More questions...

[interpolate]

Well every room is different and just because your monitors aren't JBL, Genelec or Adam Audio doesn't mean you shouldn't treat your room. A great pair of monitors will still sound bad in room that hasn't been treated. A bad pair of monitors will sound that a bit better or worser. The quality comes from the accuracy and not the sound quality alone.

However I do agree with most of what you are saying.

[Sean M]

Originally Posted by aptmusic9

True unless you can do near field and listen at a low volume. The louder your listening volume, the more influential the room will become. Unless you have 500-1000 invested in monitors, I wouldn't spend a dime on acoustic treatment. If your doing rock music maybe its a different story, but I'm coming from the perspective of classical/orchestral music.

Even if I do say myself, I did some pretty good mixes using a home built Pentium-D, 8GB RAM, and a 49e m-audio keyboard a while back. I built for under 500 including operating system. Monitors are probably the 2nd most important thing on the list, second to soundcard, PC, and libraries.

It sounds like a lot of cash now, but you probably could get a pair of refurb or open box EX-66 for around 250 each. The Ex-66 are really really good speakers at an attractive price. At the very least get some 100-200 m-audio monitors. There's just no comparison to consumer speakers that add all kinds of crap into the sound you're hearing. You'll end up listening back a year from now only to realize that you want to go back and fix all of the mixing mistakes the speakers caused in your previous mixes. Since all of your reverb settings and templates are going be determined by your speakers and your ear, its good to start with a solid foundation in the speaker department. Not 5,000 Genelecs though.

I'm not sure but I think only the UF 88 v2 is compatible with Windows 7. I bought mine at the same time the v2 came out, and right around then they announce windows 7 compatibility. v2 is a little symbol they added next to the UF80 logo on the keyboard, but it is also the name of the firmware, so if you can upgrade the firmware on the factory restock, you'll probably be fine. BTW the CME people do not give customer support at all....

You don't need a mixing board. I do everything with the mouse, personally. But you could also use the CME for that. It has software that maps the sliders to the channel faders in your DAW.

This is a good post, thanks.

It's just that I'm still at home (I'm pretty young, I want to move to LA soon for college though) and I can't have loud blasting monitors going all the time because my family would get really annoyed.

And at the moment the CME is my only choice. I have to get an 88-key keyboard, And I really need the sliders and knobs it has. Something like the M-Audio 88 key keyboard has terrible action and no sliders or knobs.

So until I find another keyboard that's cheaper I can't afford anything else.

[Sean M]

Ok another question, because I don't know how to tell with these computer terms:

Computer

By looking under product details, can I add my own soundcard (or do I have to take out the one it ships with), add more HDD's/SSD's and how many, and can I add more RAM if so how much?

I'm referring to where it says slots, I don't know which slot is for what.

Thanks.

[aptmusic9]

Sean, I bought a similar machine from costco, a ZT PC for 1,000. The problem with this is that all of your 6 ram slots are full with about 200-300 worth of RAM. In order to upgrade to 24GB (or any more than 12GB) you have to use the 4GB modules. You can get 24GB for about $600. or you could get 12GB for 300ish but using 4GB size chips.

With the dell PC, you also could be paying a premium for the video card that is included.

It would probably be cheapest to build yourself. How about a barebones system? They are a great value, because you get the motherboard, case and cpu, and you are free to select your own HDD and RAM.

Here's a screen: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...530&lid=627063

Here's a barebone.

http://www.avadirect.com/product_det...asp?PRID=12639

Best value would be to buy the PSU and CPU elsewhere than from this dealer. Also its cheaper to buy the upgrade version of W7 and do a clean install. this is honest and not illegal assuming you own a copy of Windows Vista.

Your going to want an audio card. The onboard audio doesn't support ASIO, and ASIO is going to give you the best performance. M-audio PCI card or a PCIe card is ideal for best performance, but it might be a bit hard to use with headphones without a headphone amp unit. I personally use an old m-audio speaker that has a headphone jack on it to convert the dual RCA signal into a headphone jack

[aptmusic9]

For some reason that Dell XPS doesn't say how many SATA ports. I think every i7 computer is going to have at least 6 SATA ports. So that means yes, you could add a maximum of 6 HDDs or SSDs

[Sean M]

Alright thank you so much, I'm hesitant about building a PC myself just cause I would have no idea what I'm doing. But barebone computers I could probably attempt, I don't know I'll just do some research.

Once again thanks, and i'll post back if any questions come up

[interpolate]

Dell chassis's are small anyway. About the size of a MicroATX format although you can sit them on the side as well and use them as a desktop rather a tower format.

Another thing Home Premium can only host up to 16GB, so 24GB wouldn't be viable.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...mits_windows_7

So once you consider all that, you may as well look at more professional solutions unless you just need a cheap economic computer. If you are looking for expansion and better options that is not the way too go IMHO.

[interpolate]

Although it appears this chassis is the larger type from the reviews anyway.

[Sean M]

Originally Posted by interpolate

Dell chassis's are small anyway. About the size of a MicroATX format although you can sit them on the side as well and use them as a desktop rather a tower format.

Another thing Home Premium can only host up to 16GB, so 24GB wouldn't be viable.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...mits_windows_7

So once you consider all that, you may as well look at more professional solutions unless you just need a cheap economic computer. If you are looking for expansion and better options that is not the way too go IMHO.

I think I found a good place where I can build a basic computer and leave space for RAM, more HDD's and other stuff. Thanks for the heads up about Home Premium.