ) Just to be sure i am covered from all angles with this.

As i'm not really looking at too much more, i may even just cut the HDD's down to 2 x 1TB HDD's which will save me something in the area of $100, which is something


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## Harry (Aug 5, 2009)

Scali said:


> That's odd though... 128 samples at 44.1 KHz should amount to about 2.9 ms latency.
> At 48 KHz, you should get about 2.7 ms latency, and at 96 KHz it should be 1.3 ms.
> 
> So there might be something wrong in their driver... Technically 128 samples should be 'good enough', but only if it's working like it should. I think I have my G9.2tt set to 128 samples aswell at 44.1 KHz.



It's either what it really is, or it's the driver showing the wrong figure.
I asked Line 6 about it and they said it was normal for it to be showing over 11ms when using their driver


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

Well, one thing I know is that on my old PC, an ancient Athlon with VIA KT133A chipset, my G9.2tt couldn't really go below 25 ms latency reliably... But then you'd actually select that with the number of samples aswell.
When I got a new Core2 Duo PC with Intel 965 chipset, the latency could be dropped considerably, down to 3-4 ms levels.
In fact, I had the same problem with a Terratec EWX 24/96 PCI card I had at the time. In the Athlon it just wouldn't get down to really low latencies, even though I knew the card and drivers were good... I had them in an old PII earlier, and it worked better there. Put it in the new Core2 Duo and that ancient card (I think it's from 1999) got crazy latencies, nearing the magical 1 ms level.

So apparently not all USB/PCI ports are equal.
But at least on a proper chipset with proper USB support, I would expect a Pod to be able to get to ~3 ms latency, just like the G9.2tt and E-mu 0404 USB interfaces that I use. If not, well then I'm greatly disappointed in Line6.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

Ok, so all things considered, for a balanced system a 64bit OS should be fine, a proper sound card would be good just to be sure/less confusing, and SSD's aren't really worth the trouble?


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## Scali (Aug 5, 2009)

Demoniac said:


> Ok, so all things considered, for a balanced system a 64bit OS should be fine, a proper sound card would be good just to be sure/less confusing, and SSD's aren't really worth the trouble?


 
Yea, pretty much. SSD's are nice, but not very cost-effective at this point.
I'd also like to defend the Soundblasters... the more high-end ones, like the X-Fi Elite Pro, are actually pretty damn good quality and have very good ASIO 2.0 driver support. My brother happens to own one, and although he's mainly a gamer/audiophile, I was quite impressed at how well the card held up for professional use aswell (I could plug my guitar into the hub directly, and I ran Guitar Rig on it, with Cubase). Sound quality is excellent, and a great balance of gaming/home theater/production features.
One downside was that it doesn't do 192 KHz recording, only 96 KHz. Then again, I doubt many people recording at home are very bothered with 'only' 96 KHz. I think most of us are still using 44.1 KHz.

So if you want to do both gaming and recording, an SB X-Fi is pretty good... If you want to do gaming on the onboard card, and want a 'pro' soundcard on the side, that's fine aswell ('pro' soundcards generally are useless at gaming, their drivers generally don't even support basic 3D/EAX sound effects, and no 5.1 or anything, which even simple onboard audio does quite well). In that case an Audiophile 24/96 may be an okay choice... or some E-mu stuff, or Terratec, or... plenty of options to choose from


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

^ My current PC actually already has a Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty in it... MIDI inputs, direct 1/4" inputs  Pretty awesome, though i don't know how well it would go for proper recording


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

It won't go for proper recording.

192kHz is bloody useless. 96kHz is overkill. If you don't stick to an integer multiple of 44.1kHz, you'll have ugly conversion to do, nothing higher you record will be heard on a CD (and I've seen no reason to believe that the 'benefits' for plugin processing will be anywhere above negligible or dubious), and it just takes more space and time to capture things that just aren't important. It's a great way to sell equipment (who doesn't want bigger numbers than the next guy?) but not something to really worry much about.

Jeff


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## Tiger (Aug 5, 2009)

I have to disagree...we have mics that are flat past 40k for a reason. Even though you do not hear that content, it shapes the waves that you do hear. So, to preserve the natural sound and tone it is a good idea to record at a higher rate. 192? Nah, but 96 is a good idea.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 5, 2009)

Alright, so this is what i'm looking at at the moment:

- Cooler Master HAF 932 case
- Intel Core i7 920 CPU
- 80GB HDD (dedicated for OS)
- 2 x 500GB HDD's (1 for music, 1 for graphics)
- 1TB HDD (games, movies and music)
- 6GB Corsair DDR3 RAM
- Gigabyte Odin 1200Watt PSU
- 3 x Sony CD/DVD Drives
- Palit GTX-275 1796MB (?) GPU
- Audiophile 2496 Sound Card (for recording)
- Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Platinum Champion (for the gaming )

Any changes i should make to that?


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## damigu (Aug 5, 2009)

JBroll said:


> It won't go for proper recording.
> 
> 192kHz is bloody useless. 96kHz is overkill. If you don't stick to an integer multiple of 44.1kHz, you'll have ugly conversion to do, nothing higher you record will be heard on a CD (and I've seen no reason to believe that the 'benefits' for plugin processing will be anywhere above negligible or dubious), and it just takes more space and time to capture things that just aren't important. It's a great way to sell equipment (who doesn't want bigger numbers than the next guy?) but not something to really worry much about.
> 
> Jeff



as a math guy, i would hope you'd recognize that digital processing at higher resolution than the final output resolution means fewer artifacts due to anti-aliasing will exist in the final downsampled product.

it does result in audibly better quality audio. but i do admit that it is a subtle effect and lost on the average listener (especially if the average listener is using MP3's horrible compression).


graphical supersampling is utilized by video games for the same reason (images are rendered at 2-4x the final output resolution, then anti-aliased, then downsampled).


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

88.2kHz might be a good idea for those reasons, but the simple fact of the matter is that with 96kHz you're having *really* ugly resampling. There are reasons why we have mics flat past 40k... pissing off *dogs*, one-upping the other guys' marketing campaign, the kind of useless spec boners that were previously reserved for slew rates and 16-bit interface noise floors... but are any of them useful? Ask yourself that - and then ask the people who mix your favorite records, but don't be surprised when they're using 44.1/24 for anything that'll *ever* end up on CD or an iPod.

Damigu, while theoretically that should be the case, in practice it isn't - considering how much other bullshit goes on, the losses due to nontrivial sample rate conversion, and the fact that your signal processing is wasting its time on signal that is just not important. The process of cutting away useless frequency ranges has been an essential part of recording since recording was taken seriously at all. 

So... yes, as a math guy, I can see that digital processing at a higher resolution should mean fewer artifacts. However, as both a math guy and someone who has been trying to find a case for higher samplerates through subterfuge and plenty of test subjects, I know that reality *never* behaves as nicely as math does, and that reality is ugly and math is too pretty to handle some parts of it, that in practice the results are simply not worth the doubling or quadrupling of resource consumption, and that the current ratio of '44.1/24' to 'other absurdly high shit' among mixers I respect is below one in ten - with my favorites still sticking to 44.1/24 because *it just doesn't make that much difference in reality*.

Hopefully that explains my dislike of absurdly high samplerates that are beyond useful in any way.

Jeff


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## damigu (Aug 5, 2009)

which is why i implied that the average listener is generally not an audiophile and is listening to MP3s encoded at 128 to 256 bit. so yes, any improvement in quality is completely lost on them and in that reality, it doesn't make any difference at all.

personally, i cap my recordings at 88.2 kHz (as you said, the truncation and dithering involved when going between 96 and 44.1 kHz is its own source of error). certain effects just come out smoother sounding when processed at 88.2 and then downsampled to 44.1.
i certainly don't hear any audible difference between it and the triple digit resolutions so anything beyong 88.2 kHz just seems to be an awful waste of hard drive space even to me.


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## JBroll (Aug 5, 2009)

The difference was also lost on more than a few people who mix things for a living. I do agree with the 88.2 cap for that reason (that's my main concern with 96 and 192, which are only there for DVDs and because 24/192 is more catchy on paper than 24/176.4), but I haven't even found a reason for that to be useful.

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

I think 192 KHz mainly exists for the same reason as 88.2 KHz: To record and process at twice the resolution as the output signal.
After all, 24/96 is used for media like SACD, DVD audio, Blu-Ray and the like.

Damigu is right about the supersampling... if you would just record and output to CD directly, then yea, there's little reason to record at more than 44.1 KHz (disregarding any aliasing issues the ADC would have at 44.1 KHz but not at 96 KHz).
However, these days we like to process our recordings with lots of different digital effects/plugins and whatnot.
In that case it becomes quite similar to graphics, and the extra resolution does help. After all, since computers can only process discrete mathematics, there is going to be some error in every effect you apply. So you get accumulation of error.
By using twice the samplerate, you effectively reduce the effect of these mathematical errors, so when mixing down to the final 44.1 KHz signal, the sound isn't degraded as much, or effectively not at all.

Which also gives 192 KHz a raison d'etre: same story that goes for 88.2 KHz when working with 44.1 KHz output, also goes for 192 KHz when working with 96 KHz output.


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## JBroll (Aug 6, 2009)

192 is suffering from the faults we mentioned above - converting from 192 to 44.1 in a way that is in no way pretty. 176.4 might work better, but you still have the inherent problem of spending the majority of your resources on utter rubbish. Since computers must work with finite resources, do we really want to be wasting so much of what we have on so many things we'll never even hear - or notice indirectly, for that matter? In a perfect world with all of these problems (limited resources, imperfect plugins, et cetera) gone, *maybe* there would be an advantage to absurd sample rates - but that's certainly not the case at all right now. If I had run into one mix engineer whose work I really liked and who recorded at something other than 44.1/24, I might think there's some shred of truth to this - but as it stands right now I think it is absolutely nothing more than trying to sell bigger numbers.

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

JBroll said:


> 192 is suffering from the faults we mentioned above - converting from 192 to 44.1 in a way that is in no way pretty.


 
I was talking about 192 -> 96 though (as you probably know, 24/96 is used on SACD, DVD audio and such).

However, I would also like to add... with 192 KHz you have such a high degree of supersampling, that the artifacts of downsampling are negligible.
I mean, with 88.2 -> 44.1, you just average 2 samples to 1.
With 96 > 44.1, you need to average 2.18 samples to 1... that's a pretty strange problem.
But with 192 -> 96, you average 4.35 samples to 1, that's generally going to work pretty well, even with relatively simple filters.


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## JBroll (Aug 6, 2009)

Who listens to SACD? I mentioned DVD above, but CDs and digital files derived from them (or at least using the 'standard' 16/44.1 setup) still don't work too well - and since they're still the most frequent modes of transportation of silly noises, that's saying more than enough.

The resources needed for the negligible-at-best 'improvements' of 192 are pretty big compared to 44.1 - and, again, there are *far* too many other things in a signal chain for the extra detail to be worth half a shit. Theoretically there might be some advantages (and recall that 'theoretically' is just a big word for 'not really' when it comes to nonsense like audio engineering) but I have yet to see them pop up in reality - or even see the mix engineers who are making things we consider to be the top of the game and who have the resources to spend on those sample rates consider them to be worth a shot. There are *many* other things you could be spending those resources on that show a noticeable improvement - why do we waste so much on numbers that only exist for marketing purposes?

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

JBroll said:


> Who listens to SACD? I mentioned DVD above, but CDs and digital files derived from them (or at least using the 'standard' 16/44.1 setup) still don't work too well - and since they're still the most frequent modes of transportation of silly noises, that's saying more than enough.


 
Well, I was saying that the raison d'etre for 192 KHz is the 96 KHz formats that are out there...
I don't really want to get into a debate that 44.1 KHz is still far more common... Seems irrelevant to what I said.



JBroll said:


> The resources needed for the negligible-at-best 'improvements' of 192 are pretty big compared to 44.1 - and, again, there are *far* too many other things in a signal chain for the extra detail to be worth half a shit. Theoretically there might be some advantages (and recall that 'theoretically' is just a big word for 'not really' when it comes to nonsense like audio engineering) but I have yet to see them pop up in reality - or even see the mix engineers who are making things we consider to be the top of the game and who have the resources to spend on those sample rates consider them to be worth a shot. There are *many* other things you could be spending those resources on that show a noticeable improvement - why do we waste so much on numbers that only exist for marketing purposes?
> 
> Jeff


 
Well, if you want to record something that is to be downmixed to more than one format... you can only choose one recording format.
So if you want to have a live recording that is going to be on both DVD/SACD and CD, you'd probably want to use 192 KHz, because it's the best compromise.
I don't think resources are really an issue at this point. Harddisk space and main memory are super cheap.


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## JBroll (Aug 6, 2009)

I just consider it silly to consider a dying format like DVD and a ten-year-old-but-still-ignored format like SACD in the same breath as CDs. I'd like to see higher sample rates, but this is where reality steps in and kicks us in the balls for trying to confuse 'superior' with 'more likely to be used' in audio.

If you don't run into CPU limitations with your mixes, pray things stay that way... as I spend more time running more plugins with quad-tracked guitars, a full drum kit's worth of samples, bass, and vocals - all processed entirely in the box - I'm getting much closer to my computer's limits. I have no problems with RAM or disk space because I upgraded those in the last few months, but those aren't the only limits a computer can have - and with his setup I wouldn't expect the RAM or hard disks to be the biggest issue.

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

JBroll said:


> I just consider it silly to consider a dying format like DVD and a ten-year-old-but-still-ignored format like SACD in the same breath as CDs. I'd like to see higher sample rates, but this is where reality steps in and kicks us in the balls for trying to confuse 'superior' with 'more likely to be used' in audio.


 
24/96 will probably be around far longer than just SACD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
It's not mainstream yet, but it will probably become mainstream at some point (I suppose the trend will be that vanilla CD players get replaced by home theater system with DVD/Blu-Ray players, and CD releases will slowly be replaced by DVD/Blu-Ray releases when the installed base is large enough).



JBroll said:


> If you don't run into CPU limitations with your mixes, pray things stay that way... as I spend more time running more plugins with quad-tracked guitars, a full drum kit's worth of samples, bass, and vocals - all processed entirely in the box - I'm getting much closer to my computer's limits. I have no problems with RAM or disk space because I upgraded those in the last few months, but those aren't the only limits a computer can have - and with his setup I wouldn't expect the RAM or hard disks to be the biggest issue.
> 
> Jeff


 
Okay, now let me get this straight... You're now arguing that your home studio isn't really equipped for handling high samplerates... and therefore the whole format is stupid, and even big professional studios which have all the resources to deal with it, shouldn't be using it either?


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## JBroll (Aug 6, 2009)

No, I'm saying that the two factors you listed are far from being the only bottlenecks in town. My home setup can handle high samplerates, but they get me closer to the point where I have to start being careful with plugins with *no benefit* in any but a few very strange cases. Considering my setup was designed with the nontrivial goal of mathematical computing in mind, and I know how to squeeze a great deal out of my equipment, if I'm running into a problem there's a good risk that others will hit it even sooner. How did you misread all the way to that conclusion? That's not getting things straight, that's trying to turn this into a counterexample in knot theory.

I don't doubt at all that we'll move up as time goes on. *Right now*, though, it's an unwise resource sink that just doesn't make enough sense. Perhaps when one of us is recording the album of the century and we need to make sure that the work can be repackaged in SACD, Blu-Ray, HDOMGWTFBBQDVD, WWJCD (the only audio format made with bits of real Jesus), and eight-dimensional SuperHolyFuckDisks that include as a video track every naughty thought that occurred to any occupant of the recording studio that year, it'll be worth it. Right now, I don't think it's worth it.

A lot of big professional studios that have all the resources to deal with high samplerates still don't do it in most cases. It's just not worth it when there are other things to be focusing resources on - the exact point I was trying to make earlier. 

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

JBroll said:


> No, I'm saying that the two factors you listed are far from being the only bottlenecks in town.


 
I think it mainly comes down to how much money you're willing to spend.
A simple quadcore these days isn't all that expensive, and can get you pretty far in terms of plugin processing.
If you really want to get serious you can get a system with 2, 4 or even 8 processors. They've been around for years.
On the other hand, usually dedicated processors were used for effects and such, rather than the PC's own processor. So the problem never really was with the PC's processing power itself, until recently, with more and more processing moving to software (but probably as a result of the increase in processing power, ironically, so it sounds to me like you have it backwards).

So what system are you running exactly?



JBroll said:


> A lot of big professional studios that have all the resources to deal with high samplerates still don't do it in most cases. It's just not worth it when there are other things to be focusing resources on - the exact point I was trying to make earlier.


 
The biggest problem is getting talent in the studio 
We really do NOT want Britney Spears' voice in all its 192 KHz glory 
Maximum quality and accurate sound reproduction isn't necessarily a good thing


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## JBroll (Aug 6, 2009)

My current system is an overclocked AMD dual-core (4400+, I believe) with 6GB of RAM and more storage than I'll use before I die, and when I have serious processing to do I ship that off to a bigger box (the joys of graduate programs...), borrow some quad-core monstrosity, or camp out in front of a Mac Pro. Every computer has its limits, and in a world where 100-track recordings are not uncommon, processing is in the box, and 44.1 is (sadly, for those of us who want the ambience of fluorescent lights, dog whistles, and the security system across the street) the name of the game for quite some time to come, we're talking about pretty pointless resource consumption.

Jeff


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## forelander (Aug 6, 2009)

44.1 kHz should be fine really - the ear is basically a low pass filter in that you can't hear anything above a certain frequency (20 kHz on a good day, say). You can argue upper frequency components change the shape of the way if you want, but at the end of the day, any detail added to that wave by high frequency components are gonna be filtered out when by the physical nature of hearing (hairs with different resonant frequencies stimulate nerves - if there isn't a hair to resonate and no nerve to stimulate, you're not going to hear the contribution of that component to the sound). 44.1 kHz plus whatever anti-aliasing filtering I'm assuming is performed in most audio applications is enough above the necessary nyquist frequency that I sincerely doubt it'll make any difference to you. I'm not saying it's not nice to go higher, just mostly pointless for audio applications.


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

No offense, but a 4400+ is a pretty damn slow CPU by today's standards, or even by standards of 2-3 years ago.
You can get way WAY more processing power today. And I do mean WAY more. Aside from the obvious fact that these days you can get 4 cores instead of just two, each individual core will probably also be twice as fast as your cores, if not more.

So I'm not surprised that a 4400+ isn't quite cutting it. Hardly representative for today's systems. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the slowest CPUs on the market today are still faster than a 4400+.
I built a new home server a few weeks ago, with a Pentium E5200, cheapest Pentium there is... The CPU cost me just 55 euros... and it's pretty much as fast as the Core2 Duo E6600 which I bought almost 3 years ago, for 300 euros (which was about equivalent to an Athlon 6000+ at the time, to put things in perspective).



forelander said:


> 44.1 kHz should be fine really


 
Yea, I'm not saying you should go higher than 44.1 KHz for home recordings/demo's/etc... I still do all my recording at 44.1 KHz aswell (I'd have to buy better equipment or start using more VSTis if I want to benefit from more anyway, because my current gear probably doesn't even reach CD quality levels).
But if you want, 96 KHz isn't out of reach for a home studio anymore, with today's hardware.


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## JBroll (Aug 6, 2009)

That's precisely why I borrow other systems for heavy work. 

When all is said and done it does a hell of a lot for me, but I do try other systems before jumping to the conclusion that everything is ruined forever and higher sample rates are doomed.

Going higher than 44.1 is in most cases just going to be like buying a Desert Eagle or a .500 Magnum for home defense - in principle the extra stopping power can't hurt, but the fact that it'll set your walls, furniture, and curtains on fire, bring risk of serious injury to your wrists unless you've been training with it for a while, give the neighbors hearing damage, and go completely above and beyond what is in any way helpful in practice just makes it a silly choice.

Jeff


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## forelander (Aug 6, 2009)

44 kHz is 44000 Hz, not 4400 Hz. The issue isn't that your computer can't handle it as such it's that a) it's pointless since you can't hear any of the detail you're wasting resources on and b) you could put those resources to better use elsewhere. The main thing would be size, since to double sampling rate you also need to double storage space.


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

forelander said:


> 44 kHz is 44000 Hz, not 4400 Hz. The issue isn't that your computer can't handle it as such it's that a) it's pointless since you can't hear any of the detail you're wasting resources on and b) you could put those resources to better use elsewhere. The main thing would be size, since to double sampling rate you also need to double storage space.


 
We were referring to an AMD Athlon 4400+ processor
The "4400+" is the model number of the CPU.


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## forelander (Aug 6, 2009)

Scali said:


> We were referring to an AMD Athlon 4400+ processor
> The "4400+" is the model number of the CPU.



Fuck nevermind . I missed a few posts on the previous page.


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## Harry (Aug 6, 2009)

JBroll said:


> and 44.1 is (sadly, for those of us who want the ambience of fluorescent lights, dog whistles, and the security system across the street)
> 
> Jeff


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## Harry (Aug 6, 2009)

Interestingly enough, well maybe not for everyone, but anyway, David Bendeth, who's done Paramore, Breaking Benjamin and a bunch of other shit that has absolutely gorgeous production, uses 96 KHz in the studio.
Whether it adds anything to the sound is questionable, and frankly I think the reason why his productions sound so good is because of his skill as a producer and probably nothing to do with 96KHz.

But I prefer to use 44.1KHz at any rate, for the reasons Jeff has mentioned.
As long as your bit depth is fairly high (at least 24 bits) it's going to sound pretty good at 44.1KHz.


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## Scali (Aug 6, 2009)

Demoniac said:


> - Palit GTX-275 1796MB (?) GPU


 
I'd go for the standard 896 MB model... 1792 MB is total overkill.


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## Tiger (Aug 6, 2009)

JBroll said:


> 88.2kHz might be a good idea for those reasons, but the simple fact of the matter is that with 96kHz you're having *really* ugly resampling. There are reasons why we have mics flat past 40k... pissing off *dogs*, one-upping the other guys' marketing campaign, the kind of useless spec boners that were previously reserved for slew rates and 16-bit interface noise floors... but are any of them useful?



Its neat that you ignored the explanation for the need to record higher frequencies and relegated any use of high quality condenser mics to the use of people trying to impress gear nerds, but its also a glaring oversight.

When you hear an instrument you're hearing the real thing, producing tones past your hearing that do modify the content. It sounds natural because it is. If your goal in a recording (and this may not be the case always) is to reproduce the tone of the instrument as faithfully as you can, then yes, you need to record even that which you can not hear. 

Its ridiculous to say "Well I cant hear it so recording it is a waste of time".


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## damigu (Aug 6, 2009)

Scali said:


> 24/96 will probably be around far longer than just SACD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
> It's not mainstream yet, but it will probably become mainstream at some point (I suppose the trend will be that vanilla CD players get replaced by home theater system with DVD/Blu-Ray players, and CD releases will slowly be replaced by DVD/Blu-Ray releases when the installed base is large enough).



i wish you were right, but i don't believe you are.

the fact is that the current trend is quality going *DOWN* from 16/44.1
whether people buy actual CDs or get it from online download shops, or even if they illegally download it, everyone is taking music mastered to 16/44.1 and then applying MP3 or AAC or WMA compression on it at 128 to 256 bit encoding. thus degrading it somewhat (usually audio beyond 19 kHz is lost once you apply audio compression).
and the vast majority of people can't tell the difference of full CD quality against MP3/AAC/WMA. so there is no pressing need on the massive music industry to go through an expensive and potentially confusing standard change.
the DVD standard changes are going hand-in-hand with the flat panel TV standard changes. CDs/audio have no such pairing to rely on for the sake of improved marketing.

i highly doubt we'll see 24/96 (or above) adopted by the music listening community (or even forced on them by the music listening industry). most internal sound cards these days can even handle 24/48 (some, like my laptop, can even do 24/96), and no one is really making use of that, even.
nor do i believe CD releases will be replaced by DVD/blu-ray since the whole DVD audio thing is about as popular as SACD. most people don't even know--or care--that either exist! and both have been around for a long time now.


anyway, back to the original question:

1/ as jeff pointed out, processing power is paramount if you plan on having a lot of real-time effects/plug-ins going on. the i7 quad-core processor you're thinking of does have a lot going for it. just make sure you're using audio software that actually supports multi-threading! most current versions of audio software do, but not everyone is using the current version!

2/ and as i pointed out before, hard drive speed is of great importance if you plan on having lots and lots of tracks. realistically, a single SATAII drive can keep up with your use easily if all you're doing is 8 or 10 or 20 simultaneous tracks. but if you're planning on having 60 or 80 or 120 tracks all going at once you'd do best to have a RAID0 setup, switching to 10k RPM drives, or--if you have the money--consider the solid state drives i mentioned.

those two issues are the main limiting factors of DAWs.


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## JBroll (Aug 6, 2009)

Tiger said:


> Its neat that you ignored the explanation for the need to record higher frequencies and relegated any use of high quality condenser mics to the use of people trying to impress gear nerds, but its also a glaring oversight.
> 
> When you hear an instrument you're hearing the real thing, producing tones past your hearing that do modify the content. It sounds natural because it is. If your goal in a recording (and this may not be the case always) is to reproduce the tone of the instrument as faithfully as you can, then yes, you need to record even that which you can not hear.
> 
> Its ridiculous to say "Well I cant hear it so recording it is a waste of time".



Reading everything else I said may make things a bit clearer.

Jeff


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## Tiger (Aug 6, 2009)

I cant read or write.

But yea, just because you haven't encountered someone you liked who used higher numbers doesnt mean that those who do are buying in to a world of diminishing returns. Would I record at a higher sample rate for every project? No, and for the OP who says its just for Pod I would recommend 44.1. But if I find myself once again recording a string quartet in a treated room I am going to reach for the condensers with high numbers and flat responses, and will be recording likely at 88.2 depending on any VST's that may be involved. 

Theres a time and place for everything, and choosing the sample rate is just one decision on the path towards a good recording.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 6, 2009)

Ok, so assuming i can use RAID 0 with the hard drives, get the programs to recognise the hyperthreading of the i7 then i should be sweet?

Also seperate sound cards for recording and for listening/gaming


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## JBroll (Aug 7, 2009)

Tiger, that's still missing the bulk of what I'm saying - he isn't going to run into the situations where anything but 44.1 (or maybe 88.2) is worth considering (and neither are most of us for some time), and the resources are better spent elsewhere.

Demoniac, RAID 0 is not a nightmare you want to face without quite a bit of reading. I wouldn't touch it with a stick because there are just too many things that can go wrong.

Also, separate sound cards can lead to some weird things - if you take my recommendation of having a separate recording OS installation (32-bit for recording, 64-bit for whatever else - don't even plug the recording box into the internet unless you're updating things if you can help it) you'll have one sound card installed and the other *totally disabled* in each OS. I've made the mistake of running more than one sound card in the same machine... unless you need (and can plan well for) two sound cards, just use one at a time and keep the other secret like a gay Jewish lover in Alabama.

Jeff


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## Daemoniac (Aug 7, 2009)

Thanks Jeff. I did a bit more reading today at work, and it's looking like the faster Western Digital VelociRaptor drives will be the way to go for speed.

As for two sound cards, what happens if 2 are installed just together? Or alternatively, what one card would adequately do the job both for recording and gaming/listening/whatever? Or hell, will it even make a difference for gaming? seeing as how i'll only have 2 studio monitors anyway


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## Scali (Aug 7, 2009)

I've had more than 1 soundcard in my PC for years, nothing ever happened.
When I record, I usually have my Zoom G9.2tt, E-mu 0404 and onboard audio connected and enabled at the same time.
I also don't bother with multiple OS installations. I just run Vista x64 for everything, from music production to gaming to watching Blu-Ray and surfing the net... oh and software development aswell 

And I don't bother with separate HDDs or 'Velociraptors'...
If you ask me, the WDs are a huge waste of money. It used to be cool a few years ago, but these days they're HORRIBLY small compared to a regular HDD, and their speed advantage has been reduced to a tiny margin.

I run two Samsung F1 1 TB disks in raid0 and they're pretty damn fast 
I have 6 GB memory, so the OS doesn't normally need to do any loading or swapping, so little point in even bothering to use multiple disks.


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## damigu (Aug 7, 2009)

if you have 2 sound cards installed in vista or win7, the system mixer gets confused.

in XP and earlier, you set the default sound card for the OS and everything uses that unless the program itself in instructed otherwise.

with vista and win7, the operating system tries to allocate what program uses which sound card. when i first connected my line6 POD to my laptop, it transferred all default sound settings to the POD and so i was getting no sound at all (i don't run speakers off of the POD) and it took me some work to get everything back to normal.
i did get it to work and for the settings to stay consistent, though, and it's been fine since.


but there's an even better reason to keep a separate install for recording:

as you may be aware, general use of a computer builds up a *LOT* of shit in the system. after a while, things start running slow, are crashing, errors happen, etc.
if you keep your music OS as a separate boot, then none of that "software rot" will affect your recording ability.


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## JBroll (Aug 7, 2009)

Even when the default was set properly on XP tons of things can go wrong. 99% of the time I spent fixing audio problems in XP was a result of someone having onboard audio and another audio device installed simultaneously - and 98% of that time simply disabling one or the other was both necessary and sufficient to have everything running pretty.

David, that's exactly why I recommended two OS installations - and, even better, if a monthly restore from the 'bare bones' setup can be done then it's worth the effort. (By this I mean that after the initial installation of the OS, the DAW, and any plugins you need, take a full image of the hard disk, burn it to something that'll last a while - it shouldn't take more than a double-layer DVD, and I can fit mine on a single-layer - and restore from it whenever necessary. When you need to make major updates, restore from the image and then apply them immediately, making a new backup right away.) 

Also, use your other OS for anything involving the Internet if you can manage it - don't even enable the LAN or WiFi in your recording OS, as then you'll need AV and firewall nonsense and those are just going to take away valuable resources; run a proper firewall and AV on your 'dirty' system and keep those backups handy in case something fails.

Finally, unless you have ethical qualms about this, strongly consider using TinyXP.

Is all of this nonsense necessary? No. Can you live without it? Certainly. Will it get rid of *far* more trouble than it'll get you into? No doubt about it - it takes a little more work in the initial setup, but you'll get into the hang of things quickly (they really won't take much time at all) and you'll be saved from *tons* of more obnoxious bullshit down the road. (If anyone who has considered 666/45746kHz recording thinks this is overkill, it's time for a lesson in 'cost-benefit ratio' usually reserved for people who want to lose weight but avoid diet and exercise because they can clip their toenails hourly.)

Jeff


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## Scali (Aug 7, 2009)

damigu said:


> if you have 2 sound cards installed in vista or win7, the system mixer gets confused.


 
Not really... it just assumes that when you plug in a new device, that you want it to be the default.
If you set the default back manually... and then unplug the device and replug it again (to the SAME USB port, because it considers every USB port to be a different device, with different settings), it will remember this device and know not to set it to the default.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 7, 2009)

So say i use 2 x 1.5TB Hard drives, it shouldn't matter too much about the speed?

I'd rather keep the entire system to one OS, despite the possible problems Jeff mentioned. As much as because i switch between programs and moods in an instant so the thought of going between OS's just to listen to music or play a game instead  Call it a rookie preference for now 

Is there anything that would actually make the hard drives significantly faster without too many issues? Is it possible to just assign certain programs a certain sound card without the PC just taking the initiative and fucking upall the settings every time you plug something new in?


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## Scali (Aug 7, 2009)

Demoniac said:


> So say i use 2 x 1.5TB Hard drives, it shouldn't matter too much about the speed?


 
In terms of throughput, any raid0 system will beat a single Velociraptor.
Velociraptor has slightly better seek times, but seek times aren't that important for audio recording/processing.
Vista/Windows 7 have some nice optimizations for minimizing seek time anyway, in multitasking situations.
My 2x1 TB can get about 280 MB/s sustained, with peeks of close to 400 MB/s.



Demoniac said:


> Is it possible to just assign certain programs a certain sound card without the PC just taking the initiative and fucking upall the settings every time you plug something new in?


 
Well, as I say, just always use the same USB (or PCI/PCI-e) port when you plug in, then it will remember the settings.
Set it once, and you should be good forever.
In most cases you'll probably want to use your SB for any 'regular day' stuff like gaming, internet etc. So you leave that as the default.
The 'professional' interfaces are only used in your recording software I suppose... In which case, it doesn't matter. Recording software uses the ASIO interface, which comes with its own driver, and pretty much ignores whatever Windows thinks is the default soundcard anyway. You select it manually in your application, and the selection will 'stick' (just make sure it's plugged in before you start the application).


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## Daemoniac (Aug 7, 2009)

Scali said:


> In terms of throughput, any raid0 system will beat a single Velociraptor.



Is it much of a pain in the arse to set up a Raid0 system? And what problems are there?




Scali said:


> Well, as I say, just always use the same USB (or PCI/PCI-e) port when you plug in, then it will remember the settings.
> Set it once, and you should be good forever.
> In most cases you'll probably want to use your SB for any 'regular day' stuff like gaming, internet etc. So you leave that as the default.
> The 'professional' interfaces are only used in your recording software I suppose... In which case, it doesn't matter. Recording software uses the ASIO interface, which comes with its own driver, and pretty much ignores whatever Windows thinks is the default soundcard anyway. You select it manually in your application, and the selection will 'stick' (just make sure it's plugged in before you start the application).



So with this, it should be possible to just have both actual sound cards plugged in permanently, just leaving the SB card as the default, and then picking the M-Audio one when i use stuff like Cubase?


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## Scali (Aug 7, 2009)

Demoniac said:


> Is it much of a pain in the arse to set up a Raid0 system? And what problems are there?


 
Nah, it's very easy. You just configure the raid once, through a simple BIOS menu (select which drives to use, the size of the raid volume to create, etc)... then it shows up as a single volume in your OS.
You need to make the raid before installing the OS though. And with XP you need a floppy (yes, a physical floppy) for the raid drivers (or prepare a 'slipstreamed' installation CD with the drivers already on there).
Vista/Windows 7 will also accept CDs, USB sticks, or can get the drivers from Windows Update during installation, so it's less of a hassle. They also include drivers for many popular raid chipsets, unlike XP.
XP's installation is just REALLY outdated.



Demoniac said:


> So with this, it should be possible to just have both actual sound cards plugged in permanently, just leaving the SB card as the default, and then picking the M-Audio one when i use stuff like Cubase?


 
Yup, Cubase will just be doing its own thing through ASIO, and ignore whatever Windows does. Likewise, since the SB is the default, all other applications will generally ignore the other soundcard, even though they can see it's there.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 7, 2009)

Rad 

I've managed to cap the price of the PC at $3500AUD 
Soooo, this is the new setup:

- Cooler Master High Air Flow-932 Case
- Intel Core i7 920 Processor
- 6GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 RAM
- MSI X58 Pro Motherboard
- Antec Truepower Quattro 1000Watt PSU
- 3 x Pioneer CD/DVD Burners
- Floppy drive (yes, a floppy drive )
- 2 x Western Digital 1TB Hard Drives
- Zalman FC-ZV9 Fatal1ty VGU Cooling/Fan
- XFX GTX-295 1792MB Graphics Card
- Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Platinum Champion
- M-Audio Audiophile 2496

What say you?


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## Scali (Aug 7, 2009)

Well, sounds pretty good to me (although perhaps the memory with cooling fans is a bit overkill, just as the 1792 MB videocard as I said before ).
One advice I'd like to give... you might want to go for an external floppy drive, with USB. They're easy to just plug into any PC, even laptops, or perhaps in the future when floppy controllers are no longer onboard.
Either that, or go for Vista/Windows 7 and never worry about floppies again


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## Daemoniac (Aug 7, 2009)

^ If i can find one of those Floppy drives with the little memory card readers in them i'll get one of those 

As for the cooling, i just looked over it, and the atual case is a high air flow case anyway  So yes, the memory cooling is overkil, and the CPU fan too methinks.

I may replace the graphics card with a single ATI HD4890.


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## Scali (Aug 7, 2009)

DDR3 memory generally doesn't need cooling anyway... the memory you selected is just memory that is overvolted and overclocked to levels of great stupidity 
There's little need for such fast memory, since the Core i7 already runs triple channel. Even with basic 'value ram' DDR3, you already have plenty of bandwidth, so there's little need for going for expensive, overclocked memory. The difference is negligible in practice.

GTX275 and 4890 are pretty much the same in terms of price and performance, I believe.


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## Daemoniac (Aug 7, 2009)

Scali said:


> DDR3 memory generally doesn't need cooling anyway... the memory you selected is just memory that is overvolted and overclocked to levels of great stupidity



 Does this mean that the Corsair stuff will have a shorter life than standard?


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## damigu (Aug 7, 2009)

Scali said:


> Not really... it just assumes that when you plug in a new device, that you want it to be the default.
> If you set the default back manually... and then unplug the device and replug it again (to the SAME USB port, because it considers every USB port to be a different device, with different settings), it will remember this device and know not to set it to the default.



as i said: it confuses the system mixer.
if you have to say "no it doesn't, so long as you this and that and the other, then carry the one, do a fourier transform, derive schroedinger's equation, put your left foot in and shake it all about, and make sure you never plug it into anything else," then the actual answer is "yes, it does."



Demoniac said:


> I'd rather keep the entire system to one OS, despite the possible problems Jeff mentioned. As much as because i switch between programs and moods in an instant so the thought of going between OS's just to listen to music or play a game instead  Call it a rookie preference for now



ummmmm...you're too impatient to wait 45 seconds to boot into another OS? or are you just not familiar with how fast your system is actually going to be?

my laptop (dual core 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, 7200 RPM drive) can boot the fully loaded win7 install in about 45 seconds. my stripped down music recording installation boots even faster.


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## JBroll (Aug 7, 2009)

Demoniac, unless you're running an ultra-tweaked version of Reaper that stays on at all times, the switch between a game and the DAW is nontrivial and may even take longer than a reboot. 

The problems with RAID are with the bazillions of ways they can go wrong.

Jeff


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## Daemoniac (Aug 7, 2009)

^ I pretty much am indeed too impatient. I multi-task on computers all the time, so it's not the thought of just "waiting 45 seconds to get to recording/music listetning" once, its the thought of going between two OS every couple of minutes when my thought process changes, and i want to change what i'm doing  I mean, right now, i have FL Studio open and im working, i have MSN open, iTunes open, and 3 pages on Firefox open, and i'm pretty much working in all 4 programs at once  (iTunes less, obviously )


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## Scali (Aug 7, 2009)

damigu said:


> as i said: it confuses the system mixer.


 
"Confused" seems to imply that the behaviour is somehow non-deterministic when it in fact is not. The behaviour is perfectly predictable, and non-intrusive. You set it up ONCE, and you're good forever (in case you didn't get it, I meant to say that it remembers your settings EVERY TIME you replug it into the same port). You're making a big deal out of nothing.


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