Help please, budget box with sound recording/mixing capabilites????

Jimborae

I'm trying to spec a budget system for a friend. It started off as just being a box & monitor on which to surf, email and rip & store music. He then laid the bombshell on me that as he is in a band they'd want to, at some point in the near future, hook up a mixing desk & use ProTools or Cubase.

I know nearly nothing about mixing desks & Protools. So on the spec below is it possible or what extra equipment will they need.

CPU AMD *Retail* Athlon XP 2600+ *333 FSB* Barton (2.00 GHz) £54
Case Antec SLK-3700 Solution Series inc. 350W PSU £42
Hard Disk 160Gb IBM/HGST Deskstar ATA-150 S-ATA £64
Memory 512mb DDR ram, major branded £60
Video card Sapphire Radeon 9600 APG x8 128MB DDR DVI-I TV-Out Lite £65.18
cd/dvd drive NEC 2510 Black x8 DUAL LAYER DVD-Writer, OEM £47.25
Motherboard Abit NF7-S Rev 2 £60
Monitor Wiseview 1770A-MG 17ins TFT Multimedia Black (Samsung-OEM £211.49
Fans & Cables £20
Floppy & Memcard reader £20


Thanx

Jim

Justin

You will want t decent sound card (Turtle Beach or SoundBlaster Audigy) and Honestly, I would sugges getting a USB inpu device such as Line 6's GuitarPort so you can record direct signal tothe HDD as opposed to running it through a sound card and getting limited input. Honestly, If your friend is wanting to record his whole band to disk, they will need to get and external recorder and mixer from Musicians Friend. As long as that has an USB output, they will have no problem getting quality recordings to the PC. FYI, the people who use protools and cubase record this way. It is my experience that going straight into the PC with signal is less than satisfying...

Jimborae

Thanks Justin,

So as I understand it then they need to get an external recorder & mixer with usb output but why the need for a decent sound card. Is the Sound Storm chip on the NF7-S not good enough? I thought this was nearly equivalent to Audigy quality.

Also I wont buy or recommend Creative products any more after the debacle of the infamous EEPROM bug on Audigy cards that still hasn't been sorted & ruined my Audigy card. Therfore it would have to be a Turtle Beach or M-Audio card. Any recommendations out of those two, bearing in mind I'm on a cheapo budget.

Cheers

Jim

Justin

Turtle Beach would be good hut the NF2 sound should do just fine really. And yes, The best thing they could do is record and mix externally and then import it through USB so there is no strange compression. I only suggest the soundcard as a vanity item, some people claim they hear a difference, and sure, there is a small varation in sound quality but, since they will be recording live instruments, I don't imagine that they will notice the difference. On second thought, save the $40...