Converting pc to use for home recording only

[rumpelstiltskin]

Hi,been using my pc for everything,now got a laptop to use for the internet etc and i now want to convert the PC i have to use for audio recording only.Anyone any tips for hard drives etc?Or how to setup the hard drive,operating system when i get the hard drive to make it run at it's most efficient(ie partitioning etc)?Im going to be using my M-audio 2496 card,i just want to change the hard drive really ,i already have 1 gig of ram in it.Hard Drive i have just now doesn't make use of the SATA capability on my mainboard,is SATA better for recording?

[davepoth]

That's something like a 4-in 4-out but with only 2 stereo RCA inputs?

You won't have much of a problem IMO; it only becomes a problem when you're trying to record dozens of tracks simultaneously. 96khz audio only needs throughput of 200kilobytes per second per channel, which is nothing really.

[Bullett]

I'm using an old PC as a recorder.

OS on one hdd, audio files on another. Fastest drive with the biggest cache you can get. Strip anything non essential off the PC. Disconnect from the net and shut down AV and firewalls.

I've recorded 8 (mono) tracks at the same time on nothing at all special then overdubed on top of those. I did up the buffer settings at one point but it's generally pretty smooth.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Im planning on doing a fresh install of the OS on new drives so there won't be any firewalls etc.I take it the hard drive the OS is on won't have to be so fast or large as the audio file one?and will i have to put my software (Cubase SX)on the same drive as the audio files or on the OS hard drive?

[patchst]

This is a good guide for optimizing your PC for audio recording. http://www.digitalproducer.com/2002/11_nov/feature...

Edited by patchst on Monday 19th April 15:22

[mrmr96]

rumpelstiltskin said:

Im planning on doing a fresh install of the OS on new drives so there won't be any firewalls etc.I take it the hard drive the OS is on won't have to be so fast or large as the audio file one?and will i have to put my software (Cubase SX)on the same drive as the audio files or on the OS hard drive?

Is there a linux version of your software available?

I use a piece of DJ'd software (connects vinyl decks to pc and uses a timecode on the track to play the mp3 back at the right speed) which needs fast access to everything. It therefore comes as a special install CD which actually creates a Linux partition on the computer and when you boot up you can choose Linux of Windows. When it goes into Linux it's a special version of that, too, which contains ONLY this DJ software, which boots automatically. The computer is therefore 100% dedicated to the task in hand. The Linux software still has access to the windows partitions, so I can download/rip/administer the audio tracks in windows, but when I want to use the software I just re-boot into it.

If you can get something similar that does audio caputre then the machine will be 100% dedicated during the caputre, and then you can reboot into windows to access the files. (I'm assuming that the capture software would be able to write to a FAT32 windows partition.)

[davepoth]

There isn't a linux version of Cubase, but Traverso and Audacity are both good alternatives.

[timbob]

More RAM is key - 1GB isn't a lot these days. Upping that to 2 or 3 GB will seriously help out Cubase when it's trying to process multiple tracks, and RAM's about the price of bread these days.

[Bullett]

I have the software and OS on C: and the files on E: (or whatever it is)

For capture it's disk speed
For playback and editing RAM and CPU processing becomes important especially when you start plugging in lots of effects (esp Reverb).

I use Tracktion though so Cubase may be a lot more intensive and bloated. It's years since I used that!