It was very hard to say goodbye to my old PC, after all, with it I finished a university degree, and did countless music/video/web projects. However, I must move on, in anticipation of my future needs.
What prompted me to get a new computer was vocal processing - group singing is essential in Christian music, and during mixing, each voice element is treated individually. In computation terms, this multiplies the processing power required.
My old PC was power inefficient - each minute it's turned on adds to unseen electricity costs. The machine was hot and noisy too - to fix that, my new computer must have large-diameter fans and copper-based cooling.
After months of researching, my new DAW (digital audio workstation) was ready to be built:
Many extravagant PC builds are being documented each day, so why do I bother with blogging about mine?
***
Because I am not building a PC after all... I am building this instead:
Or better known as this...
The Mac has always been the superior platform for media creation, thanks to the OSX operating system and Apple's suite of Pro Applications - Logic Studio, Final Cut Studio, Adobe's CS4...
In recent months, the techniques for custom building Mac has matured to the point where it is now possible to build serious production-ready machines.
Here's a 80+ tracks MTV mixing project by the Shiny Toy Guns, running on Logic Pro 8 at a mere 128 samples latency. My DAW is handling it without breaking a sweat.
Such power means nothing if the DAW is not stable above all - it should be a ready-to-use canvas for musical ideas to flourish. For the song arranger, just validated the machine to run SONAR 8, Logic Pro 8, Digital Performer 6, Propellerhead Reason 4, Komplete 5, Melodyne, etc.
For my mLAN audio/midi interface, the Core Audio driver in OSX works so much better than the ASIO/WDM ones in Windows. Core Audio also supports hot-plugging of devices. So OSX has given my existing equipment a new lease of life too!
The computer is not expensive at all - it's the care taken to fine-tune and validate it which makes it valuable. As an example of how the system performs, see below how many programs are running in OSX at the same time!
After working on a
few arrangement projects in Windows and OSX, I declare the new
workstation has met my requirement - fast, stable, cool and quiet.
***
So you may ask - what about mobile recording? Well, no problem! Why not do the same to a notebook computer? Below is a notebook converted to a MacBook running Logic Pro 8. Now that's mixing on the go! Too bad there is no Starbucks near where I live.
Having said the final word in personal DAW platform, it's time for me to get some rest. This exercise has costed me many sleepless nights. My advice is, only custom-build a Mac if you want to have specs that money cannot buy, otherwise, saving up and getting a real Mac is the most cost-effective solution.
Just wonder how powerful the DAW is. I am also seeking for a new DAW. Of course, as power as possible within the budget.
I think you should be delighted to your new DAW, especially gain the extra stability on Mac. For my convenience, I may not get one Mac because of the Waves plug-ins. I only have the Windows version but not Mac.
But my next target is to improve the acoustic environment for recording vocals. My work only focus on single vocal (sometimes may involve some chorus session, if hip-hop needs to be done). I wonder whether Logic Studio is powerful to handle every session of arrangement, together with mixing and recording (like the all-in-one sequencer). Finally I should give up SONAR because of their poor calculation in mixing process, resulting in bad audio quality. Cubase is brighter, but not enough. Pro Tools HD is too expensive and useless for me.The final choice would be Logic Studio.
I am quite happy with my new DAW now, as it runs both Windows and OSX, and all my programs and plugins are working nicely.
I'd say the DAW is powerful enough for canto-pop. I think the more powerful DAWs are for surround and film mixing, or if you want to mix with lots I/O and external gear. I've seen commercial projects running fine on dual Mac G5, with plenty of soft synths. (provided that you have some external hardware gear too)
In terms of cost, my DAW is about 1/3 or 1/4 the cost of a Mac Pro. It's not as fast as Mac Pro's because they have 2 CPUs, but the cost is unbeatable. Moreover there are no real Mac's at this price point.
Yes it's too much to switch my workflow from PC to Mac, and there are a few missing pieces such as RealGuitar 2 which I only have PC version. The good thing is there's more software than I thought which worked on the Mac, for example NI Komplete 5, and many other VSTi which has OSX version on the same DVD.
However, the whole point of using Logic is to get rid of all the extra plugins, so you can focus and master what's included with Logic. I believe the key to good music is not how much software you have but you good you can master them.
Which Waves plugins do you use most? Haha you can take a leap of faith and try to use Logic exclusively.
My advise is, it doesn't hurt to try OSX + Logic. You can keep Windows and have OSX as one of your partitions. You can reuse your samples on the PC partition so no need to duplicate storage.
We are using Logic for studio tracking and we are loving it. The main reason is I work with other less technical people, and they find OSX + Logic beautiful and easy to use. The way Logic handles takes and comping is amazing, exactly what we needed for tracking. Another major reason is the channel strip presets. I know that other DAWs are starting to have this feature, but they are not as good as Logic, because Logic has a good set of plugins to start with, and on top of these some useful presets are built, categorized by the mixing needs. So at the end of each tracking session I can come up with a quick mix to show others how the song will be.
I plan to use SONAR for arrangement for some more time but will use Logic for tracking and mixing.
You're right about acoustic treatment. My blog focuses on arrangement but doesn't mean I don't care about acoustics. People that I work with are working on this issue. I think that acoustics costs a lot of money, you should be taking some paid projects which pays towards setting up your environment.
無名小俠 2009-03-04 18:31
I think you should be delighted to your new DAW, especially gain the extra stability on Mac. For my convenience, I may not get one Mac because of the Waves plug-ins. I only have the Windows version but not Mac.
But my next target is to improve the acoustic environment for recording vocals. My work only focus on single vocal (sometimes may involve some chorus session, if hip-hop needs to be done). I wonder whether Logic Studio is powerful to handle every session of arrangement, together with mixing and recording (like the all-in-one sequencer). Finally I should give up SONAR because of their poor calculation in mixing process, resulting in bad audio quality. Cubase is brighter, but not enough. Pro Tools HD is too expensive and useless for me.The final choice would be Logic Studio.
Congragulation to have a new DAW!
Respho2009-03-06 15:27
I'd say the DAW is powerful enough for canto-pop. I think the more powerful DAWs are for surround and film mixing, or if you want to mix with lots I/O and external gear. I've seen commercial projects running fine on dual Mac G5, with plenty of soft synths. (provided that you have some external hardware gear too)
In terms of cost, my DAW is about 1/3 or 1/4 the cost of a Mac Pro. It's not as fast as Mac Pro's because they have 2 CPUs, but the cost is unbeatable. Moreover there are no real Mac's at this price point.
Yes it's too much to switch my workflow from PC to Mac, and there are a few missing pieces such as RealGuitar 2 which I only have PC version. The good thing is there's more software than I thought which worked on the Mac, for example NI Komplete 5, and many other VSTi which has OSX version on the same DVD.
However, the whole point of using Logic is to get rid of all the extra plugins, so you can focus and master what's included with Logic. I believe the key to good music is not how much software you have but you good you can master them.
Which Waves plugins do you use most? Haha you can take a leap of faith and try to use Logic exclusively.
My advise is, it doesn't hurt to try OSX + Logic. You can keep Windows and have OSX as one of your partitions. You can reuse your samples on the PC partition so no need to duplicate storage.
We are using Logic for studio tracking and we are loving it. The main reason is I work with other less technical people, and they find OSX + Logic beautiful and easy to use. The way Logic handles takes and comping is amazing, exactly what we needed for tracking. Another major reason is the channel strip presets. I know that other DAWs are starting to have this feature, but they are not as good as Logic, because Logic has a good set of plugins to start with, and on top of these some useful presets are built, categorized by the mixing needs. So at the end of each tracking session I can come up with a quick mix to show others how the song will be.
I plan to use SONAR for arrangement for some more time but will use Logic for tracking and mixing.
You're right about acoustic treatment. My blog focuses on arrangement but doesn't mean I don't care about acoustics. People that I work with are working on this issue. I think that acoustics costs a lot of money, you should be taking some paid projects which pays towards setting up your environment.
金屬狂人 2009-02-27 05:24
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