Good Pc's for music production

[Conan]

I looking to buy a Pc primarily for making music on. What are the ideal specifications, whats hot and whats not.

Any help would be great.

Also I have a keyboard, so will I be able to hook that up to a pc and use it to control the synths in my software ? And is there a point in buying a drum machine and a sampler is it excessive or could it be useful.

Thanks,

Conan

[RDR]

If you want to buy a PC for making music on and are not limited by budget and cant be arsed building one you can do a lot worse than carilon.

You will need a decent MIDI interface if you want to use your keyboard. Also you could get a hardware drum machine, but personally i'd use software. Much easier and more manipulatable.

As for synths, a decent hardware synth is much more fun that fiddling with mice buttons... ;)

As for "Whats hot and whats not.."

NOT - Anything prebuilt from a major manufacturer. Steer clear, they often use substandard components and customer service tends to be on the crap side. (IMHO of course)

HOT - I cant tell you, that would take a LONG crawl through review websites. But here are some specs you might want to consider...

CPU.. not less than 3ghz
FSB not less than 533mhz
RAM - Not less than 2gb
HardDrive - Not less than 120gb and MIN spec of 7200rpm SATA not PATA.
MOBO (motherboard) Try ASUS, GIGABYTE

Connectivity - FIREWIRE, USB2 minimum.
Monitor - TFT only... you're gonna spend a long time in front of it, make sure its good
Mouse - Optical only.
Keyboard - test some out, make sure it will last and is comfortable, again you'll spend a long time in front of it.

PC case... Lan Li do some great ones
DVD burner, minimum.


Im sure others will add to this, im no expert and there is certainly, AS EVER a question regarding Pentium Vs AMD.

#M~y only other comment is... get a legit copy of windows... and DONT PUT YOUR AUDIO MACHINE ON THE INTERNET....

[Conan]

Nice on Dodgey that's a good platform anyway cheers.

I definitley won't be using the Pc for the internet though, I know how it is and sure I have a laptop for that.

Re: the keyboard,would the midi interface be in the connections at the back of my PC or is it to do with software, or the sound card?

I've been thinking alot about buying some hardware, namely a drum machine and a synth. From what I read and see I think its good to have a balance between software and hardware. My first step is getting the computer sorted with a sound card, nice monitors and ableton live. Then I was thinking some hardware, I was told to check out the Korg legacy synths and had a listen on the Demos and they sound phat but as you say I'd prefer to able to do all that manually............... I was thinking about a Nord Lead 2x............ any ideas on that.

I hear what your saying about the drum machines not being as manipulative as their software counterparts but I think it would be a nice toy and It might be better to mess around with by hand in the same vein as the synths. Sure you can run them through your software and manipulate them then can't you?

[force]

You could also run a midi out from the drum machine and trigger ableton with that, tempo sync'd to the drum machine.

[RDR]

the nord is a wicked bit of kit, go for your life son, nice as ****... remermber tho you can pick up a secondhand virus for the same money...

You need a seperate MIDI interface for your computer, dont use the suilly joystick port adaptor at the back. no good at all. terribly latent.

The speed at which your system responds to incoming MIDI messages from a keyboard is governed by the quality of MIDI interface and the drivers you are using to play back audio.

For windows the best are ASIO (audio stream input output) these allow very low latencies so that when you press a key on your keyboard you hear the sound almost instantly (around 2-15ms is the best as anything above 20ms you'll start to hear as a lag)

The next best is Direct X, and the worst MME.

Get a good quality soundcard, the delta 44 series are good and well proven and cheap. FFS DO NOT get anything by creative. no soundblaster.

[dan the acid man]

yeah if you're getting a pre built music pc, go for a carillon, we have one in the studio at work, and it's really well built, and already set up for audio work.

if you're building your own, go for a socket 939 64bit amd, you get more for your money plus they run cooler now than pentiums and perform better.

like dodgy said, get a sata 2 hard drive
motherboard manufacturers like asus and gigabyte are really good.
aluminium pc cases are really worth the money, i use coolermaster, but lian li are good too.

as for soundcards, like dodgy said, delta cards are decent, so too are emu and M audio, or you can pay much more and get a top end card.

[tekara]

Well it seems like your probably going to buy a hardware drum machine no matter what (once you have your mind set on gear its hard to resists), so if thats gonna be the case, i would definately try not to get too crazy.

I would invest most of my money on a good CPU as dodgey had mentioned above, a nice pair of monitors, a midi interface, and run your software on the computer. In terms of hardware, i suggest you to buy a maximum of one drum machine and one hardware synth. Learn the machines inside and out, and once you feel you have done all you can with it, sell it off and replace it with another machine, but dont start out in music production buying all this fancy gear because it will hold you back. Instead of collecting gear, try to replace exisiting gear with something else, because it can become quite overwhelming when you have too much stuff to fiddle around. Its counter-productive.

By the way i would recommend the NL2X. Its the only synth i use out of my 4.

[RDR]

delta cards are decent, so too are emu and M audio

M Audio make the Delta series. ;)

[Barely Human]

delta cards are decent, so too are emu and M audio

M Audio make the Delta series. ;)

:lol:

[dan the acid man]

yeah, nobody likes a smart ass dodgy :lol: :lol:

[RDR]

F you all

it just men im dead cleva n that.

:lol:

[sacredcow]

CPU.. not less than 3ghz

AMD all the way man. a s-939 AMD 64 at 2.2ghz will serve you better than a 3.2ghz p4. Clock speed is NOT everything. Go AMD. The majority of people who know much about computers will recommend AMD over Pentium.

if you're building your own, go for a socket 939 64bit amd, you get more for your money plus they run cooler now than pentiums and perform better.

:clap: :eyes:

[RDR]

Dont shake your finger at me young man... ;)

You arent really telling the truth are you now...? It also depends on what platform you are on, Cubase SX3 can take advantage of hyperthreading, but isnt a 64bit application, and also you'd better have a 64bit version of windows xp if you want to take advantage. Besides i hadnt mentioned 64 bit as its pretty pointless unless you know of plugins that can take advantage of 64 bits. ;)

The majority of people who know much about computers will recommend AMD over Pentium.

Tsk, Tsk... thats not true either. Pentiums are good chips, as are AMD - im not interrested in the battle over saying which is best, you know full well its all about the code, NOT the chip.

[RDR]

And besides, they were just guidlines.. if you really feel this thread could do with some advice as to running 64bits, then chip in constructively, not just to dis my posts (im not hurt, just amused..)

[dee]

ive got a carrilon com, its very good, got mine for £1,500 about 4 years ago , came with cubase, halion and a audiophile 24/96 ( i think ) :lol:
well worth the cash , very powerful com !!!

id recommend carilon

[RDR]

And besides, they were just guidlines.. if you really feel this thread could do with some advice as to running 64bits, then chip in constructively, not just to dis my posts (im not hurt, just amused..)

How much of a stuck up twat did i sound like there... :roll:

[acidsaturation]

:lol:

[dulash]

nobody mentioned phil rees, top notch PC's!!!
http://www.philrees.co.uk/

[BombJack]

Personally I wouldn't recommend buying one of these high end machines unless you are loaded.

For a few reasons.

1) As soon as you buy a computer it loses it's value as quickly as a new car does. Superb customer service and after sales come at a premium.
Granted with Carillon as far as I know, they are tremendous as far as the care goes. The question you have to ask yourself is this. How many times are you likely to need to call on their services? Is it worth the addtional money.
2) Folks like Carrillon supposedly set up your machine for doing audio work. This is true, and they do it well, however the tweaks they make can easily be done by most people - you just need to know what they are. Some people on here may well be able to point you in the right direction with this one.

Tips: If you are recording live instruments, and not just software plugin instruments it makes sense getting a quiet machine, as nopise from the computer can seep into your recordings. The quiter the better.

If it's logoc you want to run - you need to buy a mac.

Ultimatley I would say it boils down to how much and at what level you will use the machine. If you need the machine to be running at optimum all the time, or need fast recovery from system failure, and can afford to, get a Carrillon or a Red sub, a mac or something like that. Otherwise build it yourself, or get a high quality off the shelf machine.You might be able to buy a cheap off the shelf number, and trade up components using ebay or something like that...

[massplanck]

Dont listen to them -> drum machine & hardware synth come first. If you want any tips let me know.

A 2ghz second hand PC is FINE unless you are one of the "lets load up a million plugins to try & make our shitty wav samples sound better" brigade. Getting heavliy into Reaktor is the only thing i'd buy a better pc for. Every cabbage has pc and thinks hes a producer these days. Take a leaf out of landstrumms book. Yes PC's are essential these days for the finished product but make if you make a financial commitment to piece of decent hardware and it will really stand to you.


The only apps on a PC which can rival hardware for INTUITIVENESS\INVENTIVNESS are Reakor/Bidule in my opinion. (abelton too i guess)

Sound card -> I HIGHLY recommened the ESI ESP 1010 - only about 250 euro with ten in and ten outs two headphones sockets + rock solid MIDI timing. Lets me rip sample straight from DVD which is handy too. Savage card pisses over the delta with all its stupid cables hangng out of it (i dunno maybe they have a breakout box for it now)

http://www.musicmarketing.ca/products/es_esp1010.asp

IMHO -(