Building a New PC for Music - Part 1: Purchase

The last time I "built" a PC was sometime 2002/2003, I do not remember exactly when that was, because at that time I experimented a lot and had started a couple of PC projects which were never really completed and finished, with cables hanging from the case, open side for constantly changing configurations. I think the last really completed PC project was when I put that Shuttle PC together (the computer "MAESTRO"), which since then served as my main music computer for sequencing, sampling, and recording. It had fine components in it: a Delta Audiophile 2496 sound card for recording from the external synth, the Gigastrings and the Garritan Personal Orchestra sample libraries, all controlled by good old Sonar 4 Producer. A nice workhorse with the very stable Windows 2000, which did its job very well for many years. But recently a few problems emerged: the audio recordings became choppy, and despite me trying all kinds of settings regarding buffer size, I could not remove this problem. It especially occurred when many instruments in parallel would be played; so I had to resort to recording them individually one by one. Eventually also this did not help, and I considered replacing the computer with a new system. One very strange problem had also occurred: when I had tried to install an upgrade of the Personal Orchestra Samples and the Kontakt Player, nothing happened – the old files just were not overwritten at all, and I could not find anywhere the location of the new files. Something very mysterious – I tried several times, the progress indicator showing a proper install, but then there was nothing... well, this would seem to confirm the concerns which some people in the music community have against using Windows for any music production activity...

When browsing options for the replacement, I considered buying one off-the-shelf system that appeared to be reasonable. But then I encountered that the bre-built systems did not satisfy my requirement for fast (and lots) of memory and fast disk drives. I considered building one at Dell. I remembered that a few years ago the options for all the components seemed endless. Now, however, there many more pre-configurations, and one has less choice in creating an individual custom configuration. In some cases there was no option to choose custom components at all. I found the XPS Studio line quite appealing, but then the resulting system still was somewhat sub-optimal: no full use of the 12GB tri-channel memory, only Vista was offered, not Windows 7 (although on some other pages there was a note that one could upgrade to Windows 7, but I wanted Windows 7 right from the start, without the uncertainty and possible instability of the upgrade). There was the other line of Alienware, suited to the extreme gamer. Great components, but my dream machine ended up to cost over 4000 pounds – definitely too much for me now.

So I explored CCL, a computer online shop nearby in Bradford, which also has a store outlet. They do have good prices, and there is the option of either ordering everything online, or just going there and buying things right there. Even in case of an online purchase, I could just go and pick it up, without charge for the shipping.

I looked at their online offerings, selected the components without ordering, and drove out there to buy them. The store is a bit strange: very little displays, more like a warehouse counter. One gets into queue to talk to a service person and orders the parts which one needs. There are PCs setup for browsing their web site (and others) and for selecting what one needs. I hesitated for a while – should I really plunge into this and buy a new PC, built from parts? Maybe I should wait a little until things became cheaper? Until the end of the depression? But then I decided that this is an investment, I really needed this new PC for making music again, and so I went ahead and lined up in the queue. The sales person was quite knowledgeable, could give advice on different items. With regard to some items I was determined to get something near the high end (processor, motherboard, memory, HD, audio), for other items it did not matter (graphics, keyboard, case), so I got whatever was cheapest. When the order was done, I still had to wait about 15 minutes until everything was brought from storage. I realised that I had forgotten to add a DVD drive – quite essential for installing OS and other software. But at the point of order receipt it was not possible to order again – I would have again to go into the queue, and I was too lazy for that. So on my way home I stopped at PC World and got a reasonably priced internal DVD drive.

These are the items I got:

• CoolerMaster Elite 330/331 case
• SilverPower SP-55500 500W power supply
• CPU: Intel i7-920 processor
• Motherboard: ASUS Rampage II Gene
• Graphics card: PEAK ATI Radeon HD4350, 512 MB
• Memory: 2 x 6 GB (3x2GB) DDR3, Corsair XMS3
• Hard disc: 2 x HD Seagate Barracuda, 7200 rpm, 250GB
• DVD/CD drive: LG 22x DVD+-RW
• WiFi: Edimax wireless nLite USB WIFI adaptor
• Soundcard: ASUS Sonar Excellence STX Asio