New DAW, have to gloat!!!

Posted on Jan 27, 2009 12:47 pm
CptTripps
Czar of Turd Polish
Member Since: Jun 20, 2006

So I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my entire PC in the studio. It is extremely overpowered for many users but in my case, it is just what I needed.

Core7 920 quad @ 2.67Ghz
X58 MB with e-sata ports
3 then 9GB DDR3
ATI 4850 1GB (gotta play a few games too)
750GB HDD
320GB E-Sata external travel drive so I can track in the field then mix on the desk
Vista Home Pro 64bit

So, I knew this would be kickass, but I had no idea how much. Here is an example.

I recorded a band at 96Khz just to try it out as I never had before. The old machine tracked it no problem, but when it came down to mixing I had to lock every single track yet was still running into slowdown due to the Bus tracks (unlockable).

With my buffers cranked all the way up I was unable get steady playback without hiccups and honestly could not mix it without bouncing all drums to their own track, which results in re-bouncing if I didn't like something later.

On the new machine, I unlocked all tracks and started mixing this old beast of a project (about 22 tracks). Once I got up to around 16 tracks of comp, verb, delay, etc... I started getting hiccups, WTF I was pissed my new super PC was not up to the task....

That was when I went into my hardware control panel and noticed my buffers were still at 256 :) With them cranked up I have yet to tax this computer. I tested loading every track with either drumagog, delay, reverb or a combination of all (sounded like ***, was just a stress test) and it didn't even blink.

Then my other 6GB of ram came in to bring it up to 9GB. I don't plan on recording at 96 again as I heard no benefit, but it's nice to know I could mix down 50+ tracks and not have to worry about it. The migration from a P4 to the C2D was pretty drastic, but nothing compared to this leap.

Oh, and the games. Fallout3 @ 1920x1200 is fantastic :)

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