Help with an Audio recording PC

the_syco

Hi,

So, a mate has asked me to look into building him a desktop PC for the purpose of audio recording. The budget will be €900, and will be using W10 64bit (shall probably purchase this via Reddit's software exchange forum).

It'll have to be an Intel build, as he'll be using the Thunderbolt connection for some of the gadgets he'll be using. Although AMD based motherboards can use Thunderbolt connections, it's my understanding that you have to mess with firmware to get it working, and as far as I can see, Intel has no plans to release the tech to AMD.

Also, Pro Tools only recommends Intel for compatibility issues. Have researched this, and it seems some AMD builds give "pops" during recording.

Minimum RAM will be 16GB's, as Pro Tools is meant to be a hungry beast.

Unsure if it has to be nVidia or AMD graphics, as still checking if his main application, Pro Tools, uses CUDA or not. But a graphics card is needed, as I'm told it'll allow him to load more plugins.

ED E

Is quietness a concern? (is it a booth + studio or just one room)

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8 GHz 6-Core Processor (£197.58 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Pure Rock Slim 35.14 CFM CPU Cooler (£21.75 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B360 HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£76.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill - FORTIS 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£99.59 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX8200 Pro 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£62.99 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Palit - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB KalmX Video Card (£156.97 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master - MasterCase MC500M ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: be quiet! - Pure Power 11 CM 400 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£60.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £766.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-30 16:59 GMT+0000

Silence-focused build.

Doesn't look like Pro Tools has CUDA but just in case the build includes a (fanless) 1050 Ti 4Gb. *(there's also tons of cards with semi-passive modes under zero GPU load)
Motherboard has a 5-pin Thunderbolt header & case has USB 3.1
Some money left in budget for either a bigger SSD or mechanical HDD.

Also don't forget CES runs from 8-12th January.

Alpha8

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8 GHz 6-Core Processor (£197.58 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Pure Rock Slim 35.14 CFM CPU Cooler (£21.75 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B360 HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£76.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill - FORTIS 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£99.59 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX8200 Pro 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£62.99 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Palit - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB KalmX Video Card (£156.97 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master - MasterCase MC500M ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: be quiet! - Pure Power 11 CM 400 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£60.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £766.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-30 16:59 GMT+0000

Silence-focused build.

Doesn't look like Pro Tools has CUDA but just in case the build includes a (fanless) 1050 Ti 4Gb. *(there's also tons of cards with semi-passive modes under zero GPU load)
Motherboard has a 5-pin Thunderbolt header & case has USB 3.1
Some money left in budget for either a bigger SSD or mechanical HDD.

Also don't forget CES runs from 8-12th January.

Would it not be better to go for a BeQuiet case?

K.O.Kiki

Alpha8 wrote: »

Would it not be better to go for a BeQuiet case?

The only be quiet! case with a USB 3.1 port is the Dark Base 700 which costs £140+

Unless I'm misunderstanding how you connect Thunderbolt. In which case go with the cheaper Pure Base/Quiet Base 600.

the_syco

ED E wrote: »

Is quietness a concern? (is it a booth + studio or just one room)

The cab speaker will be in the shed (inside a sound insulated box), and the mic will be next to it. The cab will be connected to the guitar (in his room), and the mic will be connected to the PC (also in his room). Seems this will allow him to get a good loud sound, without annoying the neighbours.

However, I think he's looking for a quite machine (or option of a quite machine) for acoustic guitar recording. By option, I mean if there's a software switch to lower the speed of fans whilst he's recording.

Shall check, and get back to you on why the PC needs to be quite. I think it's because his previous machine was a noisy Dell, that sounded like a jet taking off when at full whack :pac:

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Motherboard has a 5-pin Thunderbolt header & case has USB 3.1

I see that the Thunderbolt3 card is only £74.99 which isn't bad.

He'll need to buy two of the M2 SSDs, as the Pro Tools bounces (maybe wrong term) data between the two disks. This bouncing may not be needed for SSDs

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Unless I'm misunderstanding how you connect Thunderbolt.

Yes, and no.
USB C is 5GB/s
USB 3.1 C is 10Gb/s
USB 3.2 C is 20GbB/s
Thunderbolt1 is 10Gb/s
Thunderbolt2 is 20Gb/s
Thunderbolt3 is 40Gb/s

So I'll need to get a Thunderbolt3 card. Because of this, front ports just need to be USB3 for data transfer to external drives for transport, unless there's a case with Thunderbolt3 connections on it.

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Also don't forget CES runs from 8-12th January.

Have seen that pop up. I assume prices drop a bit afterwards, due to new tech being announced?

ED E

the_syco wrote: »

Thunderbolt1 is 10Gb/s
Thunderbolt2 is 20Gb/s
Thunderbolt3 is 40Gb/s

You'll never do 40Gb on a PCIE device. X16 PCIE 3.0 is only 16Gbps or thereabouts. That short connector card will be especially bottlenecked.

Whats more the CPU above (and most consumer ones) only have 16 lanes, so if you were to use M2 SSDs you'd have less again and other PCI devices even less.

Depending on how much bandwidth is actually needed (even USB2.0 is enough for quad channel recording so the TB connection may just be convenience) you might just hit a point where Xeon is appealing but TBH his requirements would probably work on a single USB3 connection.

iLikeWaffles

Built mine a couple of years ago to be audio specific and had pro tools in mind, will post a build after tomorrow! What version of pro tools does he use? Is it a HD system or a subscription?

the_syco

iLikeWaffles wrote: »

Built mine a couple of years ago to be audio specific and had pro tools in mind, will post a build after tomorrow! What version of pro tools does he use? Is it a HD system or a subscription?

AFAIK, it'll be Pro Tools 12.5. I'm assuming it'll be the Standard version (as opposed to Ultimate).

the_syco

iLikeWaffles wrote: »

Built mine a couple of years ago to be audio specific and had pro tools in mind, will post a build after tomorrow! What version of pro tools does he use? Is it a HD system or a subscription?

Found out that he'll be getting Protools LE.

There's no le anymore..ah there shouldn't be any major hassle once the soundcard drivers are ok..

the_syco

Deleted User wrote: »

There's no le anymore..ah there shouldn't be any major hassle once the soundcard drivers are ok..

Ah. Shall let him know. I think he used a Digidesign Digi 002 Rack with the ProTools LE back in 2006/8?

Just in case he's looking to use it with w10, here's a how to..

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=402340

iLikeWaffles

Had a reply ready to go and Boards decides to log me out.

Not too sure if the Digi 002 is supported with 12.5 read 12.5.2 supports it if you can manage to get the proper sound drivers. A lot of hassle though getting it to work, better off having a separate budget for a sound card, possibly a Universal Audio or MOTU. An iLok2 is required to run ProTools now, that will set you back about €35, an iLok3 would be better though no telling when they will drop support for the iLok2.

If its ProTools Standard an i5 or i7 would better but I'd swap the CPU out for a Xeon if its the Ultimate version. The more Physical cores the better for rendering audio.

Barebones build https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Vp4zxG £887.27

I would add an extra 500GB/1TB M.2 just for the ProTools Projects folders, a 1TB/2TB (7200rpm or higher) internal for Finished projects and a 2TB/4TB external for backups.

Doubled up on ram 32GB is recommended for ProTools 16GB being the minimum. There should be sufficient clearance for the RAM/CPU cooler, Noctua are in my opinion the best option for low dB coolers but the case will dampen sounds a lot, so you could probably swap out the Noctua for a louder cooler!

Case - Fractal Design R6 would be best here to minimise noise - Nearly sure the case comes with 3 fans, one in the back 2 in the front but you can add more also.

No GPU - the HD graphics on the CPU would be sufficient for basic Video Editing within ProTools. Nearly sure your video card has no bearing on how ProTools handles Plug-ins they are loaded from disk the more CPU cores and RAM the better ProTools can render the audio stream from the disk the M.2 would give you the best performance with doing that. If Video projects are going to be the main workload I'd say get a decent Graphics card to handle 1080 or 4k projects. Which could always be added later.

Options for overclocking if needed down the road with the 8600k!

There is no optical drive also but ProTools installs from cloud anyway so its just the w10 install if it is not on usb.