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HTH AMPS

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M
« on: May 16, 2009, 06:41:21 PM »
I ended up getting a Digidesign Mbox2 mini to do some recording with.  Unknown to me, the Protools software that comes with it requires 1Gb of RAM minimum so it won't work with my Sony Vaio laptop (512Mb RAM, 1.75G CPU).

So, I have three choices...

(1) return the Mbox
(2) upgrade the laptop with more RAM
(3) get a newer PC

options 1 and 2 are pointless, so I'm left with having to fork out for a new PC.  problem is that I'm fairly clueless as to what the best features are these days.  My budget is £500, though I could stretch to £600 at a push.

Whats the deal with all the various CPUs these days? - Core2, Dual Core, Centrino etc...  Are these budget versions of a 'proper' Pentium CPU? (bear in mind that the last time I was up on PCs was when I built a PC with a PII 450).

From what I've seen in PC World and Currys this afternoon, I can get the following within my budget...

* 2.2G CPU
* 4Gb RAM
* 500Gb HDD

Also, whats the deal with Windows Vista? - is it just the next generation of Windows after XP?  I think the home editions of these are generally a problem with recording software - go for the Pro Edition?

Jonny

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Re: M
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2009, 06:47:01 PM »
Are you looking for a PC or Laptop?

My girlfriend got a new PC for £550 ish and it is really good (I can't really emphasis how good it is) but it's better than my recent laptop purchase (grr..), she got hers from PC World too, the HP one.

Plus if you need extra gig space, you can always buy externals. She has four already.

If you play games I'd stick to XP for old games, if you got recent games then Vista cause they'd then be compatible. If you're going for performance I'd go for XP but that's secondhand knowledge there.

PS. Your pedals look the cats pajamas.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 06:49:05 PM by Jonny »
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MDV

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Re: M
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2009, 07:07:36 PM »
Get a Core 2 duo, the fastest you can afford, with 4Gb of the fastest RAM you can afford. in a 500£ budget I'd spend 100 on processor and 50 to 100 on ram. Mobo to match and a sturdy 500W PSU. Fast HDs are a big deal for audio, get some baracuda 11s or WD caviars. Use 2 - one for OS and one for all audio data. If youre feeling lucky get 4 and make 2 raid 0s.

Plus case, opticals, decent mobo that should bring you to 600 ish.

Oh, I'm talking base unit here, no monitor keyboard and mouse. If you really wanted to you could spend your whole budget on those, or if you look around you can get them all for very little.

Elliot

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Re: M
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2009, 07:18:15 PM »
Personally I'd try and avoid Vista if possible (and it looks like its on its way out already) - ask if you can downgrade to XP Pro - at least everything will work with it.
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Johnny Mac

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Re: M
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2009, 07:18:56 PM »
Mark does a Core 2 Duo have a lot more power than a P4 3.2ghz  :?:
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MDV

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Re: M
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2009, 08:44:47 PM »
Mark does a Core 2 Duo have a lot more power than a P4 3.2ghz  :?:

Far more.

The C2D architecture is much more efficient with higher throughput per clock-tick, so dont take any notice of the clock speeds when comparing the different chip-types. The slowest C2Ds you can get today are faster than the fastest P4s. i7s are to C2Ds as C2Ds are to P4s, but a PC based on one is pretty expensive. I was gonna get one, but my C2D E6600 is still holding up pretty well.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 08:47:13 PM by MDV »

Oli

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Re: M
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2009, 09:09:41 PM »
With Protools, it's quite processor dependant- i think your laptop will still struggle- my 2GHz Core 2 Duo (MacBook) with 2GB ram sometimes struggles, you'd probably have to put the hardware buffer at it's highest, but then you've got really bad latency which is impossible to work with. Unfortunately you'll have to get a higher spec machine to cope with it.

EDIT (would help to read the OP properly!!): i'd say that you can run protools fine with 2 or 3 gigs of ram, but maybe get a 3GHz Core 2 Duo (or there abouts), the 2GHz might be a bit low when running with windows.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 09:13:46 PM by Oli »
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hunter

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Re: M
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2009, 09:10:46 PM »

Never. Ever. Buy into Digidesign/Protools. Never. Ever!
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MDV

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Re: M
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2009, 09:12:34 PM »

Never. Ever. Buy into Digidesign/Protools. Never. Ever!

?

hunter

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Re: M
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2009, 09:19:24 PM »

Never. Ever. Buy into Digidesign/Protools. Never. Ever!

?

Because they (ab)use their market position of having been the studio standard for a long time, they aren't open and force you into using their software with their hardware. I don't agree with such tactics and rather get stuff that uses standards that leave it up to me which hardware/software to combine as I wish.
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Oli

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Re: M
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2009, 09:38:49 PM »

Never. Ever. Buy into Digidesign/Protools. Never. Ever!

?

Because they (ab)use their market position of having been the studio standard for a long time, they aren't open and force you into using their software with their hardware. I don't agree with such tactics and rather get stuff that uses standards that leave it up to me which hardware/software to combine as I wish.

On the flip side of that argument, you have other applications which are expected to support thousands of 3rd party interfaces flawlessly. If you buy a piece of hardware, buying a separate piece of software to work with it is a bit of a pain, so why not have the two bundled together?

The standard for ProTools has come about because back in the day (when computers weren't powerful enough to handle multitracking and sequencing), the TDM system provided a solution- as the software (and hardware) developed, it was natural that people were going to stick with a system that they knew. If Digidesign decided to allow Protools to use any 3rd party hardware, then there would be so many more problems with it, and the software itself would be really heavily bloated- in fact, one reason why ProTools continues to be a favourite for engineers, is that when they have major revisions (version 7 to version 8, for example), all the code is looked at, streamlined, and anything that is not needed is taken out, so it stays as a slick, fast functioning and desireable system, as you don't have constant support for legacy systems.
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hunter

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Re: M
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2009, 09:43:08 PM »

Never. Ever. Buy into Digidesign/Protools. Never. Ever!

?

Because they (ab)use their market position of having been the studio standard for a long time, they aren't open and force you into using their software with their hardware. I don't agree with such tactics and rather get stuff that uses standards that leave it up to me which hardware/software to combine as I wish.

On the flip side of that argument, you have other applications which are expected to support thousands of 3rd party interfaces flawlessly. If you buy a piece of hardware, buying a separate piece of software to work with it is a bit of a pain, so why not have the two bundled together?

The standard for ProTools has come about because back in the day (when computers weren't powerful enough to handle multitracking and sequencing), the TDM system provided a solution- as the software (and hardware) developed, it was natural that people were going to stick with a system that they knew. If Digidesign decided to allow Protools to use any 3rd party hardware, then there would be so many more problems with it, and the software itself would be really heavily bloated- in fact, one reason why ProTools continues to be a favourite for engineers, is that when they have major revisions (version 7 to version 8, for example), all the code is looked at, streamlined, and anything that is not needed is taken out, so it stays as a slick, fast functioning and desireable system, as you don't have constant support for legacy systems.

Sure, to each his own. I stay "open source" and on the Mac, never any issues and always very powerful and slick system, especially with Logic. Oh by the way, some studio guys I knew changed to Logic a few years back, as I think it was the only other (and better) option to run a TDM system.
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MDV

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Re: M
« Reply #12 on: May 17, 2009, 01:30:03 AM »

Never. Ever. Buy into Digidesign/Protools. Never. Ever!

?

Because they (ab)use their market position of having been the studio standard for a long time, they aren't open and force you into using their software with their hardware. I don't agree with such tactics and rather get stuff that uses standards that leave it up to me which hardware/software to combine as I wish.

Thats what I thought youd say. I'm down with that - its why I dont have any. RME + whatever DAW i like at any given time FTW!

Bradock PI

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Re: M
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2009, 02:09:42 AM »
)
Get a Core 2 duo, the fastest you can afford, with 4Gb of the fastest RAM you can afford. in a 500£ budget I'd spend 100 on processor and 50 to 100 on ram. Mobo to match and a sturdy 500W PSU. Fast HDs are a big deal for audio, get some baracuda 11s or WD caviars. Use 2 - one for OS and one for all audio data. If youre feeling lucky get 4 and make 2 raid 0s.

Plus case, opticals, decent mobo that should bring you to 600 ish.

Oh, I'm talking base unit here, no monitor keyboard and mouse. If you really wanted to you could spend your whole budget on those, or if you look around you can get them all for very little.

+1 on those specs

An E8400 at 3GHz is a great processor for value at around £120 (shame it used to be cheaper

I have found Hitachi drives to be really quick and great value for money at times. I would avoid raid drives without redundancy as it massivly increases the risk of failure go for really high capacity vertically encoded drives which have a huge areal density (since almost all drives spin at 7200 the amount of data passed under the head in one rotation influences transfer speeds a lot)

Vista uses more memory and on any machine speced with 4Gb RAM or less will be slower than XP. There is no real difference for most applications between XP-home and XP pro other than interaction with corperate networks and servers.

Do a regular drive defrag the assesments are never right as the volumes of data are so large now the system thinks most of the drive is unfragmanted but if 2% on a 750Gb is frag thats 15Gb which is probably all your current work.

Adam.M

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Re: M
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2009, 03:38:22 AM »
Why not just put some more RAM in the Laptop for now? RAM's pretty darned cheap. The laptop should be able to handle up to 2GB with 1GB in each RAM slot. It's probably got two sticks of 256mb in there at the moment.

At least then when you do get around to buying a new PC, you have a Laptop that can also run your DAW when needed, even if it isn't all that powerful at least it could run it.

Also, don't even think about buying a new PC yet. Wait for Windows 7 to come out.
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