PC help, build for DAW/Media PC

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1

Good afternoon,

Brand new here, small Composer, Mediamaker / private business / studios owner BorsingStudios.com.

Got inspired to join through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tyudcr1uLY.

 

I need a serious workstation for media productions, a serious rig for composing with ProTools 11 and Reaper.

Other software I frequently use are Paintshop Pro X6 (64 bit), Google Sketchup 8, Iclone 5, 3Dexchange, Xara Webdesigner 9 Premium, Vegas Pro 11..

I'm getting older and have less capacity for technical disturbance in my workflow, meaning I would like to build a rig powerful enough to keep 16 VI's (virtual instruments, NI's Komplete 8/9) in MIDI, 16 Audio (WAV) tracks, a couple of effects buses for reverb/delay as well a one instance of Izotopes Alloy 2 on most of these plus a few Nectar/2 and Guitar rig for vocal/guitar tracks. I'm thinking a dual CPU workstation with lots of RAM etc, also I often work in 7.1 surround sound.

So far I'm looking at the

ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 SSI EEB Intel Motherboard.

I'm reading that it's not an easy choice build wise, which is why I'm taking time to bother you with it :)

I've used Reaper for about Three years now, have a huge, working template that I favor, but have found that trying to get my work done on my AMD 6 core HPE 410y limiting to say the least.

Will need to I/O it with Behringer's x-32, UA's Apollo 16, AVID's OMNI and other audio interfaces in the future

Sincerely Carl..

 

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Do you have a budget? We can build you a crazy build for your specific needs.

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I'm thinking I can build a tough enough workstation for around 4K but we need several more items for our studio such as the upcoming x-touch DAW controller and the Moto 61 keyboard and the 1604 mixer from Behringer. Our MAIN concern besides 3D (Iclone 5/6) and video Vegas pro 11/13 is our REAPER and Pro-tools 11 DAW. I'm thinking of a sweet spot between GHz and CPU Cores like the ASUS z9 PE-D8 WS / Xeon W 3680's, 64GB of Ram and several SSD's.. Graphics card is undecided as of now sice I'm uncertain wether Iclone5/6 and Vegas Pro use open CL or CUDA.. Linus (tech tips) made a YouTube video where he used the Nvidia quadro K4000 for display and the GTX 780 as a rendering engine, I didn't think that was possible so more research is necessary for the GPU issue..

4

Oy, finally remembered to check this thread (hope mods aren't mad for necro.)

I wouldn't recommend following the Linus build, its extravagance without thought to how to the software uses the hardware. Not to mention the driver tomfoolery could get messy just trying to get a Maximus setup out of a Quadro and GTX. Consider that you're going to need a Firewire expansion card and the proprietary adapter card for OMNI you're better off with a traditional SLI/XF setup and not risk having driver issues take your workstation out for a few days.

I have no experience working on audio production so please educate me on the problems you see in your current workstation. Where does it hang, how large are your files/projects, what kind of ram usage do you see, please go into detail. Most of the product sites for the software you listed recommend mid-level hardware to work smoothly so you could get a 4930k and a full set of ram. Dual CPU would make sense if you're doing a lot of video projects with hires source. Hopefully this isn't too late to be of help.

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Our current "workstation" (AMD Phenom II X6 1045T "CPU" / Radeon HD 5579 GPU, 16GB RAM, working firewire/USB 3 PCI-E cards, other than that a pretty much stock HP 410-Y) Reaper ends up producing a .5 sec duration of sound, followed by an .5 sec duration of silence  after some 10 Kontakt 5  VI's (funny that i still can add synths on my other tracks, routed outside of Kontakt 5) with Alloy II instances. I'm using our rather big Reaper template since i hate to mess with the tracks needed every time I sit down to compose/mix.  I never stopped researching our upgrades and have altered my build slightly. Without going into every specific component / brand I have decided against any Quadro cards and are leaning towards the 6 GB Titan Black instead (CUDA, open CL / GL support and more support for upcoming Iclone V6 features) since I use Iclone 5 (6 on it's way), Vegas pro 11 (13 will replace it) and Reaper / Pro-Tools 11 for audio, the ASUS WS dual Slot MB is probably best with Two Xenos 6 core CPU's (finding a sweet spot between GHz and cores), watercooling for both CPU / Gpu (Titan Black) is solved, RAM is leaning towards a 64 GB, 1600 MHz standard kit (8 GB x 8 modules), 2 6 TB WD RED's and Four Samsung 1 TB SSD's (one smaller to serve as an SSD cash supported by the ASUS dual socket WS board).. Case I like is the Corsair carbide air 540...No pro 10 bit or cheap 4K monitors at this point since I need other things for our studio upgrade (such as mixer, keyboard etc) Instead I'm leaning towards Two 30 Hz Seiki Digital SE39UY04 39' 4K display or rather LCD TV :).. WHY? Because screen real estate is King in our studio and ONE budget 10 bit pro 4K monitor cost more than these two.. When I need a screen for pro color work I'll simply ad one then but for now I'll just rely on the color metering in Vegas Pro, After all, what happens in Vegas STAYS in Vegas man.. :D..

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Pardon the delay but here is what I was able to deduce based on your specifications and the budget mentioned earlier:

For the CPU I would recommend the E5-2630v2 due to its price and performance, while not the heaviest hitter in its line its much more reasonable than the next few steps which hit 4 digits. At that point it breaks budget even harder. however this CPU also has the ability to turbo up to 3.1GHZ which is close to a stock 39/4930k. Two working in tandem should have no problems with workload.

For the power supply you could walk away with a Corsair AX1200i due to the demand of the CPUs and GPU on a full load, not to mention all the added storage, custom cooling, and expansion cards that will be added.

Not entirely sure what your storage setup is going to be but I highly recommend looking at the PPBM7 Disk page (http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page/84-disk-setup/95-disk-setup) for more information on how to configure your drives for larger setup.