Building My New DAW PC

I build my 1st PC D.AW. in 1996, after paying off a recording studios Jet and 3 Rolls Royce, i decided to do my own thing.

I think i am on number 6 now, and it still does the job but its old, so i decided to do a new unit.

Some people rush in and pay a bomb for parts they dont really need, they want the latest and greatest, 300meg of memory etc etc all good if you have money to throwq down the gurgler or want to use 10000 plugins at once.

I like to stay a step behind play, yesterdays bits and pieces can not be noticed as lacking by the average bloke, against todays bits and pieces, unless you measure them with sofware etc, and its that minute you cant really tell.

Heres a pic of the parts i have together, and when i get time i will go into more detail as to why i got them.

1st up i dont run a Mac, never will run a Mac and dont want to know about Mac, i am upgradable PC all the way, so i wont get into debates about Mac vs PC etc. I dont use Mac because i cant upgrade it, thats enuff said.

Parts
Motherboard ASUS K97-K
Processor Intel I5-4690K
Powersupply Corsair RM650
CPU cooler Noctua NH-U9B
Main drive Samsung SSD 500Gig Solid State
Storage 2x 1000gig Seagates
Memory 8gig (2x4) Corsair Vengeance
Case Carbide series 300R
Operating system Windows 10

probably missed a few thing out

Attachment 8536

Good stuff mate, it's surprising what you can do with yesterdays bits and pieces with regards to building a new DAW PC, I've had the hardware in my Desktop PC for a few years and it's been working great, here's the list of specs for my DAW PC:


Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68XP UD3

CPU: Intel i5 2500K

PSU: 600 Watt (I think it's a Corsair).

CPU Cooler (Not sure what make, I think it's an Intel).

Main HDD: 1Tb SATA Drive (I'd upgrade to an SSD but I'm a bit wary of them).

Storage: X3 Extra SATA HDD of various sizes.

Memory: X1 4Gb DDR3 Corsair Ram Stick (I might see if I can buy more this year).

Case: Black Cooler Master.

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64Bit.

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon R7 200 Series.


What DAW software are you thinking of running on your PC?, I'm running FL Studio 12 Producer Edition, Reason 5, Reaper 5, and Ableton Live 9.6 Standard, my two main Audio Interfaces are an Avid Digi002 and a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.


Your CPU looks like it'd be a bit more powerful than mine which runs at 3.3Ghz whereas your's runs at 3.5Ghz.

Nice specs Doc it should do the job very well

I have been using Acid Pro and Cakewalk since day dot, i just got a new version of Acid the other week that i have been using on this old XP machine and ti am still pumping out some solid backing, it will go into the new DAW. I will probably get a new version of Sonar X3 as i can still use my plugins with it, Waves Diamond Bundle etc. My mate runs FL studio but hes been using it since it was called fruity loops but i dont feel the need to move away from what i know inside out. Other than that i dont clog my machine up with too much software only plugins, and only what gets thejob done. The graphics card i am using whats on board i dont play games or anything, maybe watch a bit of youtube. Years ago i had every piece of software known to man and it starts to do your head in.

I worked in a mates studio doing mastering when Pro Tools first come out, i never saw what was so special, but if you didnt have it you didnt get the work. I was doing better mastering at home on my machine than i was in his massive studio and the work started flowing to me because people were hearing the masters and asking who did them not what DAW was it on.

In this machine i have an M Audio Audiophile Delta 2496 its old but its one of the nicest cards out there imho, i run the ins via an old 16 channel desk, i front end the desk lately with a BOSS BR800 for song writing, and go straight in via the desk when i am recording. I am thinking about a focusrite scarlett 18i8 which will do me for doing my own thing.

Other than that its all only $$$$ haha

I've read/heard lots of good things about those Scarlett 18i8 Audio Interfaces, I have a Scarlet 2i2 that I use with my laptop, I also have an old G4 Mac which I use to run ProTools LE 6.4, I work with both platforms, yeah there's nothing really special about Protools other than it's considered an industry standard, you can pretty much do everything it does in other DAW software, the guys who created Reaper are actually ex Avid Digidesign personel, Avid Digidesign are the makers of ProTools.


If you ever have any problems getting your DAW PC up and running let me know and I'll help you out.


I've played around with some earlier versions of Acid, I like it's beatmatching, maybe I should revisit it sometime.

Thanks for the offer Doc, its usually people ringing me to help with their computers, i have a pretty sound knowledge of them, but you never know what going to jump up and bite.