Need a new PC

The Flying Potato

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
12,304
Location
The air.
need to get a new PC purely for recording music. I like to think I know alot about PC's etc but it turns out...I do not haha.

So what should I be looking for? Obviously im going to need a decent sound card etc but like what is decent?

And i just need a base unit as i'm going to use my TV as the monitor, its gonna be sweeet :D

Price range anything from as cheap as chips to £400 max

Cheers xx
 
£400 for a whole computer??? stop being a stingy git.
 
i bet they charge 100 quid for fecking vista in that.

and the graphics card in that is not going to work well on todays games. the sound card in that would be the one that comes attached with the motherboard. no monitor? id say its a rip off.

my computer cost me around 400 quid and its miles ahead of that.
 
VidaRed said:
i bet they charge 100 quid for fecking vista in that.

and the graphics card in that is not going to work well on todays games. the sound card in that would be the one that comes attached with the motherboard. no monitor? id say its a rip off.

my computer cost me around 400 quid and its miles ahead of that.
Click to expand...

dont need it for games, read first post. have my 360 for that

dont need a monitor read first post
 
By recording music do you mean your own, as in a home recording studio if yes then why not ask Eyepopper he seems to know a little on that, for 400 quid you will be hard pushed as decent sound cards cost 100 pounds + depending on the plugs it has and if there is a 5.25 bay with it as well for stuff like midi.
 
dogrob said:
By recording music do you mean your own, as in a home recording studio if yes then why not ask Eyepopper he seems to know a little on that, for 400 quid you will be hard pushed as decent sound cards cost 100 pounds + depending on the plugs it has and if there is a 5.25 bay with it as well for stuff like midi.
Click to expand...

I do indeed mean my own, I shall give him a pm.

Cheers for the info, shall take it into consideration
 
NEVER purchase from PC world. They try to trick you with their so-called bargains, they'll take a perfectly good gaming PC, gimp its graphics card and sell it on the cheap, only for some poor fecker to think they've picked up a steal compared to other retailer's prices.

Assemble it yourself, or get a website to do it for you.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ if you cant be arsed to 100% DIY.
 
RedKaos said:
NEVER purchase from PC world. They try to trick you with their so-called bargains, they'll take a perfectly good gaming PC, gimp its graphics card and sell it on the cheap, only for some poor fecker to think they've picked up a steal compared to other retailer's prices.

Assemble it yourself, or get a website to do it for you.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ if you cant be arsed to 100% DIY.
Click to expand...
Are they allowed to do that? and when you say "gimp up" what do you mean?
 
I'm sure Sound Recorder works with most PCs nowadays
 
Get an Asus Soundcard. Great and good for value nowadays. That's for output, not sure what for input .

Obviously for rendering music you'll need more cores as well, thus a Quadcore Processor is definitely required. You should need alot of memory too, probably 4gb if you're going for DDR2/Core2 or 6gb for DDR3/i7

The latter being a much faster but much more expensive choice.

An onboard graphic card would be sufficient for a computer not doing gaming, thus i'd recommend you wait for a new Phenom II board, and get the PhenomII 940 processor, which is as good as a top range Core2 Quad Core processor, and has great overclocking headways. Also, it's considerably cheaper than i7 and is slightly better than a toprange Core2 Quad Core processor, and comes with onboard graphic card as good as a aTi 3870 graphic card, since they're the same company.

400 quid should cover that, and more.
 
do you have peripherals such as mouse/kb speakers? a case to house it in?

you also need to decide on your ethical position when it comes to purchasing software operating systems as believe it or not some disgusting ingrates spread illegal fully working copies over the internet which can save people a packet while obviously depriving developers their moral right for renumeration.

regardless you'll want at least 4gb ram, dual or quad core should do you fine to be honest. steer clear of the fatality range of soundcards in your price range something like a xonar should serve you well. if you use any other forums and have access to a marketplace with people you trust somewhat then second hand gear can be absolutely bargainlicious.
 
I'm currently looking to buy a new computer for the purpose of home recording too.

I'm no expert but I think the PC I have at the moment should be good enough to record but my audio interface or sound card isn't very good. I'm using a Tascam US-122 audio interface to provide XLR (mic) and MIDI inputs/outputs to my computer and it just doesn't seem quick enough at relaying messages to my computer. It constantly skips during recording and playback. I've changed the latency settings over and over again and that doesn't seem to help so I must advise that you splash out a little more on your audio interface/sound card than I did. I'm looking at interfaces that use fire wire as opposed to USB because I believe they're quicker. Good manufacturers of audio interfaces include M-Audio, Roland and MOTU (I think).

What audio interface you require depends on what your trying to record. If you're only wishing to record yourself playing the guitar like me, then your interface or sound card will probably only need a couple of mic or jack inputs. However, it's important that the interface has good analogue to digital converters in order for you to make better quality recordings. Phantom power is also a useful feature of a sound card because that will allow you to use better quality microphones, such as condenser mics.

As for the computer itself, well again I'm no expert but you will need a fast processor (dual or quad core will do nicely I think) and plenty of RAM. Personally, I would save up a little more money because although £400 will get you a decent PC, I think you pay for quality. I'm looking to spend about a grand. A lot of people prefer Macs for audio purposes these days so perhaps you should look at those too.

I also want to use two monitors simultaneously as well because obviously that allows you see two things at once which is cool and pretty handy when recording or editing audio.

Anyway, I hope I've helped you a little. I don't know a great deal about any of this stuff despite having studied music tech but I though I'd share what I know with you anyway. Check out the link below for a seemingly reputable company that specialises in computers for home recording. I'm considering buying from them.

Good luck.:)

www.music-pc.com
 
Thanks for all the replies guys, has helped alot. Especialy your rely Moz, thinking about it more the past few days and i've come to the conclusion that since im doing it I might aswell do it right and buy the slightly more expensive, better stuff.

Being a jobless student this is going to be some treck haha, I have a fantastic £5 at the moment :D time to get a job...
 
RedDevil#26655 said:
Thanks for all the replies guys, has helped alot. Especialy your rely Moz, thinking about it more the past few days and i've come to the conclusion that since im doing it I might aswell do it right and buy the slightly more expensive, better stuff.

Being a jobless student this is going to be some treck haha, I have a fantastic £5 at the moment :D time to get a job...
Click to expand...

:) Cool. Please let me know how it goes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.