Hello everyone!!..what's up?..Went shopping today for a computer system...I'm thinking about hooking it up to my keyboard and getting more into MIDI/Digital Audio sequencing, Composing, Downloading files from the Net, etc, etc. I'm also interested in using some music notation software to help with my composing, as well as, transcription needs.

Being fairly new to this I want to know.....what should I be looking for, as far as, the minimum system requirements, in terms of RAM, HD storage, processor speed, sound card type, etc, etc, in order to meet these needs?

The first shop I went to was a small, independently-owned, establishment called PC International, whose specialty was re-pairing, building and selling computers systems. The owner seemed to be very knowledgeable about the latest trends in computer technology, as well as answering all my naive questions. He then showed me this piece of paper that had, what appeared to be a pretty good set up for a almost-complete system for less than $1000. The setup is as follows:

AMD K7 1GB processor
256k Memory
PC 266 Motherboard/socket A
ATX Mini/Mid tower case
Western Digital 40 Gb Hard Drive
1.44MB diskette drive
16k DVD-ROM
Onboard 16MB Video
Onboard Sound Card
Onboard 56k Fax/Modem
10/100 Network card
Keyboard-Mouse-Speakers
Microsoft Windows ME O/S
AOPEN 17" SVGA Monitor

Is this a good system for a computer novice?...I realize the ram is not that much, but I figure I could always expand when needed...BTW..Has anyone ever heard of AMD?..From what I hear, their processor chips are supposed to be better (more efficient !) than the Pentium III...What about this Western Digital?? (makers of the Hard drive)

Anyway, just thought I'd get a little feedback before jumping into something I know little about..as far as AMD and Western is concerned! Looking forward to the feedback..

Later,
demitch

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Thanx,
demitch

demitch,
My only recommendation will be to stay with the Pentium III or 4 processor. Most music software needs the pentium chip to work properly. Even though the AMD seems to be more efficient, more drivers and software for music is supported by the pentium chip. You can do word processing and internet stuff just fine with the AMD but I think you are also looking to do music as well.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

I previously had an Intel chipset, but my present PC now over 2 years old with AMD 600 is giving great service and runs all my Cakewalk v9. Cubase VST v5. BIAB v9 plus a host of other music software without any problem.
I shall be upgrading within the next few month and I will certainly go with AMD again. Its reliable,fast and cheaper than Intel.

Graham UK

I have AMD 700, and my son has AMD 750 on the same network. No problems at all.
Be sure the hard drive is 7200 rpm.
Memory is really cheap. I bought another 128 megs at Ciruit City for $2.95 after rebates!
DonM

It's great to hear that Graham & Don Mason are having great success with the AMD processor on their computers (when recording music), but I was advised (by several major music software sequencing manufacters, including Cakewalk), to 'stay away' from the AMD processor when recording music because it can 'mess up' both midi & audio 'timing'.

Western Digital makes fine hard drives but you don't specify the model. If you are going to do serious audio recording you really need make sure that the HD you choose is both fast & quiet. Make sure it's an ultra ATA 7200 rpm hard drive. The sound card should have high quality A/D & D/A converters. The popular Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live soundcard is great for mulitmedia entertainment and playing games, but if you want to make quality digital audio recordings (music) go with a 24 bit/96khz card with low latency, like the Midiman M-Audio Delta 66: http://midiman.com/products/m-audio/delta66.php

For sequencing (both midi/digital audio), I highly recommend Cakewalk Sonar. http://www.cakewalk.com/

Sonar really kicks and is relatively easy to learn and is highly supported by a large user base on the PC-Windows platform. There is even extensive 'patch list' support for quite a number of arranger keyboards which is a BIG plus in itself. With this you can access/select all the sounds on your arranger keyboard from within Cakewalk Sonar. Very COOL ! I also recommend going with the latest (current) Windows XP operating system, 'not' Windows ME, because XP really is STABLE and also supports the newest optimzied WDM (sound) drivers (low latency). Cakewalk Sonar is optimized to work best with Windows XP. I recently (3 weeks ago) purchased a new computer myself (Dell Dimension, 1.8 gigahertz Pentium 4 processor, with 512 RAM & 40 Gig HD, with Windows XP, and it seems to be working flawlessly running all my music programs (Cakewalk Sonar, EMC StylesWorks, SoundForge, Band in a Box, etc, and, amazingly, it's been really stable (no crashes, freezes). I think maybe Microsoft has 'finally!' got things right with XP (keeping my fingers crossed).

Good Luck,
- Scott



[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 01-06-2002).]

I have two computers: the old one with Pentium III 650, 650 Mb of RAM, 40 Mb HD, Nvidia 32 Mb and Windows 98 SE and the new one with AMD Athlon 1600 XP, 512 Mb of RAM, 60 Mb HD, ATI Radeon 64 Mb and Windows XP. The only programs I cannot run are due to Windows XP, not the processor (but upgrades for XP are coming...)
Athlon is faster and cheaper.
DonM is right about the 7200 rpm hard disk; according to tests made by specialized magazines, the fastest is Maxtor, followed by IBM.
RAM: go for 512. When you run Windows RAM can effect the computer's speed more than the processor itself.
Video card: ATI Radeon (excellent for 3D, 2D and DVD), Nvidia (3D and 2 D) or Matrox (good for 2D only).
Soundcard: I have Creative Live Platinum 5.1 (I like to watch DVDs too), but on this Forum you will find sounder advice about that one too...they say that Creative is not good to make music :-(
One final word: on my old computer I had installed Windows ME but I didn't like it: it tends to create backup files at every startup and so, at the end, it will take up all of your hard disk space, unless you run a program to disactivate this feature. I don't like an operative system that does things that I cannot control (maybe Windows XP does the same, but right now we seem to get along very well).
Good luck!
Andrea


[This message has been edited by Dreamer (edited 01-06-2002).]

Hi Scott,
we seem to be posting at the same time; sorry I haven't installed ICQ on my new computer yet.
Take care!
Andrea

I have Windows ME, and I'm not totally satisfied with it, but it seems to be a little more stable than 98SE. The backup thing is a mixed blessing. It is good to be able to restore to a previous time when something gets messed up. If you are unlucky enough to get a virus though, it is quite a pain to remove it from the Restore File. ME won't let you access it, because it is "in use". So you either have to disable it, or go to DOS and manually remove the virus. The Restore features makes a copy of everything, including the virus.
To be perfectly honest, I don't do a whole lot of recording or sequencing on my computer, but I don't see any problem with what I have done. But that doesn't mean the Pentium wouldn't do it better.
DonM

Hello all.

My small pc(PentimIII 650/256Ram/ Fast 20Gb HD/Asus mother board/HP 9350 CD burnner/ is running with 2 OS:
A-Windows ME ,very unsteady but necessary to run my old music programs, with some blue screems everyday.
B-Windows XP Pro, excellent for new music programs.Office XP,Internet,etc
I had an unfortunate experience with AMD K6 II 650 Mhz to run my music programs, as Encore,Cake and Soundforge.

I think that for our applications a lot of Ram (512) is more usefull that a fast processor.
Chico

I'm using a p4 1.6 with 1GB ram and a 60GB with 7200 rpm speed.It's working very well with Cakewalk Sonar.my sonar used to sometimes lock up or lose the tempo with my old Amd athlon 1.0ghZ.but now it doesn't with the P4.if you want to have a perfect noise free sound.you should use the Delta 66.it's just perfect for recoding waves.I use it with my sound blaster live 5.1.