September 29, 2004
Suffering slightly
I'm just a little peeved I cannot suss this thing out. I may need to go into town and purchase a book on CSS and actually get stuck into this stuff, because right now I feel like I'm actually going backwards in terms of learning this stuff. Not that it really matters as no-one will be reading this at the moment anyway!
Posted by funnelbc at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2004
snapshot: soundblaster extigy
If you're like me, and everynow again you like to cheat at a gig by using a computer, this'll be for you. I bought this out of a need for a high quality, yet mobile, sound card. The added fact I owned a laptop made my decision a lot easier.
The Extigy came to my rescue. Installation is simple- it is a stand alone unit, and it connects to your PC through a USB cable. Asthetics have not been forgotten- it stands up like a funky little PS2.
It has support for Dolby Digital, CMSS, and EAX Advanced HD, with a ton of inputs. It has the usual line in/out mic in ports, plus OPTICAL In/Out, SPDIF In/Out, MIDI In/Out, and a four or so 3.5mm jacks for speaker arrangements (front left & right, back left & right, center & subwoofer).
I also like the remote control supplied with it- with the help of the supplied software, I can sit at the other side of the hall and choose tracks! Now thats cool. Oh, and of course, the remote control does all the other standard remote control things.
Put simply, for the DJ on the go, or anyone who owns a laptop and craves for better sound quality- the Extigy is unbeaten.
- DJFROGi
Posted by funnelbc at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
Creative MuVo mp3 Player
There are quite a few options on the market for those who are interested in a purchasing an mp3 player, and it took quite a while for creative to pick up on the trend and put a mp3 player out on the market. This size of player has been hitherto dominated by companies who brought you such products as the super happy lucky computer fan, and extra prosperity guaranteed CPU cooler. It seems the innovation on the market has been largely pushed along by the gadget orientated Asian market. The fact that a big international player such as creative has picked on the trend indicates that they are paying close attention to products which would normally take quite a while to appear on our local market – which can only be a good thing.
Originally posted Jan 25, 2003 by funnel
The MuVo has a really simple method of uploading music to itself – you simply pull it apart and plug it into the USB port of your host system. The system recognizes it as another HDD and you can drag and drop your files straight onto it. It remembers the order in which you drag them, and when you start playback they are organized in the order in which you copied them. Simplicity itself!Copying is a little slower than we had expected, and it takes about 30 seconds per track, but this is nothing too troublesome. Eventually we’d like to see USB 2.0 support in future models of this drive (especially as higher capacity flash disks get cheaper) to facilitate quicker transfer speeds. You can also use it a simple flash HDD for file transfer of any type, which is safer option than a comparable zip disk, but with a few files on the drive, it wouldn’t leave a great deal of room for audio. The maximum size that creative release this model at is 128MB, which will also need to be improved in future models to be competitive.
Music playback is reasonably clear, and the supplied headphones deal out a reasonable amount of volume – enough for most listeners. The sound with the included headphones is nothing special, a little high-end biased, but that is to be expected with a smaller lower current draw device. It’s not a terribly dynamic sound, but this is also dependant on the quality of mp3’s place on the device, and the set of reference headphones that we use (Sennheiser HD-265 Linear) tend to a more flat response anyway. Other users have reported improvement with different headphones, but one would also presume that it would drain the batteries at a higher speed to plug in a pair of massive enclosed cans. Battery life is okay – a pair of AA’s lasted about 10(ish) 2 hour listening sessions, the serious user would probably want to get a set of rechargeable batteries also.
It has just a basic selection of buttons, the power button which doubles as a play / pause button has to be held on for a few seconds for the device to power on. A multicolour led indicates on/battery low/paused. The fast-forward and rewind buttons work in the usual way, with a quick press skipping the track and a long press tracking forward/behind within the same track. The skipping between tracks is not exactly instantaneous but it’s acceptable. It has a loop feature which allows you to repeat a track, or more interestingly repeat a section of a song. Quite handy for anyone wanting to nail a lick in a song or the like.
In the time we had to test the MuVo there were a few noticeable niggles which are worth a mention. Whether it was just our clumsy fingers or the other sweaty journalists who hand handled it, the metal-like finish on the play/pause button was already flaking off. The plastic below is thankfully a pleasant shade of grey, but it’s still pretty surprising for a device of this kind to so quickly get a chip in the finish.In another slightly stranger note, our testing reverie was interrupted by occasionally by random blocks of hard digital distortion. The only way to get it to go away was by separating the flash disk from the body of the player. This was odd, to say the least, we couldn’t reproduce it by replaying the same track over, and it seemed to happen on various mp3’s. In repeated listening sessions, it only happened 3 times in about 30 hours worth of listening, but its irritating, and tends to throw you out of the music listening mood (Unless you are into hardcore, in that case you probably won’t notice ;).
Overall, its quite a pleasant device to listen to, being a solid state player there is only so much that can go wrong with it, and I’d be fairly confident that ones that hadn’t been handled by a squllion grubby PC journalists wouldn’t display the slightly odd ”static” problem that we experienced. If anyone has used it and experienced it with theirs, let us know and we will revise our final rating. There are many other comparable products on the market for similar or lower prices – It’s hard to justify recommending this over them – certainly not with the odd behavior that we observed…
Price: $250/64MB $330/128MB
Verdict:
Quality: 3/5
Value: 3/5
Functionality: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5
Distributor: Creative
Web: http://www.creative.com.au
Posted by funnelbc at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)
soundblaster audigy 2 platinum
I have fond memories of our first “proper sound card” (Our Amiga 1000 from ‘88 featured stereo sound and much better games than our 386 sx-33 but that’s another story). It was the creative SoundBlaster 16, the model that creative packaged with a 2x CDROM for the princely sum of around $900. The addition of sound in all those classic games, Castle Wolfenstein, Commander Keen and the like made our pc pretty cutting edge. Having a sound card made your PC something special. Ever since then creative has been looking for reasons to make us upgrade to this years most zooty soundcard...
Originally posted Feb 22, 2003 by funnel
And by and large, it appears that they have been successful, and updating your soundcard has become a bi-yearly event for most users, and for those of us that use the pc for music creation – every time we can afford it. It’s appropriate that we look at the Audigy 2 from a musical perspective. When Creative bought EMU, they put the EMU10K chip in it for synthesis – a move that alone sold them hundreds of thousands of cards. This gave the SoundBlaster a pedigree that meant something to the music community. From 99 onwards, the SoundBlaster live in its various iterations became a decent entry level option for those interested in dabbling with making music on their PC.
Providing more than adequate recording facilities, the Audigy 2 is a great place to start for someone who only needs a few channels of input to work from, and has ideally some SPDIF digital compatible mixing gear (If you want to get multiple tracks down at once), which for example, can be bought for as little as $900 for a Behringher UB series mixing desk. For most users 2 simultaneous inputs will satisfy their basic recording needs. Especially for those who just like to musically doodle down their thoughts as it were. Even in multi thousand dollar home studios, this is often the most regular recording that goes on – you could also hire a digital compatible desk for a weekend if you wanted to get down a full arrangement using your home rig. That’s part of the beauty of SPDIF, It’s dead cheap for the company to add it as a feature, and it’s a quite powerful option too. Anyone looking to build a project studio could certainly do worse than the Audigy 2 for basic recording functionality and nearly universal compatibility. If you were mad keen on the SPDIF and didn’t want to bother with the other features, Guillemot do a soundcard called the Fortissimo3 that comes with optical SPDIF for less than a hundred AUD.
One sore point from the creative cards from days of yore was the complete absence of ASIO support. For the uninitiated, ASIO is the chosen method for interfacing with programs such as Cubase and its myriad of plug-ins. (ASIO = Audio Stream Input Output) Previously SoundBlaster users have had to suffice with the direct X audio drivers which meant latency. ASIO provides an efficient way to manage all of the traffic and latency is reduced greatly, even on a fairly low-spec machine. This in itself is a good reason for many existing Creative customers to make the step up. Relatively low latency recording combined with facilities for everyday gaming certainly make this a pretty tempting option.
Creative usually bundle a fair bit of software with their higher end gear to try and make it more appealing for those of us who can’t justify the extra dollars by features alone. First up is the creative media player, which is – kind of crappy. You can make use of its native de-clicking (To remove vinyl clicks and static) or various other onboard effects from within the software, but it doesn’t really hold enough for this writer to want to uninstall Winamp. Basic functionality is there, but it’s all a bit superfluous. It comes with a limited version of Native Instruments’ rather fine Traktor mixing program which is well worth checking out. Creative also promotes the use of soundfonts www.soundfonts.com with the Audigy. Which are basically freely available midi patches. Handy and freely available over the net. It also comes with a special edition of Cubasis, which is ideal for anyone thinking of that first audio program – not the greatest in terms of features, but more than enough to get the swing of things. It also comes with a version of Ulead Video studio, which is most likely due to the inclusion of the firewire connector.
Connectivity wise, the card offers more than enough for recording from most garden variety music making devices – the quality is certainly comparable to other devices at this price point. If you were to spend the money on pure 24bit digital to analogue (D/A) converters in a card/breakout box, you’d struggle to get more than 4 I/O. Although the quality of the D/A converters would more than likely be a step up from the type found in the Audigy. Will you notice the difference as a project/bedroom muso? Probably not. Another reason to recommend the Audigy is that you get a card that should function perfectly for playback and sound in computer games and the like – with added hoopy features like EAX which any pure D/A A/D conversion card won’t. It has a 106db signal to noise ratio, which is quite impressive for a card of it's type.
We’ve mentioned a few things like digital/analogue conversion, 24-bit, Signal to Noise ratio, etcetera which we will look at in greater depth in different articles – further down the track, stay tuned for those. In summation, it’s hard not to recommend this, if not on the basis of the connectivity, but on the software bundle – or the fact that it’s a complete setup for someone looking to turn their pc into a musical sketch pad, or want to begin to explore recording on your computer without a massive financial outlay.
Price: $489.50 AUD at the time of writing from www.auspcmarket.com.au
Specs:
24bit 96kHz Recording
106dB Signal to Noise Ratio.
THX Certified
Dolby Digital EX
6.1
EAX Advanced HD
SB1394 Firewire
ASIO (finally!)
DVD Audio
Rather groovy remote control
Connectivity:
Coax SPDIF in/out
Optical SPDIF in/out
Headphone out
2 x Line in/mic in
Midi in/out
SB1394 (IEE1394 or Firewire)
6.1 audio output
Bundled with:
Soldier of Fortune 2
Hitman 2 Double Helix
Cubasis Suite
Ulead Video Studio
Native Instruments Traktor SE
Verdict:
Quality 5/5
Value 5/5
Functionality 4/5
Overall 4.5/5
Distributor: Creative
Web: http://www.soundblaster.com
Posted by funnelbc at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)
matt corcoran - so low blues
If you like your blues stripped back, dirty and down the bottom of a well, then you may well get right into Matt Corcoran’s So Low Blues. It’s primitive, dirty, and pretty damn okay. Percussive rhythm is the backdrop to each track, whether it be the staccato strumming patterns or the raw vocals, it has a good solid angry blues undertone that relates closely to a modern rock outfit.
Originally Posted On May 23, 2004 by Funnel
This is a distinctly darker blues album, with a harder distorted guitar sound to it. Lyrically, this is reflected in violent and uncompromising lyrics. The third track Lil’ Blue Dog is the epitome of this sound. He slams the slide down on the strings and his voice echoes the percussive tone of the piece.
What I like about this album is its rawness. The song’s aren’t incredibly technical or by the same measure, the not contrived. There’s a strong element of music for the sake of it on this album. If I was to pick a band in Rock that’s doing a similar thing in their genre, I would have to say The Strokes use the same kind of simple back to basics style. While this could lead to fairly generic sounding blues, (or indeed rock) it really withstands plenty of listening sessions. I’ve been through this album more than a few times and it continues to grow on me. It’s also similar sounding to a R.L Burnside recording in this respect. If you like your blues a bit harder with a bit more of a rock/punk sensibility you should check out this album.
Matt Corcoran – So Low Blues
File Under: Hard Blues
Released: 2002
Track Listing:
I’m a Stranger
Lil Blue Dog
Send Me Your Pillow
Jiggy Jig
Pizza Man
Barked All Night Long (Lil Black Dog)
Jackie
Hoochie Coochie Man
Hush Hush
Snuggaluffagas
Harpoon
Hobo Blues
Ain’t That Much
You Say You Love Me
Poor Wayfaring Stranger
Matt has a quite extensive website where can check out what he's up to, chat back, all teh usual guff. It's pretty laid back in style, and I reckon is pretty cool. dig it!
Posted by funnelbc at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
grinspoon - new detention : panic attack
Over the years, Grinspoon have proven themselves to be at the forefront of new and initiative Australian rock, especially after the release of the phat album, New Detention.
Fairly recently, the album was re-released, this time as a limited edition, with a bonus disk Panic Attack coming into play. If you dont own this album, and you call yourself a Patriot..... grrr...
By far the most distinct track is Chemical Heart, which I'm sure by now you'll all have heard. Lost Control and No Reason have also been released as singles, and they constitute the albums high points.
Suprisingly, there are no low points here, with unreleased tracks such as Anyday Anyhow and Boltcutter also shinning through. Their style does however vary alot, but depending on your viewpoint, this can be either a good or a bad point.
Panic Attack add four new songs into the equasion, with the popular INXS cover, Dont Change opening it up. The other three are unreleased, but somewhat interesting tracks.
The case to own this album just became much stronger. There's absolutely no excuse if you dont own this album.
Orignally Posted On Aug 30, 2003 by DJFROGi
Posted by funnelbc at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
synthesizers - the basics
Synthesizers (Synths) are increasingly popular item with DJ/Electro music set, and I thought that it would be nice to talk about them as an informal primer on the subject. There are a few basic flavors of synths – and it’s easy to get confused with how they work and what their actual purpose is. Let’s take a look shall we?
Originally posted on Feb 23, 2003 by funnel
A synthesizer basically uses electronic means to generate sounds. An analogue synth is still electronic. The sound can sometimes be quite similar to those of traditional instruments, but more often synths are sought after for their weird electronic noises and facility for flexible sound creation. Synthesis means to create something out of separate parts.
Above: The Roland MC303 Groove Box
So how do they work? Most synths on the market have variations on the following components – filters, oscillators, voltage-control amplifiers… These all by varying means offer methods for the basic sound waves to be modulated and controlled. Often the presence of multiple filter banks
help to facilitate more interesting noises, or the creation of more organic noises.
There are several different kinds of common synthesis methods, subtractive, additive, wavetable, sample playback, physical modeling, FM synthesis, phase distortion, wave shaping, wave sequencing, VAST synthesis, granular synthesis. You can read more about these kinds of synthesis here http://tilt.largo.fl.us/faq/synthfaq.html at the excellent beginners synthesizer FAQ. For the sake of brevity, synthesis is all about the manipulation of sound electronically, to derive an audibly interesting result.
Above: The Kurzweil K-2000 Keyboard - (Kurzweil are generally
regarded as among the best keyboards made.)
Synths can be found inside all sorts of commercial music making hardware, soundcards, keyboards, sound modules, and rack units. The variety of hardware that has some form of synth hidden inside it is virtually limitless. More often than not, a musician will purchase a synth in a keyboard for performance, or get a synth in a rack module which will be hooked up to a trigger device – such as a keyboard. They then work with presets which they save to the synths memory (for saving of presets the most often used term is SysEX Dump) for performance. Hardware synths are generally expensive, but often have a distinct sound which some consider the somewhat hefty outlay a worthwhile tradeoff.
Above: The Roland Jupiter 4 Keyboard
There is however, another alternative – software synthesis. Which is fast becoming the most often used option. Usually costing much less than expensive and sometimes arcane hardware synths, software synths allow anyone with a computer to make music with. This has in a way democratized the music making process more than just about anything else – a basic computer can be setup fairly cheaply and the software can be picked up readily. A commonly used piece of hardware for performing musicians is the laptop – which are a viable alternative for those looking to cheaply build a portable performance setup.
Posted by funnelbc at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)
who sells what here in australia
The purpose of this is to provide a reference point for anyone who is looking for a particular product - we put you onto the company, and they will put you onto a local dealer - please remember they are wholesalers, not retailers - if they do sell the public, your local dealer will still be able to give you a better deal... If you are a wholesaler and your want your company details listed here, please drop us a line info at ausmusician.com Without further ado....
Originally Posted Jan 31, 2003 by funnel
Last updated - 16 May 2004
This will updated wholesaler by wholesaler...
Central Musical Instruments
Wholesalers for: Digitech, Rickenbacker, Johnson Amplification, Monterey, Jose Ortega, Hughes and Kettner, Italia, Dean Markley, Sabine, Sound Kind, Proel, Drive, ProMax, UXL, Etek, Peak Audio, DOD, DB Technologies, Eminence, LEEM, Shure, TDK, OmniTronic, Motorola, Neutrik, Rapco.
Contact Details:
http://www.cmi.com.au
cmi@cmi.com.au
This will updated wholesaler by wholesaler...
Electric FactoryWholesalers for: Alesis, Bosphorus, Diggit, Edesk, Emagic, Emu/Ensoniq, Focusrite, GK, Gear Vision, Grip Peddler, GT Electronics, Hamer, Hardcase, Hartke, Hercules, M-Audio, Mapex, Marshall, AA Meinl, Midiman, Numark, on-Stage Stands, Paul Reed Smith Guitars, ProCo, Quiklok, RAT, Samson, Session, Sicmats, SPX, Taylor Guitars, TKL, UB, Vater, Vox, Walden Guitars.
Contact Details:
http://www.elfa.com.au/
sales@elfa.com.au
Musiclink
Wholesalers for: Alto, Ampeg, Billy Hyde, D'Addario, Danelectro, Dixon, Echo, Gator Cases, Gemini, Grey, Korg, KRK, Legend, Line6, LP, Pearl, Pickering, Planet Waves, Propellerheads, Remo, Steinberg.
Contact Details:
http://www.musiclink.com.au/
info@musiclink.com.au
Australian Audio Supplies
Wholesalers for: Mackie, CAD, PreSonus, Earthworks, QMix, Royer, Earthquake, Monsoon.
Contact Details:
http://www.ausaudio.com.au/
sales@ausaudio.com.au
Pro Music
Wholesalers for: Aer, Aria, Augustine, B.C Rich Guitars, Blessing, BOSS, Fishman, Gibraltar Hardware, George Dennis Pedals, Gretsch, Hiscox Cases, Hohner, Koala Publications, Kyser, Larrivee, LEEM, Martin & Co, Nady, Pirastro, M R & Sons guitars, Savarez, Shubb, Shure, SIT strings, SKB, Superial, Takamine, TOCA percussion.
Contact Details:
http://www.promusicaustralia.com/
sales@promusicaustralia.com
Intelliware
Wholesalers for: Adventus, ARS Nova Software, Audioworks, Bitheadz, Cakewalk, Craig Taylor Software, Electronic Courseware systems, Emedia, Geniesoft, Harmonic Vision, Hosa Technology, International Print Edition, Mibac, Midi Solutions, Midiworks Interactive, Motu, Muska & Lipman Publishing, PG Music, Rising Software, Sibelius, Sonic Foundry, SSOM, Town 4 Kids.
Contact Details:
http://www.intelliware.com.au/
info@intelliware.com.au
Major Music Wholesale
Wholesalers for: Albletron, Antares, BIAS, CDXtract, Creamware, Digigram, Frontier Design, Garritan Strings, GMEDIA, JLCooper Electronics, Keyfax, Lucid Technology, Native Instruments, PC Publishing, Phillip Rees, Q UP Arts, Sonomic, Swissonic, Terratec, Zoltrix
Contact Details:
http://www.majormusic.com.au/
info@majormusic.com.au
Sound And Music
Wholesalers for; Applied-Acoustics, Audiotrack, BPM studio, DICON, Dsound, ESI [EgoSystems Inc], Evolution, Genelec, Glyph Technology, Groovestyle, Guillemot, Kenton, MaxxStream, MindPrint, Novation, Radikal, Sampletank, SEK'D, SM ProAudio, ST Audio/Hoontech, Tassman V2.0, Waves, Yoga
Contact Details:
http://www.sound-music.com/
sales@sound-music.com
Lamberti Bros
Wholesalers for: Laney Amplification, Artec Pickups & EQ's, Electro Hamonix FX, Bigsby Tailpieces, Guitar Bags, Basix Drumkits, Premier, Hofner, Suzuki, Samuel Shen, Suzuki Harmonicas, Rico, Vandoren, Cort, Matsuoka Classical, Oakridge Resonators, Cort Tuners, Zen-ON tuners, Thomastik-Infeld, Pirastro.
Contact Details:
http://www.lamberti.com.au/
info@lamberti.com.au
Australis Music Group
Wholesalers for: Ibanez, Peavey, Tama, Akai Professional, AKG & Ashton.
Contact Details:
http://www.australismusic.com.au/australis/index.html
sales@australismusic.com.au
If you would like to add your business to this list of distributors/wholesalers please contact us on info at ausmusician.com
Posted by funnelbc at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
Building a PC for working with Audio
One question I’m often asked is how to go about setting yourself up to record/make music on your PC (It’s not so much a question for the Mac users as they usually already have all they need to get started ). We thought now would be a good time to help outline what you need to consider when purchasing hardware to make a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).
Working with MIDI
What you can get away with spending on your DAW is down to what you want to use it for. If you are planning to do some basic MIDI sequencing and just want to play around with a MIDI keyboard you really don’t need much more than a 100Mhz machine with a soundcard with wavetable synthesis (SoundBlaster AWE32 onwards in general terms). In the case of working with MIDI the “work” of voicing your keyboard (or other midi parts) is best reproduced either by a soundcard or an external sound module. Of course in an ideal world you’ll have a beast PC to work with, but it’s nice to know that requirements for this end of town aren’t too high.
For someone who is more interested in traditional composition and arrangements (such as piano, jazz, classical music and the like) you will probably find that MIDI won’t require much out of your PC, and is quite cheap to get into.
A suggested minimum configuration for MIDI would be a Pentium 100+ machine with a SoundBlaster AWE32 card or greater with a dumb MIDI (dumb MIDI means the device has no sound of its own, it’s purely a controller) device, and a program such as Cakewalk Home Audio, Cubasis or similar.
Working with Digital Synths
The next step up in terms of PC requirements is Digital Synthesizers. We look at some of the basics of understanding synthesizers here if you want to learn a bit of background information. Digital synths are often cheaper alternatives (and often are more flexible) compared to their hardware cousins. (Its worth noting that often outboard synths are used for their reliability and the fact that they don’t use much in the way of computer resources, so bear that in mind) The good news about digital synths is that often they don’t require masses of processor power, and even very current programs (Such as Propellerhead’s Reason) can be run successfully on slower machines. In many cases what will really kill your processor is the application of effects to your synth – not the synthesis of envelope filters and all that hoopy stuff. Audio effects have traditionally been processor intensive and one way to get around this would be to purchase a cheap outboard effects unit. Working track by track on a slower box is a good way to recycle that older machine into a decent music composition sketchpad.
So the requirements of Digital Synths vary, you can rest easy in the fact that the more processor power at your disposal the more simultaneous tracks will be available for use. I spent a period using Reason 1.0 with a Pentium 133 and although I really could only work with a few instruments at a time, it was still a satisfying and cheap way to be working with audio. If you are into Electronic music, Drum and Bass, Ambient music you will be into working with Digital Synths.
A suggested minimum configuration for Digital Synths would be a Pentium III 500+ ideally, with a outboard effects unit for a slower machine (Units such as the Digitech S100 are great places to start for basic outboard effects). A control device such as the those made by Kenton, Roland, or MidiMan would certainly help with getting those tracks down and manipulating parameters on the fly.
Working with Digital Audio
If you want to lay down audio tracks on your PC you are going to be spending the most money of all. It’s a shame but it’s the truth. Because of the sheer amount of internal bandwidth uncompressed stereo audio takes up, you really need to be running as fast a pc as possible. The more tracks you want to play back at once, say in a 12 track stereo 96khtz mix the more data being moved just to play that audio back to you.
With this in mind, it becomes reasonably clear why the hardcore audio heads use 10,000 and 15,000 rpm SCSI hard drives. Large mixes are terribly resource intensive. Combined with audio effects being applied in real time, they are also very processor intensive. once again, you can opt out for outboard audio effects, or as many high end cards have specific hardware onboard the card for dealing with effects, you can do it on card without sacrificing processor speed. (That’s called onboard Digital Sound Processing (D.S.P) for the anoraks out there. It’s where megabucks are spent in hardware and software and it’s the domain of professional recording studios.
A suggested minimum configuration for Digital Audio recording would be a Pentium 1ghz+ (or Athlon) processor with a dedicated secondary HDD for audio (7,200rpm would be ideal for starters). Big money can be spent in getting that analogue audio into your computer, but there are several beginner solutions that begin as low as $70 AUD for ADAT or $350+ AUD for dual stereo 24bit/96Khtz audio inputs. 512mb of RAM or greater is also recommended, for fairly obvious reasons.
The Operating System of Choice for Digital Audio
As you would be well aware, Microsoft has released quite a few different flavors of its now ubiquitous OS, Windows. There is a great deal of conjecture about which operating system is ideal for audio. At the moment the lead seems to be with Windows 2000 professional. It’s reasonably un-bloated and configurable (especially with regard to an audio pc in a networked studio environment), driver and software support is very good on this platform now. It’s just a little more mature than Windows XP, and for a single role computer it works very well. Software support from the various audio companies is always a little behind the ball and as can be seen with Digidesign only just supporting Windows 2000 (you can forget windows XP at the moment) at the moment we can only surmise things are going to stay that way for a while despite promises of updates coming soon. It’s often to go with a known option, and for that reason, we’d recommend running Windows 2000 pro for audio on a PC, with the caveat that you check the software that you want to run works with it. Check out online forums for the company involved, it’s always to get a good perspective from current users of the software and hardware combinations you are planning to go with.
Conclusion
If you want to get into audio on the PC the best thing to do is to start looking at all your options, doing as much research as you can, look at all your alternatives before you invest large amounts of cash there. Do your research and ask about, and you won’t go wrong!
Posted by funnelbc at 10:58 PM | Comments (1)
September 20, 2004
New!
Well, this is third time lucky hopefully for getting this up and running. It's been late nights of mucking around. I really want this to work this time, as I want to get up and posting as soon as possible. *crosses fingers*
Posted by funnelbc at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)