Friend asked me to build a box for his recording studio... Some questions.

RamonGTP · 06-04-2002, 05:43 AM

A buddy of mine asked me if I could build him a computer for his recording studio... He's going to be using to to make/record/edit music/songs, etc etc... I normally always recommend AMD over INTEL. In this case however, the computer needs to be pretty quiet since he will have sensative microphones in teh studio, so i'm leaning more towards INTEL for this particular setup. What do you guys think? Themost important question I have though is, what type of soundcard to get? I'm assuming he'll need something better than a SB Live card, what are some of your recomendations?

Oh, do you think that a dual processor setup would be a good move here? or would a single processor work just fine?

Thanks in advance,
-Ramon

kendo · 06-04-2002, 06:22 AM

something like this maybe

http://www.midiman.com/products/m-audio/delt1010.php

otheos · 06-04-2002, 07:44 AM

Wait a minute!

First, is this box going to be in the recording room? I seriously doubt that. In that case the sound control room is not sensitive to a fan noise so the PC noise is definitely not an issue.

Now is he going to use the PC for digital multi-channel recording? If yes, he needs lots of storage, as a single track can easily exceed 3GB (24 tracks, but this is directly related to the soundcard). And speaking of soundcards, again the M-Audio linked above are a one-way but they are expensive and Software costs too. The 1010 will do for a medium/large studio.

Again, is he going to edit multitracks with the PC? or is it simply going to burn CDs, edit wav files (stereo) etc?

So it ends up to what exactly he plans to do. is he planning to move the whole post-production mixing editing to PC? This will be expensive!! Is he planning on using a pc for assisting his work (import/edit single tracks, burn CDs, etc)? This will be cheap.

AMD/Intel is not important, the storage and the soundcard will dictate the cost.

Tomteriffic · 06-04-2002, 09:27 AM

What otheos said.

Also, take a good look at the articles and message boards here. ProRec There are numerous articles devoted to exact specs for audio recording machines, audio I/O cards etc. There's pretty much a step-by-step, component by component breakdown in there. A priceless resource for a home studio owner.

RamonGTP · 06-04-2002, 01:29 PM

Thanks for the info guys... Otheos, I'm not sure exactly what he plans to do with it. I'll have to ask him exactly what he wants it to do and get back to you guys on that.

-Ramon