[ardour-users] Any advise changes I should make to this system?

[Esben Stien]

Andrew Johnston <andyandtaya at gmail.com> writes:

> I want to make sure that during live recording that NO MATTER WHAT,
> ardour doesn't crash

This has little to do with the audio hardware you choose. 

> Mixer: Behringer DDX3216 

Why would you add a source of distortion?. It's critical to digitize
the signal as fast as possible (right after the mic pres), in my
opinion. You can then use a MIDI/OSC controller. Almost all studios
have analog mixers, but this is because of the way history has
evolved. This is the way I understand it.

> Video Card: NVIDIA FX5700 with proprietary drivers 

I don't understand the reasoning behind building a perfect system,
then go ahead and fubar it up;). Many people use these cards and they
work well and you'll surely find people who praise them. Do remember
that this is proprietary software and it may cause you problems along
the way which may be hard to cope with. 

> planning on buying a second 250GB Hard drive to separate my personal
> install (FC4) from dedicated audio install)

This is also a school of thought which has no backing in GNU/Linux
space. You haven't listed your reasons for doing this, though.

> I read that I should be using the 2.4 Kernel for best stability.

I would disagree. The 2.6 series is mature.

> anybody know if the NVIDIA card will cause instability or try and
> hog too many resources?

If it does, there is nothing you can do about it. You are at it's
mercy.

> Should I just use my onboard video?

If the onboard GPU is supported with free software, I'd rather use
that.

> external USB 2 [..] Hard Drive 

USB has no guarantees on timing. It's a bad choice for a realtime
system.

-- 
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