[LAU] New workstation | DAW pc

[Kevin Cosgrove]

On 4 September 2010 at 12:18, Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy at autostatic.com> wrote:

> > Right, for audio a dualcore with 4 GB will do imo, but I might need some
> > extra power for other work.
> >
> > Another aspect of a pc for audio is noise. I was wondering, might it be
> > possible to use a long cable to my pc monitor and place my pc in another
> > room. Will there be any degradation of the quality of the visual display
> > with a long>= 5m. cable?
> >
> > Regards,
> > \r
> >
> 
> You could also try finding a more or less silent PC. I don't have 
> experience on different hardware, I just use what I can get my hands on 
> that gets written off at my work, but I have very good experiences with 
> Dell PC's: they all work very well with Linux, they're pretty silent 
> (especially the business models like the Optiplex or Precision) and they 
> are reliable and solid. You could also try placing the PC in some sort 
> of silencing case.

I got a bunch of AcoustiPack stuff for two computers.  It's sold 
through places like Quiet-PC USA.  I got my computers to be under 
30dBA at about 1ft.

> Longer quality cabling shouldn't degrade the quality that much. Those 
> cables can be pretty expensive though.

I use a 22" monitor and 5m keyboard and mouse cables for some 
situations.  The monitor would be far from me, with the keyboard and 
mouse.  This lets me be close to my instrument and far from any 
remaining computer noise.

> When it comes to performance, I think the minimum for a decent set-up is 
> a dual core system with 4 Gb. That should allow you to do all the stuff 
> you'd like. With a less powerful system you might run into performance 
> issues, especially when you use it with one of the bigger DE's (which 
> you're not planning to do I think).

If you're going to do a lot of multi-track audio, then consider a 
hard drive setup that's fast enough to keep up with the audio files.
But, there's a trade-off with disk RPM.  10k RPM drives are noisy.  I 
stick with 7200 RPM extra quiet drives.  The large RAM can help the 
drive situation by buffering up some of the audio data.

G'luck...

--
Kevin