Recording computer makeover

[Tadpui]

All of the computer talk around here has had me itching to do some much-needed upgrades to my recording computer lately. Finally I've been returned to my full salary at work, so I didn't hesitate to pull the trigger on a few much-needed improvements to my audio/video editing and gaming swiss army knife of a computer.

First was the case. I've been using a 4-space rackmount server chassis for several years now. It's been great, and it's a perfect fit for a studio with available rack spaces. The problem is that it's terrible for air flow. Once I upgraded my CPU to a 12 core 24 thread 4.1 GHz beast and stuck a gaming-oriented GPU in there, the heat was too much to deal with unless I cranked up my fans and made a bunch of noise in the process. So I bought a traditional desktop case (the be quiet! Pure Base 500dx) so I could have a more workable airflow setup. The case came with 3 140mm fans that do a great job at quietly moving a substantial amount of air through the case. My CPU and GPU are much happier now, and my case is WAY more quiet with this cooling setup.

Next was the power supply. Mine has actually been blinking out on me every once in a while. Total shutdown without warning when the system was under too heavy of a load. So I upgraded to a Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 850W 80+ Gold power supply. It's got a smart fan setup, so the fan doesn't run until it's under a really heavy load, so it stays silent unless I'm doing something like rendering or transcoding video or playing a game that's stressing out my GPU and CPU.

And last was only kind of an upgrade. More of a cross-grade. To replace the 3 x 1TB HDDs that I had tied together in a RAID0 array, I bought a Samsung QVO 870 4TB SSD. I couldn't find a PC case that I liked that would accommodate both my 360mm radiator plus 3 x 3.5" HDDs (unless I was willing to pay 2x market value or wait until September for shipping). So I figured that I'd re-purpose those to other duties (and belive me, that hurt because I was proud of getting those damned things into a RAID0 array in the first place, plus they outperformed this SSD). The SSD can do better at sustained read/writes, but the RAID array blows it away at raw speed for short bursts. But a single SSD is a more elegant solution so I'm going with that for now.

I've gotta say that I'm really proud of how this turned out. I know, it's kinda gamer-kid looking. But I'm also kind of a gamer-kid and I like this style of build. It's whisper quiet unless I'm really stressing it out. And even then, it's still quieter under load than my server chassis was at idle. Once I fiddled with fan placement and direction a bit, the thermals are better than my server chassis was. All in all, I'm very happy with the facelift.

Now I've just got to figure out where the hell I'm going to put it. I didn't think that part through. My studio has been organized around a rackmount chassis for several years, and I don't have a great place to put this thing without some major cabling overhauls. I guess that isn't such a bad problem to have. For now, it's sitting loud and proud (or near-silent and proud) on my desk, obscuring one of my Yamaha monitors.

Some pics, although they didn't turn out very well. I don't know how the hell people take good pics of a computer with a tempered glass side panel.

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[Greg_L]

Holy crap dude. I don't know what any of that is but it looks like something out of an 80s sci-fi movie. Very cool!

[SweetDan]

[Tadpui]

Holy crap dude. I don't know what any of that is but it looks like something out of an 80s sci-fi movie. Very cool!

Haha thanks I enjoy tinkering around with this stuff, and at least I had a couple of good reasons to do it this time. I've already got my eye on a couple of new shiny things for next year's upgrades

[JD01]

Ok. Lot of talk about computers lately... And I've gotta admit, they look cool and I want one. I like the idea of having a "clean" machine which doesn't have any stuff on it from the manufacturer like HP or Acer updates (to be fair Acer has been much better in this regard than HP).

However, I don't game, don't really process video and only really use my computer for Reaper. The fanciest plugin in use is EZ Drummer. I never really noticed any problems with my old computer, let alone my new laptop.

Question is, what advantage would a fancy computer give me? Why do you guys do it? Are you running loads of crazy VSTs or is it just that you're computer enthusiasts and want to tinker to have the best thing you can? (Nothing wrong with that by the way, I can totally see the appeal).

Recording using reaper generally seems pretty light on resources.

[vomitHatSteve]

Ooh! Shiny gamer compy! (Honestly, I get really annoyed with the shiny gamer stuff in my own machines. It doesn't need to glow when it's off!)

[Tadpui]

Ok. Lot of talk about computers lately... And I've gotta admit, they look cool and I want one. I like the idea of having a "clean" machine which doesn't have any stuff on it from the manufacturer like HP or Acer updates (to be fair Acer has been much better in this regard than HP).

However, I don't game, don't really process video and only really use my computer for Reaper. The fanciest plugin in use is EZ Drummer. I never really noticed any problems with my old computer, let alone my new laptop.

Question is, what advantage would a fancy computer give me? Why do you guys do it? Are you running loads of crazy VSTs or is it just that you're computer enthusiasts and want to tinker to have the best thing you can? (Nothing wrong with that by the way, I can totally see the appeal).

Recording using reaper generally seems pretty light on resources.

When it comes down to it, raw audio isn't very demanding. I mean, a Zoom H4n can record 4 tracks of 48 kHz 24-bit audio and that thing is probably less powerful than your average graphing calculator. I think that the demand for computational power comes when you start editing, mixing, using VST and VSTi plugins, etc. And how much power you need is highly dependent upon what all you're using.

For most of us here at TRR, we're generally doing very similar things. We're recording maybe 1 or 2 dozen audio tracks, and maybe using a handful of MIDI tracks that drive a couple of virtual instruments. I don't think that very many of our average projects would qualify as large or complex. So I think that for most of us, our needs for computer horsepower is relatively moderate.

For me, I'm just an enthusiast that enjoys tinkering with my computers. I watch a lot of tech YouTubers, and this style of build has been in vogue for at least a few years now, so it's become what I see as a desirable build. LED lighting, tempered glass side panels, hot-rodded overclocked CPUs, all-in-one liquid coolers, M.2 NVMe SSDs, hot-rod GPUs, etc. are just kind of par for the course for a contemporary gaming-oriented computer. So I wanted all of that, plus I edit videos so a lot of CPU cores benefits me, and since I track and edit audio I also wanted things quiet. It was a lot of boxes to check with a single computer

But I'd say that unless you're gaming, editing video, or using some really demanding VST or VSTi plugins, your needs for raw horsepower are relatively mild. As long as you're not getting pops/clicks/dropouts with your ASIO buffer set where your latency is manageable, then you're golden!

[Tadpui]

Ooh! Shiny gamer compy! (Honestly, I get really annoyed with the shiny gamer stuff in my own machines. It doesn't need to glow when it's off!)

It is, indeed, shiny! The good news is that all of the lighting turns off when the computer sleeps or powers down. Or I can shut it all off via software if I ever get tired of the lights.

[JD01]

Ok. Lot of talk about computers lately... And I've gotta admit, they look cool and I want one. I like the idea of having a "clean" machine which doesn't have any stuff on it from the manufacturer like HP or Acer updates (to be fair Acer has been much better in this regard than HP).

However, I don't game, don't really process video and only really use my computer for Reaper. The fanciest plugin in use is EZ Drummer. I never really noticed any problems with my old computer, let alone my new laptop.

Question is, what advantage would a fancy computer give me? Why do you guys do it? Are you running loads of crazy VSTs or is it just that you're computer enthusiasts and want to tinker to have the best thing you can? (Nothing wrong with that by the way, I can totally see the appeal).

Recording using reaper generally seems pretty light on resources.

When it comes down to it, raw audio isn't very demanding. I mean, a Zoom H4n can record 4 tracks of 48 kHz 24-bit audio and that thing is probably less powerful than your average graphing calculator. I think that the demand for computational power comes when you start editing, mixing, using VST and VSTi plugins, etc. And how much power you need is highly dependent upon what all you're using.

For most of us here at TRR, we're generally doing very similar things. We're recording maybe 1 or 2 dozen audio tracks, and maybe using a handful of MIDI tracks that drive a couple of virtual instruments. I don't think that very many of our average projects would qualify as large or complex. So I think that for most of us, our needs for computer horsepower is relatively moderate.

For me, I'm just an enthusiast that enjoys tinkering with my computers. I watch a lot of tech YouTubers, and this style of build has been in vogue for at least a few years now, so it's become what I see as a desirable build. LED lighting, tempered glass side panels, hot-rodded overclocked CPUs, all-in-one liquid coolers, M.2 NVMe SSDs, hot-rod GPUs, etc. are just kind of par for the course for a contemporary gaming-oriented computer. So I wanted all of that, plus I edit videos so a lot of CPU cores benefits me, and since I track and edit audio I also wanted things quiet. It was a lot of boxes to check with a single computer

But I'd say that unless you're gaming, editing video, or using some really demanding VST or VSTi plugins, your needs for raw horsepower are relatively mild. As long as you're not getting pops/clicks/dropouts with your ASIO buffer set where your latency is manageable, then you're golden!

Yeah, I guess I just don't need any of this stuff for what I do.
I don't even really care about latency. I don't track with any sims or effects on my tracks. I always have record monitoring set to off.
So I just leave my buffer at 256 and whatever latency I end up with.

[musicturtle]

[mention]Tadpui[/mention] Ha ha!

That is an awesome machine there. I have very little need for it, but I am a hardware geek too, and would love something like that.