I just wanted to give a huge shoutout to ADKChris, one of the ADK guys. For those who don’t know, ADK is a company that builds and sells prebuilt music computers in the States.
I bought an ADK system in April 2014, so going on 3 years old. It’s been working great.They do have a life-long policy of free phone and remote control support, and so I recently set up a phone help session with him re: post W10 AE tweaks.
He spent 90 full minutes on the phone with me, remote-controlled into my computer, and everyone one of those minutes was with a helpful and with a sunny disposition. He went through every program to make sure I was using it and it wasn’t bloatware, downloaded untold number of new drivers, then played a busy Cubase project of mine multiple times to fine tune the Cubase and UAD settings.
Oh, and did I mention he educated and answered questions the whole way?
As mainly an amateur musician (much more than a computer guru) I can’t imagine how long it would have taken me to get all that right on my own (if ever … there’s a fair chance I would have messed it up so badly that it wouldn’t start or something).
Bottom line - based on my experience, my recommendation for folks in the States that want to do music, and are not extremely technically skilled computerwise - strongly consider buying a system from ADK. Lifelong full support of this type can be worth 10-100x more than the premium one pays over an off-the-shelf Best Buy or Dell computer. Not to mention the components in the computer are guaranteed to work nicely with each other from Day 1.
Thanks, ADK - one happy customer here!