My Sad Pc Story And A Gob Of Questions, ...please... help... me....... Options

[b-hamcomposer]

Gather round kids, let me tell you of a scary story.

Ever since I was a lad I've fancied PCs. I learned how to use them, deal with bluescreens, and build new machines. In fact, I have built about 30 PC's in my lifetime, and spend a fair amount of my high school days doing independent PC consulting. Asa young composer/producer/whateva I decided that it was high time last summer to get replace my soundblaster with some serious music equipment. So, I sold my aging PC desktop and bought a used HP laptop. Yessirry, I was going to be a big time mobile recordist and performer. I financed a Tascam FW-1884, awesome board btw, but distinctly NOT portable. About two months into the fall the master fader stopped working, so I sent it back to sweetwater. While it was there I though perhaps I could trade it for something a little bit smaller, more portable than the FW1884. So I got an 828MKII, JLcooper Minidesk, and a small mixer for extra pre's, paid a bunch of shipping and restocking fees and was on my way. The 828 was a beatuful looking unit, and did a fine job as a mixer, but simply wouldn't recognize on my laptop. I tried a different FW card, all manner of tech support phone calls, and just about anything else I could thing of. No go.

This was getting a little scary becuase I had this opportunity to go to mexico and record a band, and this gear was NOT working!!! So, I ended up selling the laptop and, fearing future laptop issues, I elected to get a MusicXPC like machine that I built myself. This is a cute little desktop about the size and shape of a toaster. With this format of machine you still have to have a monitor and keyboard etc... so not so portable, but definately functional. I got a really nice fast, powerful machine that was going to be great for audio. I plugged the 828mkII in and it worked like a charm! A had an awesome setup, no doubt. Well, until I tried to record. In Sonar 3 I got so bogged down when tracking more than 1 track, or playing back anything, that it was practically unusable. I got back on with the tech support, the forums, the praying fervently, and found a few voodoo whitch doctor pc tweaks that semmed to help ( you know, turn off fast usuer switching, don't have a desktop background or screensaver etc) Well, I thought it was working very nicly again so I took it down to mexico with me. We set up and began tracking in this incredible old diapidated mansion downtown mexico city. As soon as we finished the first take of the first song the computer just restarted without warning and refused to go back to recording again. great.

You guys will love this part. The people I was staying with just happened to have a Powerbook G4, and I wondered if it might be able to work as a backup. I really had no other hope, so this had to work. Sure enough, within 5 minutes, I had installed the 828MKII and audiodesk and could proceed recording. I was dumbfounded. The rest of the session was without a single computer problem. I could actually focus on the mexi-punk. (I also fell in love with itunes and iphoto...)

After getting back to the states I worked really hard to try to get my system working, but nobody had a clue. Even after that wonderful revelation I never considered just getting a mac. Why? I have no idea. Anyways, I was very suspicious of firewire at this point so, I tired to find the best PCI interface I could get. I landed on the Aardvark Q10, and I haven't regretted it. It sounds wonderful. So, after more shipping and more goddamn restocking fees, I got a q10 and plugged er' in. It installed fine... restart. WHY CAN'T I MOVE MY MOUSE>??!?!?!!

Back to tech support... its january by the way.The machine simply locked up everytime it didn't boot in safe mode when the q10 was installed. Finally, the good people at aardvark had some insight!!! The problem all along was the chipset I was using on my motherboard. Now, having been an experienced system builder, I have NEVER had an issue with the motherboard's chipset. In this case however, the onboard VIA chipset wasn't efficient enough for pro audio at all. So, the guy gave me a link to a user who had writted a patch to fix the thouroughput issues. The friggen company wouldn't write a real patch. So, this particular patch wasn't exactly for my chipset, but it did seem to work. After a month of more tech support and bios updates and such, I still couldn't record with anything under 350ms latency. Fun for softsynths!!!!

not again. This time I decided that there will be no more screwing around. I was going to build the BEST PC IMAGINABLE for audio. I worked extensively with system builders, audio tech support poeple, forum junkies, etc, and picked every component from the perfect RAM to the perfect case (antec sonata, piano black and completely silent mmmmm) and it is beautiful. I sold off the other stuff and got cracking on my new harware. FINALLY, I had a PC that was both functional and stable. But its a stupid full tower. I am not mobile at all. I am dealing with it. WE have to make our sarifices, right?

Well, I got back into doing lots of recording and sequencing, it was going quite nicely. The hardware was inpendatrable, smoking fast, and good looking. Its never locked up on me. But here's the fun part: PC softare supprt!! Even with the beat hardware, I couldn't get Sonar to be stable, and cubase is such a better programbut I continued to have issues. I just learned to save often and be okay with restarting every 15 minutes. In cubase, I don;'t know if this happens on macs but on PCs when you record midi, it works just fine for a while, but then the clock drifts away from its self over time such that when you record a chunk of midi it will actually play a few beats boefore or after the metrnome you recorded it with directly. It is a known issue. There is no fix.


Well, last week I was just finishing up some music I did in GPO for a short film. By the end, the PC would actually need to be resarted every time I opened my project files, and finally when the director I and wanted to do a few edits I couldn't do them in Cubase because it would lock before the file could open. I had to make some edits directly on the rough drafts of audio that I had given her previously, instead of editing the actual music. I'll tell you what, its damn embarassing to have your computer poop out on you in front of a client or collegue. That is when I finally decided it was time to make the switch.

Harrowing I know... I hope I haven't forgetten anything. Okay now, let get to business. I am looking at powerbooks and have a few Q's.

1. What is the most stable audio interface I could possibly get for work withlogic 6 pro? (ps I'm excited about working with logic... its what Ive been looking for all these years.)
-I would like mic pres
-I would like it to possible be bus powered
-I for now I only need two channels and midi, but more is nice
-STABLE!!!!
I think the FW410 looks good, but I've also heard on here about some serious problems. Any insight?

2. Is 17" powerbook really worth it? Is 12" liviable for audio work? For those of you who have superdrives, how often do you actually use them for DVD burning?

3. Is applecare really worth all thast extra money?

4. Does anybody want to buy a PC?

5. Does anybody want to give me a mac, for all my trials?


Thanks people, I really love your forum so far.

-Chris

[Dave Bourke]

Wow, what a saga!

Lepetitmartien is right, this would make a great Apple switch story.

http://www.apple.com/switch/tell/us.html

He's also right about the 15" (more expandability than the 12") and the Motu firewire interfaces (and the external firewire drive - recording to the internal drive will bog you down pretty quickly).

However, I would keep the PC and use it as a GigaSampler station. Or put an OASYS-PCI card in it. Or use it as an external VST/VSTi rack. Or all three together :-)

Good luck, and welcome to Macintosh!