Setting Up Your First 64-Bit Digital Audio Workstation
Table of contents
- 1. Build A 64-bit Audio Workstation
- 2. Design The PC
Building a digital audio workstation is an exercise in eliminating noise, minimizing latency, and designing for ergonomics. One of the first steps is to realize that the workstation is more than just the PC itself. There are many components to connect and configure. Even the layout of your workspace is important as you fiddle with a keyboard (the musical kind), sing into a microphone, and play a riff on a guitar, all the while easily clicking options with a mouse or punching buttons on an external controller. The good news is that all of the pieces can come together quite nicely as long as you avoid one of the most common pitfalls: using hardware that was never meant to go together in a studio.
Now, before I get started on the workstation design, here’s some background info. As a journalist, I’ve covered many of the best software and hardware options for about eight years. I remember testing one of the first versions of Cubase SX in 2002, and I’ve stayed current by either writing articles on recording or by creating my own songs. I’m a guitar player and songwriter and I also play keys and drums. A few years back, I even went to Nashville to perform for a record label. I use some PreSonus gear (it’s on long-term loan from a friend) mounted in a rack and situated in a separate room in my house.
One of the main lessons I’ve learned is that exceptional equipment does not make you a better musician. However, when you do have a moment of inspiration and creative brilliance, having gear that works well will help you to really appreciate the investment, minus the clicks and pops so common in amateur recordings. That said, it is also really easy to use mismatched gear, such as a microphone that records the subtle frequencies in an upper registry plugged into a low-end audio interface without phantom power capability and recorded with a computer that’s crippled by a slow processor and minimal RAM.
As with any serious computer project, it’s critical to think about the components because there are a few gotchas: a motherboard with a four-pin instead of the more common six-pin FireWire port, for example, or a hard disk drive with loads of capacity but not the cache you need to capture audio accurately.
You might be tempted to go with a small form-factor (SFF) PC. After all, space is usually an issue with a music workstation and in your recording space. The fact is that an ATX case is easier (and faster) when it comes to upgrades, which in my case are frequent. For a simple four-track recording session, I might want to use the main disk partitioned for data and the operating system. I may then decide to add an extra internal drive or two for a more complex project. I also like to be able to adjust fan speed, add or remove more RAM, and replace processors. I like this flexibility for another reason: I don’t always use a music workstation just for recording. I may want to upgrade my rig with an SLI graphics configuration with enormous fans not intended for a recording PC to play the latest first-person shooter.
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Great article, really enjoyed it.
Sonar 8 is another x64 native application. It has been since version 5.
Reaper is also a 64 bit app, at a fraction of the cost, it gets my vote! Thermaltake parts would NOT get my vote for silent setups. Antec P183 etc have sound dampening to further reduce noise.
Didnt good old standard DDR have even lower latency?
One thing I also do for my audio PCs is to attach clip on ferrite cores to ALL the power input leads to the motherboard, HDDs and optical drives. I even put small ones on the fan power leads.
I also run the power through two mains filters before it reaches the PC's PSU. I feel you can never have too clean a power supply into a PC.
I also built an three sided accoustic shield that I made out of plywood and one side (the inside) is covered with accoustic foam. I just place that in front of the PC when recording. It helps.
Why does this strike me as a really half-assed ThermalTake advert?!
@ So
Why does this strike me as a really half-assed ThermalTake advert?!
@ Solitaire, i was thinking the same thing. There are way better silent products than Thermaltake.
Nice article..very informative and easy to understand. Cool that you went the extra mile and actually did the latency tests for both 64 and 32-bit environments.
It's nice that the author considered and chose AMD, and didn't automatically go for the fastest one in the range but something that offers an excellent balance between performance and energy efficiency. AMD's Hyper-Transport interconnect would also greatly assist in lowering core-Northbridge and core-memory latency too, when compared to the Intel 2 Core solutions.
I'm still undecided as to whether or not DDR3 memory would make much difference, seeing as 64-bit software and IMC of the A64 architecture may already be sufficient, I'm not sure.
If I was building a rig like this I would never cut corners with:
. Mains filtering, like daglesj mentioned
. Audio interconnects
. Monitor size
. PSU noise - why do so many manufacturers seem to care so little about this?
. The room lighting. i.e. some decent blinds to minimise glare, and ambient not just spot lighting.
p.s. I still prefer the warmth and special awareness of analogue recordings (including analogue synthesisers from the 80's). It's interesting that people like Jean Michel Jarre are also sticking to the retro hardware; I recently went to one of his concerts and the gear he was using, was simply out of this world. The bass was like a wild animal..I have never experienced that kind or raw emotion with digital gear.
you dont need a big psu or a powerful graphics card, i opt for ASUS PK5C motherboard with E8200 2.66 DUALCORE PENTIUM(around feb/ march 2009), i started with 2x 1g XMS2 CORSAIR DDR2 RAM and up this to 6 a couple of months ago with xp pro 64bit OS. ichange the original spec on my mother board but did not check the graphics slot on my new mortherboard, my old card was vga and the knew was pci express and i done my doe so i bought a basic nvida geforce 7200 GS instead of increasing my old psu 350 watts and crossed my fingers. IT WORKED !
I forgot to say i using sonar 8 which can be used as 64 bit or 32 bit daw and i recently added two 500 gig hard drives( i have four hard drives 2x500 1x250 1xportable 250). i've recently put a second OS xp pro 32 bit on one of my hard drive( it was my original OS). The reason for this is some companys wont provide drivers for 64bit OS on old software i also have a prodikeys DM keyboard which is great for working with finale and sibilus. i upgraded my psu to 400 psu recently.my next step is to replace the noisey bits with quite bits, any advice would be welcome.
i dont do a lot of recording with my work station( i cant sing, i tried melodyn. It's good but not that good !.)i mainly work with midi and vst instruments with good quality samples and convert to 32bit and use audio processors, mainly to add warmth and character, computer noise does not seem to be a problem. when i do attempt to record myself(path:shure 55sh
>behringer tube ultra gain mic200>behringer eurorack u8802>emu 0404 dsp gate>leveling amp> 3 band eq(presence) slight reverb ...its not perfect,if you put each track under a microscope or your a sound engineer, but when mix down and played on a standard to good music system sounds fine. I recently down loaded demo of audition 3 and found this has some nifty plugins for cleaning up audio. But if you not in this to make money (hobbie only for me and an aid to learning piano and keyboard) its a bit pricey .Anys ways if any body can give me some Sound Advice (excuse the pun) on minimising internal computer noise with out spending a fortune it would be much appreciated.