Recommendation

[BISHOPA3]

I have a PC with the following specs:

Processor: INTEL 800MHZ PENTIUM III PROCESSOR AND MOTHERBOARD

Memory: 512MB Memory

Hard Drive: 20GB 7M Qtm ATA Hard Drive (I'll be purchasing a 2nd HD for audio)

Video Card: 16MB NVIDIA TNT-2 Vanta Graphics Accelerator

CD-ROM: 20x Minimum/48x Maximum IDE C

CDRW: 8x/4x/32x Recordable/Rewriteable CDRW

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition

What kind of soundcard and DAW would you recommend to me for simple home recording? My budget is $1000. (I know it's small but, it's a start! :-)

[xstatic]

I am currently using Cubase SX, and I actually love it. I would recommend one of the MOTU souncard options, or if you can afford it, an RME I/O setup. But first, I would dump windows ME and drop to 2000 or to 98.

[Justin]

Hrrrm, if you want something easy, upgrade to windows XP and get an Mbox,(USB, 2 inputs, built in preamps, comes with software) I'd add a firewire hard drive like the Glyph Companion 80gig if you can afford it too.

I personally would probably get my elbows dirty and:
add a 20 - 40 gig internal IDE 7200 rpm drive.
Get a good Aardvark card, Dirctpro24/96 or Q10 would work...and comes with Cakewalk software.
Try to get on an upgrade program to Cakewalk Sonar or Cubase SL from the software packed in with the soundcard.

The RME setup would be very similar...and also a fine solution.

[BISHOPA3]

Thanks fellas for the advice. Hopefully I'll be up and running pretty soon.

[jeharris]

First of all, ME is the most God-awful OS in the world, and you should just wipe it and do a fresh install of Windows 2000 Professional. After that, download service pack 2 and apply it. Your current system is fine, but I'd add more memory, perhaps 1GB if your board can take it.

On the hard drives, your audio drive had better be fast!(7200 RPM). Either UltraATA-100 or UltraATA0-133. Keep the OS on the drive that you already have, along with your sequencer software.

You may wonder why it is that I say wipe the drive clean? Well, you will find that it's nearly impossible to "upgrade" ME. I've done more ME machines than I can shake a stick at and I've had to wipe every one of them and do a fresh install.

What on earth could Microsoft have been thinking? Make money and just throw anything out there to the average consumer. Oh, and last, but not least, I'm sure that xstatic didn't mean it the way it was said by "drop down" to Windows 2000 Professional. Believe me, It's a giant step UP!!! And don't even Touch 98/98SE, as most of the new software does not support it. If you do not want to do Windows 2000 Professional, then do Windows XP Professional.

:D