Home recording, Mac vs. PC

[NecroPolo]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Yo! Ok, I have a lot of gear aquisition planned for this year so I have to budget wisely. considering what I will be doing, what is the minimal upgrade that you will recomend?

Hey dude I just assembled such a machine. Many times I have to go outside and record things in place (choirs etc) and I did not like the idea of:

- using a laptop
- bumping around my standalone C2Duo studio workstation (hurting the RME 9652 and carrying the Tascam DM24 really scares me)

So I built a rackmount, dirt cheap audio workstation, used / e-bay parts mainly:



MBoard: Abit NF7-S

Proc: AMD Sempron socket A (1700MHz) with Zalman cooling units (dead silent)

HDD: 2x Hitachi ST 160G, SATA raid: mode1 //man that's FAST//

RAM: Infineon 2x1GB (PC3200), matched pair for smooth dual DDR400 memory mode

Firewire card: D-Link FW500

Audio interface: Focusrite Saffire Pro 10 I/O

Backup audio card: Echo MIA Midi (you can never know...)

Power unit: Mercury 400W (cheap, reliable)

Video card: Sapphire X800 GTO (you can even play offline gamez with good frame per sec)

Optical drive: Plextor PX-800A (that's a new one)

OS: XP SP2, audio optimized - No network!

For a start check this out fo good tips:

http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/article.php?id=264

My XP is rather barebone on an advanced level. No bells and whistles - but it performs.


DAW SW: Sonar 6, Adobe Audition 3.0


For approx. $300 (without audio parts), this little oldie beast is capable of recording audio 16 channels simultaneously (2 saffires piggyback) without noticable latency issues or any hiccup and you can run a surprising number of plugins and soft synths real-time.

Bulletproof, cost-effective

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Thank you dudes,
Now, everybody says that Lambda is the best thing that price can buy, except the sucky pre amps. So what is the next priority, a pre-amp(I will first try to record my guitar using a line out from my MassLite attenuator straight in to Lambda) or the monitors? I have a pair of old-arse JBL Pro-Primium computer speakrs now .... I guess they would not work at all huh?

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Your speakers are fine.

Until you start recording more and getting into the finer elements of things... the stock pre on the Lambda will be fine.

[NecroPolo]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Your speakers are fine.

Until you start recording more and getting into the finer elements of things... the stock pre on the Lambda will be fine.

+1


Those JBLs must be good for a start. I'd recommend the Lambda, too.

You might want to check the Focusrite Saffire or Saffire LE as well:

http://www.focusrite.com/products/saffire/saffire_le/

These units tend to outperform anything in their price range. They are firewire interfaces (better and faster data flow compared to USB) but with a footnote: you MUST get a fine firewire card for a good performance. There are some great FW cards, for exapmle a D-Link FW 500 ($20 approx.) does the job wonderfully.

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

So I guess the next thing should be the pre-amp then, right ?

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

No, that Lambda has a built-in preamp.

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

yeah I know, but the word on the street is that it kinda sucks, and with the right pre-amp it really becomes the best unit for the buck around.

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

What street do you hang out on? You're not going to notice the difference between the two pres with the gear and experience you've got now, as harsh as that sounds. It'd be a waste of money for you to pick up a preamp in addition to it, especially considering that the price of the two combined would buy you a better interface with pres likely to be on-par with the standalone pre you just got.

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Ok that makes sense. You right dude, my experience is 0. As far as the street goes, well, I've read a few online user reviews that mentioned the same thing - pre-amp. So, my speakers are ok, I guess for now I dont need a pre-amp or maybe at all, besides upgrading the actuall PC for recording, what would you say would be a good thing to consider.

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Ok, I might pick up a PC before midnight today, here is the problem, most of great deals come with Vista, I know vista is a disaster, but just incase I will ask, Vista - how do you think it will work with Cubase or Cakewalk and EZdrumms with Lexicon Lambda as the interphase ?

[DankStar]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Without reading through the whole thread, how did you arrive at a PC instead of a mac for recording?

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Bang for buck

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Allright, more specific, 640G on the Hard Drive 7200 RPM, RAM 4 Gigs, Pentium Dual Core 2.2 Ghz comes with Genuine Vista as OS. I will run Cubase, EzDrumms, and Lexicon Lambda as an interphase. Please guys give me cue.

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

reformat with XP and you're set!

FWIW, as much as I love OS X, I just finished setting up my new recording PC (2.4 quad core, 4GB ram, 3 internal drives) because of how much power you get for how little you pay.

Plus, a dedicated PC is just as stable as OS X, for the most part.

[alex1fly]

Re: Home recording, Mac vs. PC

Plus, a dedicated PC is just as stable as OS X, for the most part.

If you're lucky. A big problem with PCs is that the hardware is often made by a slew of different companies, and as a result the hardware does not properly communicate with each other. Even big companies like Dell and Gateway are guilty of this - they just assemble the computer for you, and they do so as cheaply as they possibly can. Even new and freshly wiped PCs can crap out.

A Mac is the best of both worlds, if you can afford it - OS X and Windows on the same machine. But then you have to actually BUY Windows, which takes away some of the fun IMO...

Apple makes both the hardware and the OS for their computers, making them much, much less prone to the internal destabilization that runs rampant through run-of-the-mill PCs. Add the whole no viruses aspect, and you've got a pretty appealing machine.