Building an audio PC. What should i get?

Hey there guys. I'm busy building my own PC to use for audio only. I'm buying an 828 MKII as my audio I/O interface.

I really don't have the ability to splash out so dont tell me to buy the Open Labs OMX, & i don't want frills like double monitors. All i want is good, fast and steady setup. I got my own CD Drives etc already.

What motherboard/processor/ram combinations are tried tested and proven to work well together.

The Allenstein machine: http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php? ... t=1#360675

I've always been pentium based, but my next CPU will be an athlon 64 3500 (or higher), 939 socket with a nforce based chipset, like the asus a8v deluxe.

I've heard those smoke...and have a lot of PCI thruput, so if you're going to expand with cards like the uad/powercore/pulsar2 (i have a uad and pulsar2) it'll handle it well...

One thing to do would be to do a google search for pre-built audio workstations and just copy the partslist from there.

One other thing, go for dual monitors, you'll thank yourself!

Since you already know what hardware you're going to be using you should figure out what software you want to use and do some research on what works best with it. The Allenstein machine is a proven work horse for PT but it might have problems with other setups.

Here's another thing though. I just bought myself an iBook G4 1Ghz with 512Mb ram. I bought it for work but perhaps i could rather use it for music. Will it be able to handle multiple audio tracks and effects units. All my instruments are hardwear, so i would only use reverbs, compressors etc plugins, no instruments

Yes. If you get a decent firewire soundcard for it you can.....
There's a few things to keep in mind though:
1. Many people use a separate computer just for music so they're more likely to avoid a virus, and because installing lots of programs can sometimes cause problems when running audioaplications. You're not that likely to get a virus using OS-X so you should be fine, but make backups every day to make sure.
2. Laptop harddisks are not as fast as IDE, so your trackcount will be limited by the transferspeed of your HD.
3. Not all software is available for OS-X so you may have to switch sequencer.

I have both a G4 Powerbook and a studio pc. I never use the mac for audio. It's fine, but i just prefer my pc.

I'm thinking of using it just in the meantime, until i can afford a PC with all the bells and whistles. Do you think i will be able use it in the interim?

The reason why i'm asking is cos i got a great deal on a MOTU 828 MKII, a very rare thing in S.A. and i really want to get it, but if i do i'll only be able to use it on my mac until i got the cash for a new PC. I got cubase SL, which works on both platforms so i wont have a problem there. But do you think my iBook G4 will be able to handle say 20-30 audio tracks ?

That's very hard to say. I think 30 tracks of 24bit/96khz will possibly be a bit too much for the harddrive, but there's only one way to find out. ....
What i always do with my pc's is get a separate harddisk for music. If you make sure this is a fast model the other drive ( c:\) won't affect performance.
If you don't already have a fast harddisk, you can consider buying a fast firewire harddisk. That way you will have your Cubase projects available on both your i-book and your pc. This will also improve trackcount on the i-book.

If you can get a deal on that MOTU, go for it. You might get away with more tracks than you'd expect on a laptop.
Cubase sl is not that processor intensive, so you'll be able to run a fair amount of plug-ins andd efx as well.

I'm checking out the specs on the hardrive but i wont be able to get a firewire hardrive because the motu uses the firewire slot! Will a USB2 hardrive suffice?

Here's the specs of the hardrive inside my mac. It's not big at all but will it be okay to use in the interim, until i get enough cash to buy a big ass hardrive.

Manufacturer
Fujitsu 

Manufacturer Part #
MHT2030AT

Device Type
Interal Hard Drve


Data Storage
Formatted Capacity
30GB

Bytes per Sector
512

Data Transfer Rate

To/From Media
Up to 100MB/s

Buffer
2MB/8MB


Seek Time
Track-Track
1.5 ms Track-to-Track Typical

Average
12 ms Average Typical

Maximum
22 ms Maximum Typical


Average Rotational Latency
7.14ms

Rotational Speed
4200 RPM

Ah, you're right. You only have one firewire port. I don't know about usb2 i've never used it so i can't say......

But here's the specs for a typical IDE drive for audio.

Rotational Speed
7,200 RPM (nominal)
Buffer Size
8 MB
Average Latency
4.20 ms (nominal)
Contact Start/Stop Cycles
50,000 minimum
Read Seek Time (Average)
8.9 ms
Write Seek Time (Average)
10.9 ms (average)
Track-To-Track Seek Time
2.0 ms (average)
Full Stroke Seek
21.0 ms (average)
Transfer Rates:
Buffer To Disk
602 Mbits/s (Max)

Of course the harddisk isn't the only thing that limits trackcount, the bus-speed of the motherboard is also a factor. I'm not sure how fast the new i-books are but my powerbook is 133mhz.
I can run around 22 audiotracks in 24bit/96khz on it without plug-ins. In 16/41khz this should almost double.
Since your i-book uses a very similar harddisk, and the busspeed will probably be 100mhz i estimate you should be able to get at least 17 tracks in 24/96khz, and well over 25 tracks in 16/41khz.

You can create a testproject in cubase already, you don't need to wait for your new soundcard to test the trackcount.
Record something like a simple sinewave using your build-in soundcard, and save as test1 in wav. format .the soundquality will suck but that doesn't matter for this test.
Change the track you've recorded slightly and save it as a new file in 24bit/96khz. Call it test2.wav
Keep changing it slightly and saving as new file untill you have 30 tracks.
Open a new project and set it to 24/96 and import around 15 files. keep an eye on the disk performance meter in the transportbar. Keep importing files untill you system can't take it anymore.
You can mute the tracks, to prevent going crazy.

I'm going to try that out and see how it works. I'll let you know how it turns out for me!!!

I know pro tools and logic recommend 7200 rpm hard drives so 4200 is definitely not fast enough.

I can get up to 31 tracks on my laptop using the internal 4200rpm hd with PT but I wouldn't recommend it.

A USB 2 hd should work fine(USB 2 is actualy faster than firewire) but it will depend mostly on the actual hd.

If you can get up to 31 tracks on your laptop, then why wouldn't you recommend it? Sounds pretty good to me?

I'm just wanting to know if it'll work for the meantime, until i can afford a super hardrive.