Good computer for making music

[Gronk]

A friend of mine asked me for help building a computer that would be good for using various kinds of music software. Unfortunately I don't know much about making music. If anyone on here does, can you please post some suggestions? Thank you very much!

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

To mess around and make crappy beats? Or does he want to build a serious project studio?

[nothumb]

If you insist on using Windows, you can get Reason, Acid Pro, Fruity Loops, etc, and hook a MIDI device up to it. But Macs are really the best computers for a serious studio. The setup that I have used with a friend is a 16 channel mixing board hooked up to the Pro Tools / Mac interface thingie (guy has a G4, works great) with the MIDI input to Reason as well for keyboard samples, etc.

Reason and Pro-Tools are the standard as far as I'm concerned. Awesome software.

NT

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

[ QUOTE ]


Reason and Pro-Tools are the standard as far as I'm concerned. Awesome software.

NT

[/ QUOTE ]

Along w/ some good sampling this is already sounding good.

If you must use a PC, nuendo is a great alternitive to the insanely expensive protools. You can find it on IRC along w/ reason.

[dibbs]

Macs have long been the reigning king of music machines just like they've been boss in the graphic design industry. Within the past few years however the capabilities of PCs in this area have supposedly rivaled the Macs, purists will tell you otherwise.
If your friend doesn't want to shell out the money for a Mac, I'd recommend building a PC with a good processor, PLENTY of ram and an above average sound card.

Programs like Sonar2, Acid, Soundforge, Reason, etc. can all be incredible memory hogs on their own (and you'll often use two or three of them at the same time) and if they don't have enough resources they'll constantly drop out and cause incredible frustration.

As for soundcards, it really depends how serious he is about his production and rig. I would think he would be fine with something like a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (I think these were used on most of the more expensive Dells recently?) which from my experience sound great, or maybe something like the newest Creative SoundBlasters. He could get into the really nice soundcards like Emu's with dual preamps etc. but these are pretty labor intensive and require a more thorough knowledge of audio programs to use properly. But if he's using an MPC or other external hardware, it may require a more advanced card for optimum use.
I'd recommend Googling through a bunch of audiophile forums to get a feel of what would be the best fit for him.

Also, I don't know what kind of music your friends into, but if he dabbles in a lot of sampling obviously get a much bigger hard drive cuz all the WAVs really add up quick.

It is also much easier to get the best audio programs for free for PCs via P2Ps, from what I've heard Mac users have hard time finding cracked copies. This may not be an issue however.

I kind of rambled here, I haven't been heavy into this stuff for a while now, hope this helps though.

[GuyOnTilt]

He'll want to get an Apple for sure. Depending on what type of music he wants to be able to make Logic, Cubase, and ProTools are the industry standards. Watch out for sound cards as typical ones have really crappy latency.

GoT

[turnipmonster]

I use a mac powerbook G4 with logic and sibelius. protools is, as others have said, the industry standard. definitely get an outboard sound card, I have a presonus firebox which is great if you need mic inputs, otherwise m-audio makes a good portable one. sound processing can be pretty processor intensive, so get a 1.5GHz if you go with a mac.

--turnipmonster

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

[ QUOTE ]
I use a mac powerbook G4 with logic and sibelius. protools is, as others have said, the industry standard. definitely get an outboard sound card, I have a presonus firebox which is great if you need mic inputs, otherwise m-audio makes a good portable one. sound processing can be pretty processor intensive, so get a 1.5GHz if you go with a mac.

--turnipmonster

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As i understand it, protools ONLY works w/ digidesign hardware, which is VERY expensive.

An alternitive for the MAC is digital preformer (i hate it), cubase or nuendo. This of course all depends on how good of production quality/ability you want vs money you want to spend.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Watch out for sound cards as typical ones have really crappy latency.

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???? What does latency have to do with it?

For audio there are only two websites you need to check out for hardware. They are:

http://www.m-audio.com/

and
http://en.terratec.net/

peace

wacki

[Manimal]

As everyone has said, Mac is the best option. For entry level stuff, I think an EMac with and MBox and Protools would be the way to go.

If he does go PC with Protools, he has to make sure he has the proper chipset, or else he'll have issues.

[GuyOnTilt]

???? What does latency have to do with it?

If you're using midi in any sort of way, a lot. It's been a couple years since I wrote music, so maybe my terminology is off?

GoT

[turnipmonster]

latency is an issue if you are multitracking and need real time wet monitoring. it is a lot less of an issue if you just want to monitor the dry signal while recording. however, anytime you are recording something while monitoring something else, there is probably going to be some latency going on.

as an interesting side note, latency is an issue in string quartets, since the cello (and any low frequency instrument) tends to "speak" slower than the violin. so they worried about latency in the old days also!

btw, m-audio products are great but it's far from the only thing out there. for outboard mic interfaces most people prefer the presonus firebox/firepod.

also, I strongly recommend against getting the low end digidesign interface, as it uses USB 1.1. the reason it uses USB 1.1 is they are worried it would be as fast as the high end interface if it used USB 2.0, and they would lose the market for their high end interface. stupid, but true.

--turnipmonster

[GuyOnTilt]

also, I strongly recommend against getting the low end digidesign interface, as it uses USB 1.1. the reason it uses USB 1.1 is they are worried it would be as fast as the high end interface if it used USB 2.0, and they would lose the market for their high end interface. stupid, but true.

I've been out of this scene for a while, but didn't they go firewire?

GoT

[David Steele]

[ QUOTE ]
But Macs are really the best computers for a serious studio. The setup that I have used with a friend is a 16 channel mixing board hooked up to the Pro Tools / Mac interface thingie

[/ QUOTE ]

Now days a PC works fine for the major recording apps. Pro Tools runs great with the PC thingy as well as the mac. There used to be a problem with enough plugin support but not anymore.

My own studio was built with the pc when there was some challenge to get a good computer setup but now it is not a problem.

An experienced producer who worked a lot with me in my studio began as a Mac preacher but became satisfied with my studio setup. Lately he has been worked at some other mac based studios and found the problems to be worse ( though still not huge ) with the macs. When he went to setup his own home based system he went with PC.

D.

[turnipmonster]

most brands I've checked out (m-audio and presonus specifically) are indeed firewire, but digidesign insists on sticking to USB for the mbox. the more expensive digidesign products (digi 02, 01) are firewire, but the mbox (their cheapest, smallest interface) is USB 1.1 because they think USB 2.0 would cost them market share for the digi02 (and it probably would).

so basically, don't get the digidesign mbox. their higher end models are very nice however.

--turnipmonster

[Gronk]

Lots of good sounding advice. Thanks everyone!