AeraDynamic 2008-07-13 08:51:04

Building your own PC is more expensive mostly! But you pick the parts on your on, whatever you want to, put it in or not. But if you find a PC that mainly fits with your expectations, buy it cheap and then upgrade. This can save you lots of money. If you pick the right parts you don't need to get noise-muffling cases at all. You can find good silent CPU Coolers and PSUs by reading comments on Hardware-selling Sites. And the CPU, the Video Card and the PSU are the parts which make the most of the noise in a PC.

Core2Duo for sure (less wattage then AMD)
2-4 GigByte RAM (depends on what operating system you work, but at least 2GB)
WinXP > then Vista (I got no experience about Apple)
At least 500 GB HDD for Music Files (1TB if you can get it cheap of course)

If you got silent Parts you don't need a special-super-noise-muffling-case for wtf 150$ - you can get good cases for 50$ or 80$ too. My Comp costs around 1600$ (1000EU) and I bought it last year. The Parts I picked got much cheaper and I could get it for the half now. I got 2GB Ram, 500GB HDD, C2D6750 and GF8800GT - Thats enough to play Crysis at 1280x768 on High with DX10 tweaks ;)

Best would be to pick a System wich contains silent parts and fits the most with what you need, then if you need to - Upgrade it cheap with more Ram or w/e
Hope that helped :)

CaiWengi 2008-07-13 09:12:15

Look for refurbished PCs on sites like PC world. They are very good for the prices, and then just customise it how you want. IE a better sound card or a muffling case.

RyanPridgeon 2008-07-13 14:58:26

If you get a good PC with decent cooling you shouldnt need sound dampening. Seriously. Also, if you are going to buy a custom comp, it's much better to build your own. However off the shelf is usually cheapest, but you'll never find a combination that really suits you.

On the other hand, get a Mac. Reliability is the most important (as I've found through 3 broken PCs I made D:)

Also LOVING YOUR DNB! You are a god.

-Ryan

p4c 2008-07-15 19:28:15

lol i dont really agree with aeradynamic--they generally are much cheaper unless you buy a $300 dell crapstation. i built my comp, but its not made for audio. looking at the specs of the compys u linked, though, it doesnt seem that they have terribly specialized stuff--apart from soundproofed computers, idk how you would do that on my own but idk how much you consider that necessary. thats ur call--and if u look in the right places, buidling ur own comp lets u get a more personalized rig [i am punny] but would obviously take much more time.

so,

sound dampening? i cant say. i dont record a lot, but given that you would, i think that you can work around it pretty easily. are you recording right next to ur comp? can you record in a different room/setup? chances are, if you stand a few feet away or have a relatively long cable for your mic, you can probably get away from noise without really needing an ultraquiet computer, since as far as computers go, it isnt hard to get a relatively soft but power computer in the first place. but im not experienced in that, so dont take my word on it.

custtom/off the shelf? i dont see why not custom [unless you go alienware style and pay 90000000 bux]. most sites let you customize anyway, and it looks like the ones u linked do. but if its cheaper to go off teh shelf, and the specs look good enough for your needs, by all means.

build ur own? if you have time and patience or want to save some cash, yes. my rig cost me something like 1500 bux or so, and with crysis as a benchmark, i run it at 1600x1200 with dx9 [glares at aeradynamic] on high graphix settings, and never have run into processing problems with anything audio related.

the specs that aeradynamic listed are decent, good guidelines. you might consider investing in 8gig ram and quad core proc. if ur looking for future proofing [or are gonna do some REALLY REALLY REALLLY ReAlLy intense stuff lol], though. and he didnt really mention sound cards [which is kinda important for audio and all... lol]. i cant really recommend very well here, though, so look around for more info.

and for getting parts cheap, techbargains.com usually tends to get pretty good results [outside of ebay... hehehe], it searches the web for cheap prices and displays them [given that it recognizes the product]

now go impress ronay.

WritersBlock 2008-07-16 00:31:49

I'm doing the same sort of thing, but I'm not really concerned about its tailor-made music-ness, I mean, I just want something fast that'll handle my computer programs.
Sound dampening: I wouldn't bother, you may get something to benefit from it, but it won't really affect me at all.
I've seen an ad for an off-the-shelf computer not too long ago, and the specifications were what I needed. If you can find something reasonable priced off-the-shelf, I'd say go for it, if not, build your own to exactly what you want. If I go for the "build your own" option, I'll just let my brother handle it, the inside of computers aren't really my domain...

xKore 2008-07-18 02:57:29

buy a mac pause not

Mrmilkcarton 2008-07-18 03:15:09

Hi thar Mr. Rig.

I don't suggest buying off the shelf. It's a personal reason but I'll go into a bit more detail. With custom computers you have the choice of what you want and what you don't want. You don't have to deal with companies loading tons of crap onto your computer. Another is you can salvage parts from your old computer. Keyboard and monitor already covered no reason to upgrade. Could even salvage some RAM if its update to date. Graphics card doesn't have to be amazing if your not into gaming.

I don't ever want to buy a shelf Desktop again because I was screwed over and I hate it to death. It's an HP so I'm avoiding them now and dells aren't amazing either from what I've heard. My computer also was built for the wrong stuff so I personally was a little naive when looking at it.

If your planning to switch to a different music program alot of good programs are made for Mac sadly. Pro tools which we all know is well... Pro is Mac ornly and we just have to deal with that. If you plan to take your career professionally and sell stuff pro tools might be the way to go later on with a Mac. For now though its best left a desktop in my opinion. If your job really wants you to have the equipment I'm sure they will get it for you somehow.

Another good site you can check it out newegg.com my friend literally built me a computer set up for music and gaming. Too bad for me its a thousand dollar cost and somehow I'll have to get the money to replace my current setup.

Anyways best of luck hope this helps a bit.

TjA 2008-07-19 16:55:04

i think a few things that are needed above all are: good sound card, good cpu, good ram and heat sinks.

MusicIsBliss 2008-07-22 04:25:01

well, I would personally say no to a sound muffling case. The whole reason you would have it is because of a loud fan, but your fan wont be loud if your computer can handle what you are running. The main issue though is that fans use air, and where air goes, sound goes; muffling the noise of the fan will make it not as effective, making your computer heat up, making your fan run stronger and louder. Also, regular fans should be a problem with recording if your computer is on the ground and you are sitting near it (i sing into my mike in my laptop when i am lazy, and the fan is like 10 db).

Also, i would suggest keeping your old computer to run everyhting BUT music. This would make your requirements less (= cheaper) and you dont have to deal with your computer bogging down as you install another 3000 songs and 14 movies.

last suggestion would be to get 2 screens. Most programs like fruity loops can be run on 2 screens, making it possible to have longer sequencers, more visible instruments at a time, and not having your spectrometers hiding behind 17 different vst's

oh, did you ever put up that FL file for Moving On?

MCL 2008-07-23 23:29:32

If you get off the sheif your buying windows vista! i'd say yes to
sound dampening no don't build your own because its riskful!
1.don't get off the sheif (windows vista)
2.get one sound dempening
3.don't build one you can get the RISK of geting cut by metal
of a computer body.

CommonOddity 2008-07-26 15:48:54

Sound dampening - Either way goes, details...
Custom comp - Oh yes, most definitely. I strongly disagree with AeraDynamic. You'd have to be a lobotomized monkey to make the machine you're building cost more than a standalone shit-in-a-box by Compaq or Dell, or the like.

<a href="http://www.tigerdirect.ca">www.tigerdirect.ca</a> and <a href="http://www.newegg.com">www.newegg.com</a> are your friends. Excellent websites with a broad range of selections.

I've built well over 100 machines in my lifetime, including crucial servers and boxes needing roots. Please pm me if you'd like any assistance with this.

AeraDynamic 2008-07-27 09:56:30

@CommonOddity: It seems you missunderstood something, I live in Germany - Maybe Hardware is more expensive here and I didn't said that I bought it just before the prices began to fall down to nothing -__- As you can imagine I no fortune teller so I didn't knew that one year ago... I made the list above with german ardware sellers and converted it to $ so there could be differences between your costs and mine ;)

beausuf 2008-08-01 08:07:53

I dont know about America but in Australia building = cheaper, my older brother built this computer for me about a month ago and it worked out almost half of what it would cost pre-built from a shop, $1200 all up, 4GB ram 500gb hard drive blah blah and can play most games on high settings at 1680x1050. Desktop is always upgrade-able to, if you need more ram or hard drive space can always change it, I dno about sound muffling cases and whatever, sounds a bit over the top to me, like a car salesmen coning you into all the extra features.

beausuf 2008-08-01 08:10:06

Oh and my price included Vista, widescreen monitor, new keyboard mouse, speakers etc

FunkmasterCatking 2008-08-02 00:35:24

Rig is teh shiznet!

Oh yeah, and I have a mac, and I love it. (I'd never be able to live with it if it didn't have windows installed though)

Kr1z 2008-08-07 18:32:51

I cant read so i wont comment.

AeraDynamic 2008-08-08 05:21:41

Answer me :( *You Moderator!* We need your help!

AeraDynamic 2008-08-09 08:17:35

Sorry Rig, my mistake -__- <a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/950512">http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/9 50512</a>