Going for a new computer - please, some help will be cool

[Nestor]

MOBO: Gigabyte GB Z97X UD5H BK
CPU: i7 4790-K
VIDEO: Zotac Geforce GTX 750i 2GB Ram DDR5
SDRAM: 8GB X 2, Kingston HyperX Fury 1866mhz
POWER SUPPLY: Seasonic S12 520 watts, 80 plus
HARD DISK: Three WD black for operations and one WD green for backups.
SCOPE: Two Pulsar 1 with Scope 5.1

[faxinadu]

thanks, last questions

i have
1xscope proffesional
1xscope project

fits no problem in the case? the big card i mean

and how many extra ram slots you got there?

and i bet you wrote it here too somewhere but its so many pages, how much did you pay? i've been out of the pc tech loop for years, thinking of just copying your setup straight up

[Nestor]

The GB Z97X UD5H BK has two PCI slots that allows us to install up to two old PCI pulsar cards. Both cards fit comfortably, now, I would install the larger one down the edge of the MOBO, into the second PCI slot, so not even the SATA cables will touch the card.

Overall, this is the best MOBO I have ever had, it is SUPER good quality and it has everything you could possibly dream to have, so far so good, it is very stable too. I have not yet tested to the fullest this system, I am slowly doing the installations, I don’t have the time to just sit and finish it, but so far so good as I said. When I'm done with all the setup, I will put it to test, and will let you know here how it went.

I have two extra SDRAM slots yet, so I could go up to 32GB, which is nevertheless, the top amount you can get with this MOBO and with any Z97 as far as I know.

How much? Honestly, way to expensive for the place I am, about three times what this system would cost in USA, earning about 25% of what you earn over there, do your own maths... Now, let me forget about it...

[tlaskows]

Hey faxi,

If you want your PCI cards to work on the cheap but still fast, stick with Z87 chipset with 3 PCI slots. Up to 32GB RAM (expensive!). Sata 6 USB 3. All you need. And a smaller SSD. Works great for me! My desktop is about 3 years old and Diva still doesn't kill it

Oh, you will probably need to cut out the drive bay if you have the Pro cards. I did. I wouldn't say I've been missing it.

-Tom

[Nestor]

Friends, please pay attention to this one:

http://www.horizondatasys.com/es/produc ... 8#Features

It is a free program, extremely reliable, used in thousands and thousands of libraries, schools and corporations all around the world every day.

You know Deepfreeze, well, it is like Deepfreeze, but it is way simpler than it, and extremely fast. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! What for? First of all, to try out anything in your system, a new plugin, a trial, any system changes, etc., without the risk, restart your pc, and there you are, with the exact “C” drive you have just let behind a few minutes ago. It comes back in less than 10 seconds, and I am talking about my system, which is a Win 7 with many graphic apps that goes to about 50GB. It is a piece of mind to do anything freely, see if it works the way you want, then go back if it doesn’t, or repeat the process in “disabled” mode, and there you are. You may think it is not work the effort, well, it is! Yes it is, because you don’t longer need to be crazy about making images for your “C” drive, it is much faster and 100% reliable, what else? Please, give it a try and decide.

[faxinadu]

waiting on a quote from a shop here on these specs

[Nestor]

waiting on a quote from a shop here on these specs

Well, you are going to be happy... I have not yet tested it, but it seems to be a very strong system and very stable.

by the way, this GB MOBO is all about reliability, much more than speed, it is fast, no doubt, but it is centered in stability not speed. This are the BK eddition.

[hubird]

You may think it is not work the effort, well, it is! Yes it is, because you don’t longer need to be crazy about making images for your “C” drive, it is much faster and 100% reliable, what else? Please, give it a try and decide.... // Well, you are going to be happy... I have not yet tested it, but it seems to be a very strong system and very stable.

you didn't test it?
Are you shareholder?

[Nestor]

Read again, you are mixing two things: one is the PC system and the other is the software similar to Deep Freeze. I did not yet tested "the system" and I did not stresed it either, but I am using the Reboot Restore RX and it works really great, it is perfect, otherewise I would not recomend it in this way. Please, don't be so silly.

[hubird]

ah, I stand corrected

[tlaskows]

I usually just clone the drive. And my NAS does all my backups automagically. Reinstalling all my junk would probably take less than an hour.

-Tom

[Nestor]

Reboot Restore RX can work together very well with your preferred imaging app, and it is extremely fast compared with any imaging software. I don’t know how they could achieve such an efficiency in such a tiny program and with such amazing loading times. You can load your system immediately after every operation of acceptance or denial.

It is interesting that you don't need to restart your PC to add a change you judged it is good to add, or just give up on it. You get it to “enable”, which means no changes are been applied as everything is floating in the cache of your machine, and if you like how it works you put it to “disable” (without reboot), which means you allow the changes to take place right in front of your eyes, it takes just a few seconds not even minutes, and you are done. Do you want yet another change? Enable it again, start your installation or modification, see if everything goes the way you want, and if it does disable it again, rebuild your image (as I already said in just seconds), and there you go. If you didn’t like what you did to your system, you don’t need to apply a image to get back, just reboot your system while Reboot Restore RX is in his “enable” state, of course, and your systems gets back where it was, as convenient as that.

If you want to try a few plugins in trial mode, you don’t need to uninstall them, or get to your last created image, just reboot your system.

Now, you can, of course, have on top of it, as many images of your system as you want, they do not contradict each other.

Last but not least, images, eventually and very unfortunately, can fail… but RX do not, due to its extreme simplicity.

[faxinadu]

just ordered this build with two changes - a stronger power supply and 1x120gb ssd and 1xWD black for storage

thanks for the info nestor and everyone else!

[Nestor]

Great! I look forward to know how your system performs

[Nestor]

I have doing some tests over a few DAW, nothing for me yet... No cakewal, I don't like it's sound, it somehow gives a touch to the sound, and I can hear it clearly, it's a color let say. Studio One is great, but it is not for me either. Reaper I didn't like. Ableton, don't like either...

[Nestor]

The choice has been made.

Cubase Pro 8 seems to be a bit far from what Cubase used to be in version 5. Perhaps, too many things going on already… That is why for some, like me, it is considered too crowded, clustered, with too many options that are in your way, and you don’t want to see. Options people will not use but they have to pay anyway, so many musicians that are currently working with Cubase, work with older versions, and most probably, as it is happening to me, they will search for a different app when migrating to 64 bits systems.

Cubase used to be THE choice, the most popular DAW in the world, and it probably still is, but it is losing a lot of ground pretty quickly.

This clustered problem is also one of my argument to not get it in its version 8, and the second one is it’s price, it very expensive compared with other extremely good solutions that has nothing to envy Cubase today.

In my investigation, reading, trying out and comparing, I found out that many new DAW apps are amazing! There are today “many” very good ones, they are all different but not necessarily worse from each other, I would say they are rather different meals for different tastes, but with the same food quality behind. Reaper for instance, so cheap, very light, pretty good honestly, simple too, but for some reason it is not appealing to me. PreSonus Studio One, wow…, I was almost trapped for it, it was my DAW choice for a couple of weeks, but later I discovered something I like much more. Cakewalk, even if it is not for me either, I found out it works in a very stable way, it is well thought in general and a robust option. Ableton live, mmm, not at all for me, but very cool too and fast, light to move around. There are many other new ones like MuTools Mulab, Bitwig Studio (kind of a second Ableton Live), Mixcraft Pro Studio, Reason (not new anyway, but considered very good, not appealing to me for some “reason”), Pro Tools (quite old already, what a unnecessarily complicated app, the little bit I know about it it is enough for me to stay away, you have to do more clicks for the same things everywhere. The latest version have been very much criticized by the user base, they say the best version is the V11) FL Studio the former Fruity Lops (cool, but not at all for me).

If I would have been able to use Cubase 5 with 64 bits plugins without problems, I would have not changed DAW ever, but the processing itself being 32 bits it is also a waist if you have a 64bit system, so take a deep breath and let’s move on…

Said that, I really am ready to let Cubase behind… not without saying THANK YOU FOR ALL THE JOY!!! I miss it very much because I passed a few years learning it quite a bit, I could work with Cubase 5 closed eyes, and well, yes, learning again a new software is what I would have like to avoid. I will be challenged to get into it fast next year, when works starts again, and I know every DAW has its own learning curve, my problem is TIME, above all, not the least the wish to learn.

Many people argue in many forums, etc., about the differences or not of DAW final output sound. Mathematically, it is said they should all sound the same, but they do not. If you get me to the sampling arguments and binary code and all that, it is understandable and you could, theoretically, accept it, but there are many more elements to take into account: the way the software handles plugins, the codification of the engine, the in-out conversion of the sound, etc. The point is that I CAN HEAR A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIFFERENT DAW, and this is what leads my final statement and decision, of course. You can drink purified water and prove mathematically that it is purer than, let say, the water coming from a natural source water in the countryside, but who can deny his own sense of taste? If you taste that this purified water has a soil taste to it, well, you would not care about the papers, you will pay attention to your senses instate.

Just before starting this New Year 2016, I announce my friends, my new DAW of choice, and the winner is… Samplitude Pro X2.

It came to be my last trial becoming the winner. I played around with Samplitude for a few days, I have never before paid any serious attention to it, even if I have read for years that it was very good DAW. Boy, how true this is! I am more than satisfied, it is THE BEST of THE BEST I have ever tried, in every single way. It also sounds amazing. What it is? The converters, the drivers? I cannot explain why it sounds better, but it sounds pristine, crystal clear, VERY detailed.
Where have I been all these years without this super DAW? It is AMAZING, really, really superior in every sense to everything else, including Cubase. I realize now that the most of us come to use a particular program by imitation and marketing noise, famous people testimonials, amount of people using it, tradition, etc., but Samplitude deserves an open minded serious look. If you are planning changing your DAW, it is a must to try this one. The problem is that all these apps are so huge, that nobody sits and tries them all in depth, it is impossible, who would have such an amount of time. Fortunately for me, this change took place just in holidays, so I downloaded a trial version of Samplitude Pro X2. You can download the trial version here:
http://www.magix-audio.com/us/samplitude/
There is no coming back for me… I am thrilled. I have a 30 days trial and if you are interested, they give you the option to ask for more trial days. The customer service it is said to be top notch too. There are lots of videos and tutorials out there to learn the program step by step.

Now, I have to say, it is immense… you can do everything with it without getting out of the app, a whole production in every aspect, except the graphical one. The learning curve here, is rather steep, but it is worth the effort. Anyway, in my case, I will use it as a DAW, so it all depends on how much, to which extent you are going to use it.

The GUI is magnificent, very clear, the meters are perfectly precise and responsive, the plugins, WOW!!! The plugins that comes with it are truly superior, the instruments are very good too. The help system is comprehensive, fast, and detailed, you can get a help assistant in every moment and there is even a search engine included at hand, just in front of you. Several interfaces are available to adapt your workflow. At the beginning, you can reach for so many tools that you get a little dizzy and it is somehow, overwhelming, but you can thanks to the constant help at your disposal, use exactly what you need, fast, without trying or reading like crazy to solve a simple problem. I think every person will find this DAW as a multidaw app, I mean, as a DAW that allows everyone to customize Samplitude to their exact needs, this is why I think the learning curve should not that bad either. It is VERY fast and CPU efficient too. Contrary to Cubase, that sometimes forces you to work in a particular way, Samplitude is very soft in this respect, letting you do what you want, the way you want it.

You should definitely go for it, Samplitude Pro X2 is the way.

[tlaskows]

Cool!

It's nice to have choices. We used to be stuck with 2 or 3 DAWs back in the day...

-Tom

[Nestor]

Easily you can say there are at least 10 very good DAW that are at the same level of quality, and there is no perfect DAW for everyone, it all depends on the needs of each musician and the way he works, but there is anyway one DAW that sounds better than all the others, and this is Samplitude. You have to try it by yourself, it sounds different, more detailled, transparent, and so, it gives this expensive sense, a silky audio flow.

You may like the workflow better in Cubase or in Cakewalk, or you may like better it in Studio One or Mutools, etc., but undeniably, and through this test, to me the best sound quality, again, comes from Magix Samplitud.

[Nestor]

Finally, the system has recognized 8 DSP chips throuth SCOPE software, but there is a message that says:

“There is no STDM connection from Pulsar (brd 0) to Pulsar (brd 1).
Please check STDM cable connections”.

I will see what I can do. I have cleaned the connectors, I will also clean the cable to see if there is a difference now.

Before this, SCOPE would not even see the 8 chips, only 4 from the first card, so at least we are progressing.

[Nestor]

Now I have connected, instate of the two end connections, the middle one to the slave card, and the first to the master card, and I got a different message, that states this:

Pulsar (ID 1) does not seem to have a STDMA connection to the other boards.
Please check the STDM cables.

It seems now that there is actually “one” connection being recognized, and there is a dead one, this is what I understand.

I will now switch in the opposite, I mean, I will connect the third and the middle one, and see what happens…