 Re: Building my own computer for my own little home studio?
I agree with Richiebee a majority of the time. However, my experiences have lead me in different directions.
For me personally, my experience with every name brand computer (Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway, etc) has been horrible. Most people buy the $400 computer, which often leaves you a small cache, proprietary RAM, a ton of bullshit installed on the computer that is a total waste of time to take off, etc.
I have not owned a name brand computer since 1999. I don't expect to ever again.
While you will save a lot of money, the biggest reason to build your own computer is so you know how to work on it. All computers screw up! I've been called by friends and family to fix every computer brand under the sun. At least, when I work on computers that I've put together, I know the case is big enough to fit my hand in there to swap out RAM. (I once spent 45 minutes putting RAM into an HP. I could swap out RAM is about 7 seconds on my home computer.
As far as getting everything compatible, I find that to be incredibly easy. All you need to do is check out your soundcard manufacturer's specifications. For example, my Delta 1010's don't get along well with Via chipsets. No big deal. Just pick up a motherboard with a different chipset. The motherboard will will tell you what kind of RAM, processor, video card, and hard drives you can get.
When I think about the whole studio situation from acoustics, to dealing with bands, to scheduling, to audio engineering, to midi sequencing, to mastering, to marketing I find the computer to be one of the simplest of them all for me, personally.
With all this being said, if I had a million bucks, I'd buy one of those $2500 recording computers and be done with it. Since I don't have every mic I want or every plugin, the best alternative seams to be building.
As was mentioned in another thread, when you upgrade, you can often keep many of the components from the last computer, if you so choose and use those old parts on your home PC. (I built my current home PC in 2003. It runs just fine).
Brandon
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