I'm committed to the notion of soft-synths over hardware now, although I still eyeball the Virus TI from time to time, I've decided I get can get more out of VST plugins and currently using FLStudio as the sequencer.
So, I'm thinking about a dedicated music PC, because while my main PC is quite capable it is a shared resource, I find myself moving stuff out of the way to do music, moving the music stuff out of the way to do programming (software, not synths) work, etc. and it gets to be too much. Not to mention I've got a gazillion services running on this PC which don't need to be stepping on my CPU cycles while creating music.
At some point I want to set up a music workspace that does nothing but that -- and is available and ready when inspiration strikes, including dedicated (LCD) monitor, dedicated audio monitors (speakers) and the OS configuration optimized for making music (probably XP for now, maybe Vista later, whereas I have the need to go to Vista now on my primary machine).
So, I've been looking at the offerings from this company... please take a look at this machine (paying more attention to the audio features than the other components) and let me know your thoughts. It seems like a great value.... I can find myself plunking down $1600 for this much faster than I can three grand for a dedicated hardware device with limited capabilities.
http://www.velocitymicro.com/wizard.php?iid=97
The only reason I'm looking at Velocity Micro is I bought my last PC from them, it is an absolute workhorse and by far the most stable PC I've ever owned, quality components throughout. But, then again it is a PC I bought a year and a half ago with programming and some gaming in mind rather that top-rate audio production. It was not one of the ones in their digital audio workstation series, so it has a Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio card -- the latency is fine and the thing is fast enough, but I am interested in a higher-quality output (if you search the forums for some of my songs you can get examples easily enough). Their audio workstations look appealing, given my past experiences with the brand, and I like the fact it is configured and tested.
The audio interface is an EMU 1212m. I know Creative has tarnished their reputation recently and EMU is now owned by them, so my primary questions center around this interface as a professional-grade music production device and how suitable it is, since they do not seem to offer much else in terms of "real" audio gear.
So what I would really like to know is, what are my other options in the same price range in terms of a dedicated audio PC? Portability is not an issue. Overall performance, sound quality, reliability, and flexibility are key.
Dedicated audio PC
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Re: Dedicated audio PC
Bucko wrote:It was not one of the ones in their...