building a new DAW..

around the following:

Aark 24
Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96
Athlon 64 3400
Win XP Pro
Dual HD RAID 0
smallest case that has >2 PCI slots

Anyone have any suggestions, i.e. what hard drives, graphics card, case (I am considering the barebones thing called a Monarch Hornet), motherboard?

RAM probly go Kingston.

Low-noise fans, and perhaps some sort of acoustic kit would probably be nice too.

If you're going for longevity, having a case/motherboard that can take more than 2 PCI cards would be good too, since you never know what you'll want to add later.

The UAD-1 cards are getting pretty cheap nowadays for example.

Any current graphics card should suffice if you're going for a dedicated DAW computer, the thing to consider might be if you want to be able to use two screens.

Most motherboards today come with USB2 ports, don't they? Otherwise, that's a pretty nice thing to have too.

low noise fan or a water coolant system

We R Talkin' ......................

1Gig or Mo' RAM.................RIGHT?????!!!?????


AS 4 HardDrives ANY of the Western Digi or Segates R Cool................


(HIGH RPM of Course)

My Partner jus' Copped A 80gig Western Digi with 8mb buffer 4 DirtCheap!!!



.. ... ..

i heard that having more than 1 gig of ram won't really make a difference with the current state of software.

whats a good cheap dual display card?

d_loc wrote:i heard that having more than 1 gig of ram won't really make a difference with the current state of software.

whats a good cheap dual display card?

That's bullshyt, more ram is always better, I got 1 Gig and my buddy has two on a similar machine and his smokes mine like a really dank dime.

well like radeon 9200 would suffice i have it you can put two monitors in to that... atleas 1gig ram but more is better dont buy western digital drives those suck.. seagate is noisy but reliable western and maxtor are in the bottom when it comes to longevity and reliability samsungs new spinpoint p120 drives are silent. i would go for seagate 160-200gig drive you could consider motherboard which have sata connections and get SATA drives.

here is storagereview sites reliability test for drives bigger number is better

WD
Raptor WD360GD 67
Raptor WD740GD 61

Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 8 20
DiamondMax Plus 9 24
MaXLine III 10

IBM/HITACHI
Deskstar 75GXP 12
Deskstar 120GXP 75
Deskstar 180GXP 88

SAMSUNG
SpinPoint P80 46

SEAGATE
Barracuda ATA III 94
Barracuda ATA IV 87
Barracuda ATA V 93
Barracuda 7200.7 78

elmacaco wrote:

d_loc wrote:i heard that having more than 1 gig of ram won't really make a difference with the current state of software.

whats a good cheap dual display card?

That's bullshyt, more ram is always better, I got 1 Gig and my buddy has two on a similar machine and his smokes mine like a really dank dime.

Thats RIGHT................................

U Will SEE A DIFFERENCE n IT WILL BECOME ODVIOUS WHEN U .............
LOAD THAT CPU with plugins n Longer Sound/Song Files.....................


DON'T Sleep NEXT 2 THAT C-P-U U MUST GET R-A-M and Da MO' the Better............................

Trust I Configure Systems Often.....................................

NOW Ironically I Would (if I Had 2) Put OFF ON the Top of the line Vid Cards But ANY Card Compatible with UR Motherboard of Course at 64 mb or More is Fine Unless U Plan 2 DO VIDEO or EXTREME Gamin'..............



TRUST THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I recently upgraded my motherboard, video card, and sound card. This is what i now have...

Motherboard- love it so far and it has every option you could want
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 232&depa=0


Video card- bought for the two monitor option and used to record or watch tv.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 168&depa=1


Soundcard-
http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... pfp=BROWSE

and no matter what anyone tells you the more ram the better lol. im currently using 2 gigs and i have no problems with any program ive run yet. and just so you know i'm using the cheapest ram i could find and have had no problems with that either. this is it....
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 119&depa=1

hope that helps

- Personally, I wouldn't go for the "smallest case that has >2 PCI slots". First of all, you will have 2 HDs, probably a dvd writer, a processor with cooler, etc. so your small case will be full as hell and things can heat up very fast. Secondly, a small case is very frustrating if you need to change/replace hardware. Buy a case from a decent brand such as Antec. The Antec LifeStyle Sonata for example also comes with a decent 380 Watt power supply.

- Motherboard. I would go for the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI. Asus is a very decent brand and quite known for its stability.

- Always check the website of the motherboard you are going to buy. Most of them explicitly list which kind of memory has been tested on the motherboard. For the above mentioned Asus motherboard, you would propably want 2 x 512MB PC3200 DDR (Infineon Original).

- Video card. Remember that the smallest cooling fans often produce more noise than the bigger fans. Therefore, check if there are video cards available that come with passive cooling (cooling without fan). You can always install them yourself, check http://www.zalman.co.kr/

a voice recognition daw or mpc.

pep this;
all workstation functions have names.
so why not create a program within the daw or mpc OS that interacts
with each function and tell the fuction what to do.
for example:
attention MPC +sample page #join samples 53 to sample 23.
attention MPC +program page #create new program.
attention MPC +program page+ set name #HOt BEAt.
attention MPC + main page # set bars 4.
attention MPC +sample page +join samples 53 to sample 23
attention MPC+ global page #master level 0dB.

Now this will not help with creativity but its a thought into the next
level.
This chronic told me this shit
so all my programers out there get busy.
Let go to the next level.
send checks to my pay pal "NO Forreal"
@ Copyright 2005 Laryon L.

Aspire X-Dreamer II case with 350W PSU 54.00

Asus K8V SE Deluxe Motherboard-Retail 114.00

Athlon 64 3700+ 2.4Ghz , 1MB L2 315.00

Micron PC3200 512 MB DDR SDRAM CT6464Z40B x2 (1GB total) = 120.00

ATI Radeon 9600 256Mb DDR 8x Dual Video Card 86.00

Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM 8MB CACHE Hard Drives 58.00 x 2 = 116.00

Lite-On DVD/CDRW Dual Drive 59.00

Total = approx. $850.00 US


http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB32&Number=360675&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1