AMD Computer for music

[Guest]

I wondering if someone can steer me in the right direction, as to where I can get additional help on building a computer for music purposes only. I didn't know where to post this.

So can someone help me pick out good components for my my new computer system?
Ok, here's what I'm thinking currently: I think I will buy an [1] AMD Athlon 1100mhz ( being that a pentium is slower and Mac are expensive), [2] the motherboard I'm not really sure but the ASUS A7M 266, Gigabyte GA-7DX, or maybe Microstar(MSI) MS-6341 all look good, [3] 256 or 512 mg of DDR RAM or maybe PC 133 SD Ram, [4] I heard having 2 hard drives is a good thing for music, [5] I'll definetly have a DVD-Rom drive and a CD-RW. I guess that's all I have thought might be good.

I want to have a powerful computer with good flexiblity(or expandable). I'll being sequncing, recording audio, and using software synths on my new system. I'm planning on buying off E-bay. I hope I don't spend more than $850, but with what I want I might have to.

Any advice is very much appreciated, being that I've been waiting (doing some research) for a month (probably more) to buy my new PC.

My other ?'s: is the DDR-Ram 1600 not that good? I heard that it wasn't that much better than SD Ram PC 133 (I thought I did). And what kind of cooling fan should I get? (Or, I thinking this answer would depend on the system I get)

Can anyone guide me to a web site where I can find out more on what kind of PC would suite my needs?
I hope someone can help. Thanks

Nick

 

[tartarhus]

System looks rock solid to me. Big asus fan myself, but all those boards are nice. If your making a music system, hard drive space is where the money should go. You can't have too much, you know. I highly recommend a sound blaster live 5.1 sound card; oem purchases are now available for this model and start at just $65.

 

[Guest]

If you are going to get DDR ram get the Pc2100 stuff and also make sure youe get the Athlon-c, for the extra you may want to consider teh 1.33 as it has dropped in price already and runs coller than it's slower counterpars.
A7M is good (I use one myself) but remember it only takes DDR ram.

Good Luck

M

Opinions are like arseholes .... everybody’s got one....

 

[Guest]

If u gonna be using the machine for mixing tunes u might wanna get 2 sound cards, one really good one like the SB LIVE 5.1, and a cheapo one, so u can monitor the two channels independantly,there is software you can get that can utilize upto four different sound cards. The reaon for this is it would only cost like $12 for a cheapo card and it would alow you to mix TWO mp3's DJ style. The only prob with this is that mixing DJ style is hard when u using a mouse as a cross fader.

Also if u like me then you gonna want to make sure your mp3's r backedup, so either get an IDE RAID card/MB (KT7-RAID) coupled with 2 HDD and use mirroring (expensive + waste of HD but easy and quick, and also gives more future options such as switching to striping.

Or the other option is to get a huge HD like the 75gig one and partition it into 10gig partitions and get a cheap tape drive. It really is worth thinking about this as its a pain in the @ss trying to backup 4000 mp3's onto CDR and even worse to loose them all.

Oh yeah and if u really serious about music then u should also get a seperate AMP to run a pair of floor standing speakers like the MISSION 705's

 

[ajmcgarry]

Well lucky for you:
The Register reports that Micron Technology's direct memory seller, Crucial Technology, is offering PC2100 DDR SDRAM starting $60.29 for 128MB.
Just in line with u buying a DDR system. This makes it almost as cheap as SDRAM.

<font color=red>Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery"?</font color=red>

 

[tartarhus]

If you enable multiple winamp windows you can use one sound card to mix mp3s using a freeware crossfade. It works great and is retardedly simple to use.

 

[Guest]

I was thinking of using a raid board too, but strictly for striping not for redundancy. A good ata100 controller and 2 quality 7200 rpm drives will make your life a lot more enjoyable when doing lot's of work with large files. You could probably get by with 2 20 gig or 30 gig drives. If you don't want to spend the extra for raid, ata100 is very fast in and by itself. Just be sure to get at least a 7200rpm ata100 drive as big as you can afford. I keep hearing good reviews on the IBM drives, personally I prefer Maxtor as I have always had good luck with them and they're really fast. I bench mine at 20300 in sisoft - over 4000 better than a standard udma66 drive. I also have an Asus a7m266 with 256 pc1600 ram, there is no substitute!

The SB Live! supports simultaneous playback of like 24 wave sounds at the same time. There is no need for a separate card, the Live! will fit the bill perfectly. Take a look at the 5.1 retail set with the front panel connections/controls. It's an extra $100 but, depending on exactly what you're doing, may be worth your while. This is an excellent card, with music being your main concern, this is the way to go. Even with the value card, it is amazing...

As for the Tbird, a C chip would be the best, but any Tbird will fit the bill perfectly. The C chips will run your system at 133fsb, and will most likely run cooler too. Be sure to check out www.crucial.com for the ddr ram, they're kicking everyone else's ass for prices; and I have heard nothing but good about the product. I have their stuff and have no probs at all.

 

[AmdMELTDOWN]

if you do ***any*** professional music or you value your music you should try to stay away from the via based mb, via is very bad with certain pro mixing software.

try protools free version to see if it even runs on a via based system, <A HREF="http://www.digidesign.com" target="_new">http://www.digidesign.com</A>

some say it will run, far too many say it will not run.

"Amd cpu...Gone in 2 secs flat, it truly is a fast chip!"

 

[Guest]

I currently own a Tbird 700mhz (KT133) 256mb of pc100 ram. The motherboard is a very stable MSI K7TPro. I have the following audio hardware setup with it:

Soundblaster Live Value Audio Card
Event Gina Audio Card
Emagic Unitor 8 for Midi (USB)

I sequence 4 keyboards, 1 fx processor and a drum module using Logic Audio Platinum 4.6. I have multiple hard drives but only use one for all the software. I have used Rebirth, Cakewalk, Reactor, Fruity Loops in the past and have not come across any problems. Everything runs quite smoothly. Any recent AMD system would run even more smoothly.

I would suggest the MSI K7T Turbo series motherboards as they are known to be the most stable (however not the fastest but the differences are small)

 

[Guest]

There's always someone to refute your bullsh*t, anti VIA, anti AMD posts. Resistance is futile......get yourself a T-Bird and cure your Intel fixation.

 

[Diesel]

hey jackyl, you sound like more of an audiophile like myself... I'm building myself a DAW at the moment too and have heard conflicting things about the dual HD setup... Is it better to run the 2 drives in RAID striping, or to have 1 dedicated to apps & plugins and the other dedicated to my audio files WAV's and samples or what? I dont know much about this issue and I've heard conflicting answers... Would you be able to provide me w/ a final verdict? thanks!

- Brian

 

[AmdMELTDOWN]

then refute or stfu!!!

>Resistance is futile......get yourself a T-Bird and cure your Intel fixation.

so now AMD is the borg? like Micro$oft wtf???

"Amd cpu...Gone in 2 secs flat, it truly is a fast chip!"

 

[74merc]

shut up and take your childish bickering elsewhere.

----------------------
why, oh WHY, is the world run by morons?

 

[Guest]

I normally just rely on audio software for creating samples, sequencing and recording music. I keep everything mainly on one regular IDE hard drive. I don't know much about RAID and how it affects audio related stuff though so I couldn't tell you what your best option is.

What were the conflicting things you heard?