Building A DAW INFO Setup

[pilgrim]

Saw the roll your own on prorec.com. Great instructions but outdated . Is there a place that has an updated build your own DAW. I like the set he has but only with a new pent and asus mobo. So many opionions out there on how to set drives up, Master, Slave, ect. Here's the parts I'm thinking of buying for my DAW.

Rackmount case
Enermax wisper 430 watt power supply
Asus P4t-e Mobo
Pent 2.4 noorthwood (512 cache)
3 Maxtor Harddrives ( 1 for OS, 2 for Audio no Raid, removable bays)
Plextor burner and floppy disk
Samsung pc800 rdram 2x 256 ( heard must install in pairs)
Matrox 16 mg dual head video card
Win XP
Sonar XL
Aardvark Q10
If theres anything you don't like with these parts please let me know and if you have the proper info on how to set this up. THanks

[TeeCee]

I'm personally anti P4 and very anti RamBus RAM. but I'm nobody. But you asked ;). I'm an Athlon proponent with two screaming systems to back me.

I also buy on the "commodity curve". The point at which more money doesn't proportionally buy you better hardware. I would buy an 80 GB hard drive for $110 rather than a 120 GB hard drive, which should cost $165, that actually costs $195. Apply that to RAM and processors and you've got a commodity curve PC that does 85% of the best at about 55% of the price. You can always upgrade to what's hot now when the price drops and still have paid less to get there.

Consider a motherboard with a RAID controller to give you additional IDE channels (sharing IDE channels is best to be avoided). And don't leave out a CD or DVD-ROM just because you have a burner. I do like the Matrox G-550 although the Windows 2000 drivers have the features I want on and don't have my Win98SE PC.

I would also contact Sonar and Aardvark to see what they recommend. I tried this with the Propellerheads regarding sound cards and got a lot of NOTHING from them.

Good luck,

[AcousticPro]

I agree that RAMBus is a poor technology from a couple of fronts. The Aardvark system is very good and will work with a lot of different hardware configurations. If you go Pentium then go pure Intel with the chipsets. Otherwise do as our friend TeeCee and get an AMD system that will be stable. I'm not a big fan of RAID for audio, not many real world benefits for most users. I would say in terms of help building the system this forum is becoming a very good resource to ask these questions.

[TeeCee]

I don't use the RAID controller for RAID. I use it for additional IDE interfaces. Hard drives are fast enough not to need a RAID system for speed. You could do a RAID mirror and give up half your space for security purposes. It's probably cheaper to just keep your drives clean and back up your projects. Technically, you would probably be better off with an after market PCI ATA interface as they can usually be used for CD-ROMS and the like where as built in ones (usually made by the same companies as the after market ones - Promise and High Point) are often "light" versions limited to hard drives only. With this, you could place your boot drive and CD-RW on the PCI controller and use the built in IDE controller for your audio data. The built in controller (for modern chip sets) relies on a much faster bus for data transfer and frees up the PCI bus for audio I/O only (unless you use DSP cards in which case they are also on the PCI bus).

The way IDE works, you're best off if you can keep only one device on a channel. I can back it up with the details of how IDE works if anyone wants that.

[AcousticPro]

TeeCee,

Thanks for the clarification. It sounded like that was what you were doing but it was somewhat unclear from your previous post and I didn't want people getting confused as to the use of RAID as it pertains to digital audio. I personally still using SCSI due to the performance gain specifically relating to edit density and the reliability doing that type of work. Not to say that is necessary for everyone. Firewire is becoming a great alternative as long as you have a good firewire chip such as the Oxford 911.

[TeeCee]

I migrated out of SCSI. I was and all SCSI guy a few years back. This is why I insist uppon having the extra IDE controllers. IDE's use of channels to speak to only one device at a time with no option like SCSI disconnect is my biggest hold out on giving it a total thumbs up. Serial ATA should be shipping later this year. I hope it's a real improvement for users.