[ardour-users] DAW recommendations

[Christopher Boggs]

There are a lot of knowledgable folks on this list so I'm sure you'll get
some input.

I myself don't really have a lot of first-hand knowledge of this stuff but
I've researched it a lot, so don't take this as gospel.  I've mainly tooled
with recording on my linux box using my SB Live so far...

Like you, and quite a few others on the list, I also plan on getting a Delta
1010 (eventually two, when I can afford it), and I am not worried at all
about what my PC will handle, mostly because it's an Athlon 64 3200+ with
DDR400 and SATA, and I don't plan on recording more than 16 tracks at a
time...  Really, while just recording, your CPU usage shouldn't be very high
unless your using software monitoring and applying effects in realtime...
I've noticed most of the time the only bottleneck most people deal with is
the hard drive..

I've read on lots of forums people whining about pops/cracks when trying to
record multiple channels at 96khz on the Delta 1010 with certain chipsets
(mostly complaints from people with VIA boards) but from all the reading I
have done, I have a feeling most of these people are having problems because
they are using Windows... :)  Not a single person had posted complaining
about Linux issues...



-----Original Message-----
From: ardour-users-bounces at lists.ardour.org
[mailto:ardour-users-bounces at lists.ardour.org] On Behalf Of Matt Brown
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 12:56 PM
To: ardour-users at lists.ardour.org
Subject: [ardour-users] DAW recommendations

Hi Everyone.

I'm looking to make my entrance into the world of digital audio recording in
the next few weeks, and I'm getting ready to throw down on some hardware.
I'm definitely going to use linux only, and I'm wondering what hardware
recommendations people have.  I'm planning on getting an M-Audio 1010, but
I'm unsure about the CPU/RAM/Motherboard.  
I wish there was a website somewhere that estimated what you can do with
such and such hardware.  I want to do multitrack recording, software
synthesis, effects processing, etc.  I want to support potentially 30 tracks
at once, but more likely I'll be doing less than 10 most of the time.  I
want the synthesis to be top notch (whatever that means).  Is there any
hardware that helps with that?

Basically, I would like to know:  where are the bottlenecks typically on a
DAW?  Do I need a dual-core processor, or 2 processors?  Do you recommend 64
bit over 32 bit (Studio 64 looks pretty cool)?

It would be really helpful if people could post their hardware specs,
briefly describe what they are doing with the system, and any limitations
they have encountered.

I hope this is an appropriate question for the forum...

thanks!
Matt Brown
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