[LAU] Configuration for a FREE professionnal studio : your minds about my proposal

Aurelien orl at ammd.net
Thu Mar 20 05:44:15 EDT 2008


Hey!

Which such a name, you're probably French, or can speak French, can't
you? Could be interesting to go on off-list in French, there will be a
barrier less!

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 10:15:42AM +0100, Raphaël Doursenaud wrote :
> > - System : Ubuntu Studio and/or Debian self-customized for
> >   audio-purposes. Does it have a big interest for such audio
> >   applications to install a 64bits distribution? I suppose there will be
> >   problems with some 32bits plugins, although there is the
> >   ndispluginwrapper solution. It's bit like a troll, but it really
> >   matters for us.
> 
> I would go for a 64bit system these are future proof plus they are the
> only ones that can address large memory sizes.

That's sure. What about 32bits plugins? I mean, my current PC is a AMD64
with Debian-AMD64, it works well, but the *** ndispluginwrapper solution
isn't very compliant and sometimes a bit.... "chiante".

> > 	. Proc: we were going on a dual core (Intel or AMD), but as we've
> > 	seen that quadri-pro are not so expensive anymore, what do you think
> > 	about it?
> 
> I'd go for a quadri-pro IF there is no drawback. Needs a little bit of
> testing. From what I heard AMD quads (Phenom) are not that good.


OK, thanks.

> 
> > 	. RAM: 4Gb at least (if quadri-pro, much more)
> > 	. Motherboard: we were thinking about using RAID (5 probably) in
> > 	order to increase reading speed, but it's only based on an
> > 	assumption (intuition?) that we could raise up the perf that way.
> > 	Are we right?
> 
> Be sure to use a dedicated hardware RAID controller and you'll get the
> performances.

Er, I guess my English or my informatics are too low right here. Could
you explain a bit deeper what you mean?


> 
> > 	We'd like this motherboard not to have audio-embedded.
> 
> I'd go for a server grade motherboard like Tyan. The embedded audio can
> be disabled but I find these usefull for system sounds, websurfing ...

The studio is a mobile one, and there will be no need to websurf or
whatever, as there are other PCs dedicated to administration tasks next
to it!

> If you don't need 3D, ATI cards with radeonhd free driver works
> extremely well. My 2400Pro is by far more responsive than my GeForce7600
> was with the proprietary driver. The whole system is a lot more stable
> and RT performance is now rock solid.

OK, that's just fine. We don't need 3D (except if some plugin's
frontends need, but it would be quite unuseful!!!)

> 
> > 	. Hard Drives: we think about a SATA drive for system, and
> > 	day-to-day life, and then think about an external SATA solution
> > 	which allows to bring a new drive for every project (there will
> > 	probably be something like 3 or 4 albums a year on this studio). Of
> > 	course, if we want our assumption upon RAID5 to work, we need to
> > 	have two identical eSATA drives for each record session.
> 
> Seems good to me. Hotplugging would be a good feature to have

Oh, yeah, you're right!

> > 	. two options for the recorders:
> > 		+ 2 RME Multiface II (i.e. 16 tracks) linked with ADAT to HDSP9532
> > 		+ 1 Alesis HD24 (i.e. 24 tracks and a hard drive) linked with
> > 		ADAT to HDSP9532
[...]
> 
> What about using (3) RME Octamics II and a 9652? This brings a full 24
> tracks.

Octamics countains preamps, we're not so keen on them, and we schedule
to buy external preamps. So this might be quite unuseful. Of course, we
could buy 3 Multiface II, but the point is that it's quite more
expensive than a single HD24. The other point is also that HD24 is fully
stand-alone, and in that way, we could do live-recording without moving
the whole stuff, which is a good thing also.

> 
> > - External Hardware (that is quite off-topic with this list, but, by the
> >   way, if you want to know):
> > 	. 4x TL-Audio 5001 preamps
> > 	. 1x Neumann TLM 103
> > 	. 2x Neumann KM184
> 
> Look at the Oktavas MK-012, they are really cheap but highest quality. I
> find them more "musical" than the "chirurgical" 184s.

OK, I will. But I'm quite fanatics about KM184, and I begin knowing them
quite fine!


> > 	. 2x Genelec 8020 APM
> 
> I'm a big fan of Dynaudio Acoustics monitors, check them out!

Actually, that's the point we need to argue further in the label. We
just made this choice upon specific characteristics, and some users
minds, but we now need to do a "listening-session" to be sure of us!
We'll check the Dynaudio Acoustics.

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