Wife left me - now it's time to record some music :D

I’m here for recommendations on what I should purchase (besides of course Cubase DAW).

  1. Motherboard & CPU (How much memory would I need for basic audio recording with or without MIDI)

  2. Video card, does this make a difference? Was reading about sluggish performance going back some time.

  3. Hard Disks, does speed matter or size? I can save projects on USB thumb drive.

  4. Monitor have this already from my current gaming rig

  5. Audio interface, was looking at Lexicon I-Onix, recommendations?

  6. I will need monitors of course, but will settle on Avantone as I want to produce music for Itunes

Any futher advice is both welcome and appreciated.

Cheers dudez

Spend some time reading through the posts. You’ll find most people going for either the Intel Sandy Bridge (or wait for the Ivy Bridge to come out), or go for the AMD Phenom II, if you’re an AMD fan.

Whilst I think AMD would be a good option and i am a fan, for music production I’d steer you towards Intel and i7 processors. I went for an i 7950 but there’s much more powerful ones out there now. On the other hand mines now pretty well priced. It does however work like a dream. I have 12 gig of RAM. Again RAMs pretty cheap these days and with music production in mind its a pleasure to be able to load up on pretty much as many VSTs and Plug ins ass you like. RAMS worth spending on. As a tip, I’d say as well make sure you go for faster RAM, not the standard 1333Mhz. I went for 1600MHz. The speed of RAM is prob easy to overlook but important for this kind of machine.

There’s a real selection of very good audio Interfaces out there. I too walked this mine field of choosing one just a little while back. After much deliberation I went for Focusrite. They offer a whole range and as i understand it even the lower end choices still have the high quality Pre Amp. From my experience with it I think there pretty good. Whilst im sure that in the price range there’s plenty of options you could be equally as happy with, I can say at least, that Focusrite does the job and does it well.

That’s exactly what I think. I’ve always built AMD-based machines, and they have ALWAYS been reliable, responsive, good value, and solid DAWs. I’ve recently upgraded from an AMD dual core machine to an Intel i7 2600k with an Asus Z68 motherboard. So I’ve skipped a number of generations of hardware. The second generation i7 is a complete beast; just look through this forum (and particularly at anything from JSChild) to see other people’s views about this.

Steinberg’s new ‘Steinberg power scheme’ works like a dream with the i7 (and was probably designed for it I suspect). I spent about £400 on a processor, Z68 mobo and 8Gb of memory to get a machine that absolutely laughs in the face of low latency, high vsti count and numerous instances of convolution reverb. It’s genuinely all good.

Steve.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

My current system, (the one I built for the wife :wink: is an AMD Phenom x4 9750 with HD3400 graphics and 2MB 667Mhz RAM and it works fine for basic tasks such as office applications so does anyone think it would be ok for C6 and Halion Sonic and would it run W7?

I’ve still got to get monitor speakers and an audio interface. I was thinking of USB but would the power scheme work properly?

I don’t know what the motherboard is so does anyone know if there’s a diagnostic program that can help?

That CPU really isn’t so bad, so you will probably run Cubase 6 fine as long as you don’t expect it to run huge projects. I would look into upgrading the RAM though. As mentioned that isn’t expensive and 2GB at that speed is really very little these days.
Quickest way to determine the motherboard is to just open up the case and see what brand is printed on it :slight_smile:
Was this a pre-built machine or did you assemble it yourself? If prebuilt, it’s usually some brandless motherboard.
Check how much RAM slots there are and find out what their maximum clockspeed is and purchase some new sticks based on that info.

Just try it?

Steve

I think long term your gonna want a better system for sure. Especially once you get into it more. But there’s no harm in getting started with what you have and seeing how you get on. In fact it makes better sense even. I did many a mile on an old Dell (with not half the processor you have) before laying down any serious cash on a new system. Plus as well, a computer to run a DAW on may be something youd like to spend a little time researching before jumping in only to regret part of the purchase later. I spent months getting my spec together. At least if you make a start with what you have you can start making music sooner rather than later.

The RAM will be an issue pretty much from the off, so i guess youve got to make a bit of a judgement call as to whether to upgrade that now or else sit it out until you get a better system. If your using VSTs especially, RAM will be a problem with what you have. But keep projects small or broken into separate projects and youll get going at least.

I think I’ll go with what Steve and Strophid have said about more RAM but I will get something faster and that should avoid the need to purchase something completely new.

The only thing I don’t know is if or how Windows 7 will run. Since Windows 8 is around the corner it may be wise to wait it out and see what Steinberg do with their next iteration since it seems they have been very faithful to customers with patches but coming so late in the piece I think I might just wait for V7 (unless prices come down in the mean time).

Hi Steve

I prefer intel/nvidia for gaming and ami/ati for office or apps that require stability, but for now I think I will take your and strophids advice and update only the RAM as that might bring a performance boost but as stated I need to know what the motherboard can take so therefore need to know the model.

Thanks for all the help guys