Shopping for a new music PC

Had a fun time today going online to order components for a new PC to use for music recording (and, increasingly, for music making - plugins really have taken over. How long before the patented 'Typewriter guitar sound' is replaced by a plugin?)

Now, some readers will have thought 'fool' as soon as they saw the word 'PC' rather than Mac, so I'll address that issue upfront. Whilst I do agree that Macs are good for music applications, and Logic is an awesome sequencer package, I've simply got too much invested in the PC platform from a software and hardware knowledge point of view to make the transition unless absolutely forced to. (For sure, Microsoft Vista might force me to, but we ain't there yet, 'cos Windows XP is still available for the next few months - partly why I upgraded now).

On the software front, if presented with Logic I wouldn't have a clue as I'm a dyed in the wool Sonar man and always have been (and before that, Cakewalk). Apart from when I use Reaper, which you should try immediately if you haven't already... but that's Windows too. I have no idea if Sonar is the best sequencer package around, but who cares? It does pretty much everything I want and I know my way around it, which is the main thing.

On hardware, I am addicted to building my own PCs and again this is where the Mac, for me, lacks the sheer excitement of self-build. Of course many Mac fans will point out that building your own computer is a recipe for disaster, there are too many potential incompatibilities, etc. Well, I've done OK so far, fortunately. Nothing's blown up when it's been plugged in - yet. And I'm no technical genius, so if i can do it, anyone can. (Well, anyone within reason... I wouldn't expect my dad to try this stuff as he can barely send an email...)

As this is nothing if not a blog for technically minded musicians, I thought I'd post the exact spec of the PC for future reference. So here goes:

Case

Previously I've gone for fairly large tower cases on my PCs due to the need to have enough room in to fit several hard drives for the requisite amount of recording disk space and back-up storage. But this time I've taken the opposite approach and gone for a SFF (small form factor) case - namely, a Silverstone SUGO SG02W. It seemed to have some good reviews online and didn't break the bank, so there it was. Also it accepts a full-size ATX power supply unit, which is great: the one thing you don't want to do in a PC is run out of power. Got a 500W Silverstone PSU to fit in the case, which should do the job nicely.

Motherboard

The Silverstone takes a microATX size motherboard. My requirements were quite specific: I wanted integrated graphics to avoid having to get an additional graphics card (who needs high-end graphics for a music PC?) and I wanted firewire (I've got an old external LaCie firewire hard drive which comes in handy now and then, and also in case I ever decide to get a firewire multi-channel recording interface, which is unlikely, but you never know. These criteria, plus cost (didn't want el cheapo but didn't want to pay over the odds either), led me to the Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R board, which looked as good as any.

CPU

Again I've turned over a new leaf here by going for Intel instead of AMD. In 2005 when I last built a PC, AMD were kicking ass at the low-price end of things, but Intel dual-cores (and even some of the quad-cores) are now so cheap and powerful that AMD, this time, was a non-starter. Most of the quads were still a little bit pricey for what I wanted so I went for a mid-range dual core: a Core 2 Duo 6570, with the 65nm "Conroe" core. About £115 including VAT. My existing machine, running a lowly Athlon 3500, rarely struggles even with my most demanding musical arrangments, so this baby ought to blow me away. We shall see...

RAM

No reason to stint on RAM at current prices - went for 4Gb of Corsair DDR2, PC6400. Why only 4 gigs? 'Cos I'm gonna be running 32-bit Windows XP - for now, at least - and the OS won't see more than 4 gigs. It should be more than enough, anyway.

Hard drive

Hard drives are now so large that there is not so much reason to stuff every machine to the gills with extra hard drives - for now I've bought just one, a 750Gb Western Digital model. I'll probably partition the drive into a small partition for the OS and main system files and a lot more space for everything else - given that Windows can be flaky, it makes it easier to restore in the event of something going wrong. I've also bought a LaCie external hard drive to back up everything, which I promise to do regularly this time...

stuff I didn't bother with

Didn't bother with a DVD writer as I already had a perfectly good external one. Likewise, I already have a good monitor and I can fit the M-Audio Delta 44 I've got in my old PC into this new one, so no upgrades required there.

Anyway, there you have it (I've probably forgotten something but we'll see...) This kit all arrives on Friday so there'll be some fun assembly going on. I'm gonna do my April session for Burning Lodge on the old computer though as I don't want to be messing about with new installations at the same time as I'm trying to record tracks. That's a recipe for disaster.

Oh yeah, one last thing: the supplier is Scan. Often marginally more expensive than Dabs but Dabs use Amtrak for deliveries and they are totally useless. whereas Scan use Citylink, who are a bit better. Also you can specify an exact delivery date on Scan and it will actually arrive on that date... whereas when I paid extra to specify a delivery date with Dabs, they seemed to just ignore it. All computer suppliers are shysters, but some are shyer than others, if you get my drift. More info and maybe even some pictures of the new PC when i've put it together...