Totally new to PC recording..sort of...

[ktk9]

Either way, that machine should carry you far. Now you just need.......... lol

M

Hahahaha No kidding! It never ends.

I went to Tom's Hardware site to make sure all of this stuff worked well together, and I was initially going to get a liquid cooling system, but their reviewers reviewed a bunch of them, and this Air Cooling system fared better than the liquid ones, and they said it was more quiet than the liquid cooling ones, as well.


I'm not really worried about noise, I'm probably going to put the PC in a closet with sliding doors. I intend to run the cables under the sliding door, and put a box fan in there as well. Then I'll have the 12'x12' bedroom with a pair of keyboards, an electric drumkit, and the keyboard, mouse, control surface, monitor, etc on a desk by the keyboard controllers.

I'm going to mount studio foam to two pieces of plywood, and then mount those in the corner on a hinge like a door, and I'll sing into the corner where the mic will be.... sort of creating an isolated booth... or I may foam out the close and put the mic in there, since the main room is essentially all MIDI stuff.

Next up will be a decent pair of Active audio monitors. (I've got a set of passive Yorkville monitors, a pair of old auratones, and some things like that, but I want to get something a bit more current.... probably some M_Audio's.. I have a friend who has a set of them and his mixes sound great all over the place, and he said part of it is those speakers.

[Rolling Estonian]

I have M-Audios, they suit me fine. You sound like your more than on your way! Would love to see pics of the space when you're settled. I'm maybe a year or so away from starting on a more permanent situation and system. I'm still soundly in the learning/beginner mode so no rush. It's a great ride though!

M

[ktk9]

When I was 19, my parents let me soundproof their garage. I worked for a Cabinet making shop at the time, and I saved as muchmoney as a could for months on end. I double walled the inside of the garage, and they were 12" thick when I got finished. I could play my drums out there at 3:00AM in the morning if I wanted to without bothering anybody.
We carpeted the inside with carpet sample tiles, basically carpet doormats. I had that place to play and record in for almost 30 years, until my dad sold that house a few months ago. My younger brother and I were hoping to buy the house from him so we could keep the recording studio, but it just didn't work out that way.

[cremley]

I'm not new to Mixcraft (had since 6, so...) and upgraded to MC 7 (x64) using an Athlon X2 3.0 GHz with 12MB RAM with built in graphics and 500GB 5200rpm drive on Win7 x64 SP1. This PC has worked well for me as it is not connected to anything...no Wifi, no internet, etc. I did this because it was an old workhorse that was essentially free and didn't want any easy way for crap to get on it and slow it down. I guess you can consider it a Dedicated workstation. I use an M-Audio Delta 66 PCI interface and the system works flawlessly with no more than 15 effects and VST's combined. It seems to handle the 32 bit 'wrappers' OK for the time being, but it appears that these 'wrappers' eat up a lot of CPU. I do all my mixing on this dinosaur, then transfer the "master" to flash drive and distribute the media on a different PC.

Here is my big question....

I want to upgrade and need some advice. Here is what I am thinking....

Intel i7 6700 -- or -- Intel i5 Quad Core ??
Thunderbolt Interface
3.0 TB WD Black HD
16GB RAM

Here is where opinions count. What do you think? I'm kinda hooked on Thunderbolt Kool-Aid right now for the future of audio, be it PC or MAC. My M-Audio PCI card is quickly becoming obsolete and was just gonna bite-the-bullet all at one time and upgrade the interface and System Unit. If I won the lottery, maybe get some kind of 12x8 I/O device.

What about saving money by getting a quad-core i5 vs. an i7 ?

Do I honestly need a graphics card, even some $79 ATI or GeForce ?

What are your opinions on Thunderbolt? I've seen some Intel Motherboards with this USB 3.1C thingy... and I think it is just the connector that needs to be sorted-out. To dork-out, Thunderbolt puts the devices as "first class" on the bus. I was hoping that this would keep any bottlenecks for now, and in the future. I've never had good luck with USB devices, no matter what driver.

What about audio interfaces that have MIDI built-in? I would love to have all this data run as 'real-time' as possible.

Now, let me hear it !!! Please... I really am looking for some input... if money were no object, what would be your computer and audio interface? Again, is Thunderbolt really all it is cracked-up to be for PC audio?


Thanks....

[Rolling Estonian]

I'd go i7.
https://www.quora.com/Are-dual-core-i7- ... processors

Thunderbolt is definitely faster but not too many I/O use it, well, the more expensive ones do. Graphics card isn't very important for music.

You didn't mention, desktop or laptop?

I've priced out my next desktop for music, i7 quad, 32gb ram, 2 SSD and 2 HDMI out for two monitors (monitors not included). It's going to cost just about $1k. A ways down the road but it's going to be a monster! lol

M

[willcutt]

I'm also new to the PC recording. I purchased Mixcraft 6 over a year ago. Don't use it as much as I'would like. Using a USB cable that came with some other software. Seems okay. I have also bought a M Audio fast track and a Lexicon Omega off Ebay. Before I buy more software/drivers, will either one of these work with Mixcraft 6? Running Win 8 on desktop.
Thanks, Dave

[fredfish]

Hi Willcutt - welcome to the forum.

Looking up the details of both bits of kit on the relevant manufacturers websites would indicate that you should be OK with Windows 8. Neither specifically have Windows 10 drivers (if you update) and in fact on the Lexicon website there is a specific message saying that they haven't yet done any Windows 10 drivers.

To get the best out of either bit of kit you should be using the ASIO drivers for lowest latency. However one of the restrictions of ASIO is that you cannot have more than one device active at a time so using both bits of kit at the same time might prove problematical (this isn't a restriction of Mixcraft - it is a restriction of ASIO).

I suggest - as you already have those bits of kit - try them out, download the latest drivers from the respective websites and then make a decision.

By all means come back here if you run in to difficulties - plenty of helpful folks about

Good luck

Cheers

John

[jad albert]

When I was 19, my parents let me soundproof their garage. I worked for a Cabinet making shop at the time, and I saved as muchmoney as a could for months on end. I double walled the inside of the garage, and they were 12" thick when I got finished. I could play my drums out there at 3:00AM in the morning if I wanted to without bothering anybody.
We carpeted the inside with carpet sample tiles, basically carpet doormats. I had that place to play and record in for almost 30 years, until my dad sold that house a few months ago. My younger brother and I were hoping to buy the house from him so we could keep the recording studio, but it just didn't work out that way.

That reminds me my old days....feeling nostalgic!
TragusInfantigoRx