Building a studio computer
I am thinking about upgrading to a desktop computer for the studio so I spoke with my friend Ricky Raymond about what would be some good things to look for. He’s a computer whiz and with my basic understanding of what I need I bet we can whip up a pretty decent PC.
And yes, I am going to build a PC. Mac’s are cool, but all my programs are for PC and I don’t see myself making that switch anytime soon. The Windows 7 laptop I’m using now is great so I think I’ll stick with PC.
Anyway, Ricky recommended the best processor I could afford. And from my experience, it seems like I’m going to need at least a dual 3ghz processor. I have a dual 2.4Ghz right now and it could be faster, some projects get bogged down when there are a lot of effects running.
4gigs of ram should do the trick of course more would be nice.
I won’t really be using the computer for anything but studio purposes and since I use an external soundcard and won’t be doing anything visually intensive, Ricky recommended that I slack on video and sound cards. However I want to use dual monitors so I may have to get a video card which supports that since most onboard video/sound cards only have one monitor port.
I already have one monitor that I have been plugging into my laptop. I’d like to get a couple of big-ass flat screens, but to be cost effective I think I’ll just get another CRT, I bet I can find one for free somewhere.
Since I need a quiet environment for clean recordings, I need a quiet fan. Ricky said to look for a case with a high-end fan. There are also sound-dampening boxes out there that you can put around your computer but they are expensive. I may build my own little ‘shield’ with some OC703 if it ends up being too loud. If you are going to make your own sound shield make sure it has adequate ventilation so as not to overheat the computer.
Also make sure the case has an appropriate number of USB/Firewire ports for your needs. I’m going to need at least 4 USBs (mouse, midi keyboard, interface, extra) and perhaps 1 firewire (my girlfriend may occasionally use the computer for capturing footage off of the video camera).
For a recording computer it is a good idea to have 2 harddrives; 1 main drive with a sata hook up for running programs and playback, and a secondary drive for the recordings to be written to. It’s not good to be writing and reading off of the same drive. 10,000rpms would be choice and I believe 7,500rpms is the minimum. For size, I think I am going to go with 500gigs each, that and a few external drives and I should have plenty of space.
For software, I think I am going to go with Windows 7. I have it on the laptop and it has been awesome. No problems. Although I dread the switch, hopefully afterwards I’ll have all of my other software running more smoothly than ever.