Hey all.

I've got this ever present dread that my current PC is going to crap out sooner or later so I want to start building a new one made solely for recording music on.

I use Reason 4.0, Ableton 7.0, a Line6 Toneport for live instruments.

I am really not a computer guy, so what goes into building a good home studio computer?

What are the essentials, and about how much money am I looking at spending?

I want to get the nicest parts I possibly can, I'm looking at spending like 800-1000 at the most...obviously cheaper would be better but I want something that will be quality for a long time to come.

Really all you need to concentrate on is the Processor speed and ram (the more the better of course) and make sure to get either USB 2.0 or Firewire ports on the PC and use an audio interface as your soundcard..

Do you have an audio interface?
Do you have studio monitors?

What kind of setup do you have now as far as audio equipment is concerned?

Your going to want to have a big hard drive, especially if you are going to start doing anything involving WAV files (i.e. recording and sampling) 200g or more..

Right now im actually using an EMachines and as cheap as the computer may be, It runs very well.. I've got an AMD Athlon 64 bit processor, 2.4 ghz. 200g harddrive and 2 gigs of ram in it.. using an M-Audio Ozone as my audio interface (replacing the sound card). I record in protools as well as work in reason, and my hard drive is about to be full soon.. I plan on getting a terabyte (1,000 gigs) external drive soon.

I have a custom computer a friend gave me with a dual core pentium processor overclocked to about 4ghz (per processor) and i just ordered 4 gigs of ram for it.. so im hoping the thing is going to work out.. I have yet to turn it on LOL but if i get that thing booted up, its gonna be a beast! with 8 fans on it, it wont be the quietest computer, but man will it be fast! haha.

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http://www.myspace.com/eddiemarshall

Where abouts do you live? I know some great sites for custom computers, watercooled, simulation, video editing and music creation...

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I'm not really sure what you mean by audio interface, (I'm quite a newb with terminology and such).

I do have studio monitors.

I think the Toneport might be what you mean by audio interface. It has direct connections for guitar cables so I can record electric guitar and also a mic plug so I can record vocals and other acoustic instruments.

I two mics; condenser and dynamic.

So what I'll typically do is lay down a guitar rhythm track, use Reason for Drums/Bass/Pads, put vocals over top of it and mix it in Ableton.

heres some of my stuff; this isnt a advertisent thread jsut to give you an idea of how I do stuff.

www.myspace.com/jostmusic

Theres also a pic of my studio (*cough* room) on there.

TitanCow I'm from Olympia, Washington.

Thanks for the responses guys; I'm pretty happy that it doesn't look to complex to get a decent computer for recording.

So say I wanted to start from scratch; what do I need to get?

If I get parts, my bro can put it together, he's good with comps.

An audio interface is just a piece of equipment that connects to your computer via USB or Firewire that allows you to connect microphones, instruments, etc.
The Line 6 Toneport is and audio interface.. You are correct.. I just didnt notice you said you owned it when i read the other post.. MY bad lol..
Anyways.. I added you on myspace, check out my setup when u get a chance. Its quite simple...
If you want to start from scratch.. there is actually a good bit involved with it.. you are going to need the following:

Case (preferably one with a fan or 2)
Power supply
Motherboard
Processor
Video card (some motherboards have them integrated)
Hard drive
Ram
CD/DVD/DVD RW drive
network adaptor (if you want to connect to internet with it)

And thats just the basics..
Honestly man.. the best thing to do would be to find a decent PC for around 500 or 600 bucks (make sure it has windows XP.. NOT Vista) which means it may have to be slightly used unless you can still find someone selling brand new computers with XP installed on them..
I would look for the following:

Processor - around 2.0ghz or faster
Ram - 2gb if you can find it (not so important, you can upgrade ram cheaply)
Hard drive - 80-100 gig(minimum) or larger (again, not so important you can upgrade or even just get an external if needed)

Besides those 3 key points in searching for a computer, all the other stuff is pretty much included when u buy one..
I just saw a brand new Dell with a 17" flat panel monitor included at Wal-Mart last night for 398!

Computers are getting cheap man. and its more cost efficient to get one pre-packaged and upgrade it a little bit..



THE OTHER OPTION!

Go with a mac mini and call it a day lol..
Seriously.. If you got that you would be completely set, as long as it had 1 gig of ram or more..
It may take some time to adjust to Mac platform but it is well worth it in the end... I want a mini sooooooo bad lol.

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http://www.myspace.com/eddiemarshall

Just wanted to point out that PCI is another option.

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Http://www.myspace.com/iamconcise
Http://www.virb.com/iamconcise

That is correct.. Thanks SG i did leave that out, its just not as common. But definately an option.

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http://www.myspace.com/eddiemarshall

If you emailed your local computer shop, a small one though, not a big chain store, they will usually assemble a computer for you if you give them a list of parts. I designed one and emailed the specs I'd like to a nearby prefab and they purchased the custom parts and built it themselves. It's the best way to build a computer

There's only one computer shop I know in washington and that's Bear Computers, which Gabe Newell, basically the guy who managed the Half-life games, got his computer from there.

http://www.bearcomputer.com/

Give them the specs you want, which we can help you with and they will make it for you.

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hi everybody
i've never been on a forum b4
the last studio i had was over 25 yrs ago and was based around a yamaha 4 track cassette
ah the good old days
i'm currently trying to glue together a pc for using with reason 4 on a really tight budget and would really appreciate any help out there
i just bought a dell workstation off ebay with a p4ht 3.8 ghz
can i use 2 monitors ?
the graphics card supports 2 vga outputs
its got 1 gig of ram but can support 8 gigs so what type of modules should i get
will i be able to use a terratec ews64xl card
if some big strong person could hold my hand through this initial build up process i'd surely put in a good word with the almighty
i feel like i'm likely to meet him soon

Greetzzzzzzzzz


Remy aka IGNORED

(Formaly known as SCEZ)

(Lol , gave the answers IN the quote ... , not that you think i didnt reply'ed .. :P )