McBeer
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First DAW
Hey.
I am looking to build my first DAW but dont exactly know where to start.
I am looking to spend around £600 maximum. This is just for the Case, PSU, CPU, Memory, MOBO and Hard Drive.
I was looking to get an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 for £143. Thats all I know however.
Any help would be appreciated.
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cryophonik
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RE: First DAW
2006/12/19 13:14:55
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Hey McBeer,
I just built my first DAW using the same processor. I'm in the US, so the prices may be a bit different, but you can see the components in my signature. The entire package cost me about $1000 and I've been very happy with it. I'm running Sonar 6PE, Project5 v2, FL Studio 6, and a ton of plugins. I primarily produce electronica and when I run 8-12 channels of e-drums, 10-20 channels of soft synths, and 4-6 channels of vocals, I'm barely able to push 30% of the CPU. My advice is to get at least 2GB of RAM and don't skimp on the power supply. I really like my Antec 900 case (~$140 US) - it has a ton of fans to keep it cool, but is still amazingly quiet. Good luck!
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yep
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RE: First DAW
2006/12/19 13:30:57
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ORIGINAL: McBeer
Hey.
I am looking to build my first DAW but dont exactly know where to start.
I am looking to spend around £600 maximum. This is just for the Case, PSU, CPU, Memory, MOBO and Hard Drive.
I was looking to get an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 for £143. Thats all I know however.
Any help would be appreciated.
Cakewalk posts some tested system spec somewhere on this website. The Digi User Conference used to keep a fairly updated list of complete system builds in various price ranges (i.e. the $500 DAW, the $1000 DAW, etc.) computermusic.co.uk does an issue every so often on building a DAW from scratch. You could also do a lot worse than to simply buy one ready-made from a company that specializes in DAWs such as ADK or LiquidDAW. The two things to keep in mind are: 1. Things change so fast that it can be hard to get good, up-to-date information 2. Off-the-shelf home or office PCs, even more expensive "performance" PCs are not always the best bet for DAW. Low-latency multitrack audio can be heavily reliant on some overlooked things, such as chipset, MOBO, memory brand or type, and OS configuration. It pays to do your homework, or to hire the job out to someone who has already done it. Cheers.
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McBeer
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RE: First DAW
2006/12/19 15:45:42
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I was looking at getting 2Gb Crucial RAM for around £150. Also a Li Lian Aluminium case for £50.
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Ognis
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RE: First DAW
2006/12/19 15:50:08
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I'd look to get 2 hard drives if I were you. For as cheap as they are, it's worth it. That way you can have a program drive, and an audio drive.
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Jesse G
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RE: First DAW
2006/12/19 18:54:36
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I recently built a DAW and it wokrs great. I am still using Sonar 5 (not considering 6 yet) and all is smoothe. Items Purchased: Antec P150 Case OCZ 2 GB match pair 7300 Geforce PCI-e Fanless Dual Video Card 256 mb Intel Duo Core E6600 ASUS P5B mother board (Silver I think, well it's the plain one with 5 SATA and 1 IDE) 250 GB Western Digital SATA 3.0 HD 250 GB SATA 3.0 Backup Drive Belkin 4 port firwire card Belkin 2.0 4 port USB card The cards were for additional connections, - not a neccessity. I spent about $1,100 in parts all ordered from New egg and delivered in two days flat on standard delivery charge. Visit this link here the big discussion takes what folks are buying, there is a lot to read however. http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=881256&mpage=1&key=ocz Peace 
Peace,Jesse G. A fisher of men <>< ==============================Cakewalk and I are going places together!
Cakewalk By Bandlab, Windows 10 Pro- 64 bit, Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI, Intel Core i5-4460 Haswell Processor, Crucial Ballistix 32 GB Ram, PNY GeForce GTX 750, Roland Octa-Capture, Mackie Big Knob, Mackie Universal Controller (MCU), KRK V4's, KRK Rockit 6, Korg TR-61 Workstation, M-Audio Code 49 MIDI keyboard controller.[/
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Hard2Hear
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RE: First DAW
2006/12/19 19:01:29
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Are Lian Li cases that cheap there? Theyre like 3-4 times that here.
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Jesse G
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RE: First DAW
2006/12/19 23:48:35
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Hard2hear, The price I saw for Lian L unlike the Antec P150 didn't include the insulation or the power supply. I checked them out already so it's nothing new. Also when I looked at their site, I couldn't see the internal characteristics of the cases, with Antec selling them I knew what I was getting. Same thing, but from someone else. Peace
post edited by Jesse G - 2006/12/20 00:07:09
Peace,Jesse G. A fisher of men <>< ==============================Cakewalk and I are going places together!
Cakewalk By Bandlab, Windows 10 Pro- 64 bit, Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI, Intel Core i5-4460 Haswell Processor, Crucial Ballistix 32 GB Ram, PNY GeForce GTX 750, Roland Octa-Capture, Mackie Big Knob, Mackie Universal Controller (MCU), KRK V4's, KRK Rockit 6, Korg TR-61 Workstation, M-Audio Code 49 MIDI keyboard controller.[/
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funkman21
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RE: First DAW
2007/01/16 22:06:51
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hi,
youve probably bought it by now but i thought id just comment anyway. I just built my first pc and learnt a lotta things on the way so thought id just tell you what i think. First of all your CPU choice is most important as the rest of your pc is based around this. I went for AMD but i think perhaps a better choice is the AMD chips....the Dual core ones are going cheap right now as the new quads will be coming out soon so id get your hands on one of those. Secondly motherboard...this all depends on what ram and CPU youre gonna get but i would strongly suggest Asus...especially a newer one without any chipset fans etc. Zalman do some veyr nice quiet fans but most people stick with arctic freezer fans as they are dead cheap and V. quiet.
RAM itself is another choice of yours based on your other components but ive have good experience with Corsair...although any major manufactorer will give you the help and services you need. its worth spending that little bit more for RAM with a lifetime guarentee. Definately get 2 HDD's....i would strongly recommend a WD Raptor as these are quiet, fast and reliable...however they arent cheap. This i would use to keel your audio 'stuff' on. Then get a second HDD to hold your O.S and Programms on. Dont go for capacity over quality, i find that a lot of people have a silly amount of storage space and never use it anyway. Youre better off getting a WD 74GB Raptor for £150 than a crappy 400GB unknown brand for the same price.
Finaly seriously consider getting an Antec P180 case, these things are awesome and extremely quiet is coupled with the correct components. I have one and love it, best choice i ever made.
I would say do lots and lots of research before you buy anything. I had no problems with my pc at all and still havent because i spent about 2 months making sure all the components were correct. If you do this you will be glad that youre using your PC and not thumping it for not working.
Good Luck
p.s last bit is a lit. I stupidly plugged my front USB lead to the Firewire hearder on my mobo and blew 3 20GB HDD's.....oooppppss
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