how to spread the dough...

U

UunderdogG

Guest
I've got zero gear (except for a 4-track tape recorder), Alesis sr-16, accoustic guitar, djembe, a dij, a stereo amp with 2 speakers and about $3000. Thinking about a 15" G4 powerbook with an MBOX.

Should I spend all my money on this, or can I settle for a lesser laptop, and more gear? I'm currently using a no name laptop 2.4 ghz windows xp, and I am tired of hearing pops, clicks, crashes, (you get my point)...

I've read alot of posts on what gear to get, but all of them were geared towards hip hop, as opposed to rock/folk tunes.

what do you think I should put my money into?
 
do ur own research, read reviews on gear, etc.

I see a post like this at least 10 times a day on FP.


lazy a$$e$$
 
if you already have the PC why dont you get an MBOX for the PC then, instead of buying a new computer?

CLicks and pops are NOT on all PCs! :)

This way you save a TON of $ and can think of getting some more gear if you want

my 2 cents
 
thanks man, But I actually hear the hard drive when I crank up the tunes, and some type of tee-tee-tee as you some times hear on a phone line...

That's why I think it's my laptop...

p.s. I currently lso use an edirol ua-1a, and I have a hum from my power supply of my laptop...
 
I meant that I hear all this when there is supposed to be dead silence coming through...
 
are u set on getting a lap top?....the Power Books are awesome im sure, but im more of a PC person mainly because they are in my price range and way more bang for the buck.....I would personally hate to do all my work on a little lap top but to each their own...

The things I would say are most valuable in my opinion when first getting a set-up are your DAW, sound chain, and main programs/sequencer....meaning in no particular order

Monitors
Sound Card
Computer
Sequencing Program

just as a solid basis "must-have", these are most important IMO...the rest is subjective


555
 
it still might be your sound card. The "on-board" audio interfaces often pick up interferences from the computer itself

a decent card, PCI or external (USB, Firewire) should not pick up the same stuff

My advice is to check if the store you get your stuff from has a 30 DAYS MONEY BACK thing going on, and just get that MBOX - see if it works with your existing computer, and if it does great - if not, just return the stuff and get something else

better to start like this - there is no reason why your +2 Ghz PC won't do!

:)
 
Actually, I spoke with a pro guy and he advised that the powerbooks are only good for graphic/digital photography, and he recommened a 1ghz ibook, full ram and a 7200rmp hd if possible. So that frees up some cash. I went to the music shop and they talked to me about Alesis M1 Actives (mk2). and ATH-M40fs head phones.

So, based on the advie:

Monitors: Alesis or ?
sound card: MBox
Sequencer: pro tools
pc: ibook

As for the sound card I have now, the UA-1A from edirol is an AD conv. 16-bit/44khz card for about $80. So that's my problem, trying to go too cheap. And the laptop is a desknote, but clearly is noisy because when I see the hard drive light blink, I hear it in the audio.

If you guys think I'm good to go, thanks so much for your help. This site saved me a lot of head aches so far.
 
UunderdogG said:
thanks man, But I actually hear the hard drive when I crank up the tunes, and some type of tee-tee-tee as you some times hear on a phone line...
Click to expand...

That tee-tee-tee might be fixed with better cables with more insulation. I'd try that. Are you micing ur guitar or going direct to the Mbox? I wonder if the mic is picking up the noise from ur computer, which is normal. U might just need to record in another room or build a partition or something.
 
When I plug in the guitar directly into the UA-1A.

I've done all the tweaking recommended, and it did however lower the noise floor qujite a bit (disabling the network card), but you can still hear the hard drive. Plus hearing clicks and pops...

That's why I have given up on Windows and it's hardware world, and moving to macs. I can't see why I spent so much time fixing things, and not enough time on creating music...
 
i was totally disgusted with pc's for a while too. they do have a lot of problems sometimes especially with pro tools. mine works fine though. i would have gotten a mac if i had the money. but they aren't perfect either. you can get a digi approved pc for around $600 man, about $1000 for a laptop! u can spend the rest on gear. check out this thread. u might have to copy and paste.

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=360675&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1
 
UunderdogG said:
And the laptop is a desknote, but clearly is noisy because when I see the hard drive light blink, I hear it in the audio.
Click to expand...


Let me insist here... You are describing interferences, not a noisy drive: it is common actually, with cheap sound cards

Again, if you go get an MBOX and plug it to the PC you already have, you can CHECK if you still hear the hard disk

If you don't, you will have saved much $$$s :)

Almost every motherboard soundcards and entry-level cards do that hard drive noise if you crank up the gains... Not pro cards though

:) just trying to help
 
What I might do is buy the MBox, Alesis M1 Active mkII, good head phnes and see if that solves the noises. If not, the ibook...

thanks for your help, this is a great site...

So have any of you heard the Alesis M1 Actives?
 
That's sounds like a good idea to me playa. If not, I will be on the lookout for you on the next Apple Swich commercial. One Love :p
 
i like pcs, though they do sometimes require a little work and research. here are some other things to try before going off an buying something new:

check the computer tweaks section on this forum ;)
https://www.futureproducers.com/forums/forumdisplay/forumid/17

get more ram.
do a clean install of your os.
use an external audio converter like mano suggested. there is no way i know of that a pro external audio interface can pickup hard drive sounds (except if you mean through a microphone, and thats a whole nother thread)
increase your latency settings in your audio app.

your machine should be able to handle most audio apps just fine based on its speed....
 
Absolutely -- I agree with amenome. It's worth the little extra effort to get your PC working than to just buy a Mac. Nothing against Macs of course, but for $3000, a PC DAW can be a lot more souped up than a Mac DAW.

Buying an Mbox requires that you go with ProTools, and therefore become a "slave" (for lack of a better word) to Digidesign & Apple. I find that if and when I have PC problems, there are many more, and cheaper, options for me to fix them rather than call tech support, write a bunch of forums, or send any equipment anywhere. (Yes, ProTools works on PC, but a program like Cubase or Sonar, i.e. originally designed for a PC, runs better on them. In my experience, anyway.)

To each his own, however to throw $3000 at a Mac setup to avoid fixing a couple of problems doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do.

Mac isn't the be-all end-all either. The new dual processor G5 also has power supply noise problems. Check out Apple's support forum - over 300 responses from people who say there's an audible (60 bpm, one guy said) click.

I've heard this click first-hand -- a good friend of mine spent roughly $2500, set up his whole studio, and we listened to the click, clear as day. He was pulling his hair out, because after spending $2500 on a brand-new, super-powered, top-of-the-line Mac, it still had problems.

My PC? For under $1500, no problems.

NOW, with all of that being said...if you WANT to buy an iBook, by all means, go for it. However, there's no NEED to buy one, given your current setup.

Later
 
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I guess the reason I want to ditch my current laptop is because of a few things.

1) I have 512 MBs of RAM. But there's only room for 1 stick. therefore, I need to pay big bucks for a 1024 stick of ram to replace the current 512. Will it solve the problem? If not, then what?

2) I was getting huge latencies with my UA-1A ext. soundcard, about .5 seconds. So I looked up www.usb-audio.com for the progamma usb_audio driver they have, and as soon as I installed the demo version on my laptop, I couldn't even play a cd in media player without missing every half second. Even when playing around with buffers and such, the latency was no longer, but the sound was not palatable.

3) I was thinking of buying Cubase SX2 (because of it's supposed latency fix) but I doubted that my laptop would take it. I borrowed a copy to see if it would run on my laptop and it would freeze 3 or 4 seconds into a session and crash. I'm no pirate, and I want to pay for my software of course, hence the mbox. 2 birds with one stone.

For the grounding issue, I see that you can get a behringer ULTRA-G GI100 Active DI box to help stop a bad ground.

So, It would cost too much for ram, and since I feel more ram is needed, I want to switch computers. Question now is windows based or mac based.
 
I'm probably one of the worse offenders of sparking the Mac v. PC debate, however, I'll try to offer some objective advice!

Mac or PC, you're going to experience problems. If you're more comfortable with a Mac, then go with Mac. If you prefer PC, then go PC.

I know that's such a 'vanilla' answer, but it's really true. There are plenty of good computers out there on both sides that can handle all of your recording/music needs.

However, dollar for dollar, you do get more power from a PC than you would from a Mac. And yes, I'm aware that Apple's hardware is rated lower than PCs (e.g. CPU speed), so it may seem less powerful. That doesn't matter.

From a percentage standpoint, Apple owns roughly 6% of the computer market. So, it sort of behooves software manufacturers to not create programs for the other 94%.

The more important statistic, though, would be to know what percentage of the music world is Mac or PC. If anyone's got those numbers, please let me know.

Just in terms of options though, PCs have such a huge range that it can make you dizzy, thus making the simplicity of a Mac more appealing. But you definitely pay for that simplicity. And be wary of confusing 'simplicity' with 'functionality.' I personally prefer to have more and cheaper options available to me.

Macs on the other hand are the ultimate plug-and-play computers. They invented plug-and-play! They're wonderful, as long as they work. When they don't work, it can be a real headache (and wallet-ache) to have fixed.

This old debate though is getting really dated, because Windows XP Pro, and Mac's Panther OS, are both so solid that you probably won't experience most of the problems people have discussed.

Until I switched to XP, I used to be reading forums ALL the time to find answers to problems. I haven't had one problem since using XP, other than that I think I've outgrown my sound card.

I guess the best advice would be to prioritize what's most important to you, all things being equal (which they pretty much are now). Don't forget to consider things such as familiarity, software compability issues, and ease of support. Then, total up how much money each system would cost. You'll probably have a clearer picture about what plan of action to take. Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the advice, but now I'm thinking that I might just go for something like a Tascam 788, completely away from computers to record, then import tracks in my desktop pc for editing. Is this something worth looking into? This would "split" my problem areas in 2. Wouldn't have to worry about the recording aspect... only the editing.
 
Sure, that could work too. I used to use a Mackie HDR24/96 + d8b to record, then import the raw audio tracks into ProTools and mess with them there.

In fact, I made a voice acting demo CD of myself doing that method (except I used Sonar instead of ProTools). Cheap plug: so if anyone's looking for a voice actor, I've got material!

The main attraction (for me at least) of having a one-stop recording setup is that it's all there. It's kind of like getting your oil changed + your tires rotated at the same place. You can certainly bring your car elsewhere to have the tires rotated. But to me, it's more convenient to me to have it all done at one place.

But even with that, it can be very nice to have a separate, dedicated recording studio from your audio editing workhorse.

Didn't know how much soul-searching you'd have to do to choose a DAW, did ya? :)
 
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