Building your

Music Computer
How to perform a full CPU/Motherboard Upgrade
for a screaming fast digital audio workstation
Page 1
by Rich the TweakMeister Page 1 2 3

To successfully make music on your PC, your machine has to

be able to work well in real time. Unlike using a word processor, web browser,
spreadsheet, or even games, where a slight delay or slowdown of operations is
not going to bother you too much, with music, even a slight occasional glitch can
totally ruin a mix or mastering effort. It is the desire to have a glitch free music
computer, one that is fast enough to handle every music task, that has led to the
building of the DAW.

Time Out: There are two main areas we are going to look at. First is
Q) What is a the building of a DAW--that is the purpose of this article.
DAW? Second is the tweaking of the machine and the drivers,
busses, memory and operating system. Those running pro
A) DAW stands for studios can attest to the need of being able to quickly
Digital Audio diagnose, repair and eradicate problems with the smooth
Workstation. Simply running of their sequencers and digital audio programs. It's
it is just a computer
much like tuning up a car, and requires one to have a good
system optimized for
digital audio softwarebit of technical knowledge. So lets get going with building a
and audio and MIDI machine. I am going to show you pics of the process.
production. The Here's the disclaimer: Use my tips at your own risk. I will
choice of components not be responsible if you mess something up. Yet if you are
and peripherals, such comfortable with taking apart your gear, have never done an
as soundcards, upgrade before, but think you might be able to handle it,
videocards, memory then this article is for you.
and hard drives are
chosen to enhance
recording, playing I have been tweaking computers since my days with the
and processing Commodore 64, and have a garage full of hot-rodded Atari
audio. machines and old PCs. My main PC was built from scratch
and is on it's 4th CPU/MOBO/Memory upgrade. It started as
a Home built Celeron 300a with an Abit BH6, which I overclocked to give it similar
performance to a Pentium 450. Then it was a Pentium 550 which lasted about 2
years. I made a major upgrade to an AMD Athlon 1.4 gHz with an Asus a7m266
MOBO. Just recently I upgraded to a AMD Athlon 64 3400+ with a Gigabyte GA-
K8NS-Pro MOBO with 2 gigs of RAM. Heh, you might be wondering what is left
from the original machine. Nothing. On the 2nd upgrade I replaced the CD
Roms and video card on the third the case, floppy and power supply got replaced
and of course memory and MOBOs get replaced each time and I install new larger
hard drives in between upgrades. See, you can keep a main machine up to date
by simply installing a few new components on a scheduled basis, for much less
money than it would take to buy a new system every one or two years. Another
advantage is I have plenty of parts around to build a second machine.
 It's a
great
time to
Why Upgrade? upgrade
If you want to run the latest music and audio applications you to a
will find you have to. Some of the applications coming out
today will not function on older machines. Five years ago, when
faster
the Pentium II 450 was the king of the popular processors, we machine,
were all surprised at the speed and snappiness with which it
handled typical audio processing. Nowadays, a pII450 is sort and
of like a broken down city bus. It might get you there; it might
stall up the next hill running modern software. Software cheaper
developers add features every year that take advantage of
faster CPUs. For example, a few years ago PCs were not able than you
to do convolution reverb in real time. But now we see them
cropping up everywhere. Just try to run it on your old duff
think.
Pentium 2. The same with disk streaming soft samplers that add synth engines on
top. You want the power? You pay the price by making your own hi performance
desktop PC. The best thing is that if you do your homework, your PC will be faster
and better than a top of the line PC you find at your local computer retailer. So if
you want to keep today's hottest audio products on your PC, upgrading is an
inevitability. For now, the wise thing is to get your PC prepared for the migration
with a fast CPU, lots of RAM, and bigger drives.

Time Out! Q: Which What is entailed in upgrading a computer? Is it

Soundcard/Interface hard?
should I get?
A: Tough question. But
here's a site that will
help. Check out
Cakewalk's Open
Hardware Guide.
Excellent rundown of
hardware audio interfaces
that work with Cakewalk's
Sonar.
 Quick and Dirty:
Step by Step
Guide to
Upgrading
No. It's not hard. If you are adept at using a your DAW
screwdriver and can insert cards into slots you can
transform your machine. Even with total 1. Before you touch anything
you should pull the plug.
motherboard/cpu swaps there is no soldering.
ground yourself by touching
the metal chassis.
Your 1st time doing this, you want to proceed slowly
and deliberately. Writing down and labeling different 2. Then start disconnecting,
cables so you know which is which. With hard drives starting with the power
the orientation of the cable is important so pay heed supply connector. PC parts
to the red stripe on the cable and verify it was closest have uniform connectors, so
to the little zero on the motherboard. Some typically you just disconnect
motherboards will not allow you to plug something in everything, noting on a
backwards, but others might not offer this protection, piece of paper what it was
attached to on the old
hence the importance of labeling. Also, those little
motherboard.
wires going to the power and hard drive leds may
have positive/negative leads. Usually there is a
diagram in the manual of the new MB which tells you
what goes to what. After you go through this once its
far easier the next time, and by your third upgrade,
you'll be able to whiz through it in a little more than
an hour. As I did my 4th upgrade, I was down to 35
minutes and only glanced at the manuals for
reference.

3. Unscrew the old board

and pull it out of the chassis.
I want to build a powerful musical computer
from scratch. Are there any tips? 4. Then you install the new
CPU on the new
motherboard and when it's
Plenty of tips. First off, get a real good big case with
secure, place the new
a hefty 300-400 watt power supply, quiet fans motherboard on the chassis
and one that is easy to take apart. You should go for and screw it down.
a case that has a of of drive bays, whether you
intend to use them or not, and that have plenty of 5. Finally you reconnect the
internal power connectors. The more space inside cables to your hard drives,
the case, the easier it will be to connect things, get to floppy drives, and to the
the memory when you want to slap in new RAM, add signal leds.
and remove hard drives, cdr drives, soundcards.
6. Stick the memory in, put
Avoid "onboard" Video devices. This may be a in all the cards (sound,
"feature" of the ultra cheap MOBO. "Look, dude, you video, etc.). Make sure its
all nice and tight and flip it
don't even need to buy a video card!" Don't bite,
on.
man. Its far better to get an AGP video card than use
the "onboard" video chips, which are usually severely
7. Your new motherboard
compromised. Same with audio. An onboard audio
will let you set the BIOS.
chip is a cost cutting feature that allows a computer
maker to make really cheap PCs, since they don't
8. Once successful, you run
have to add a soundcard to get sound. You can still
windows and it will find all
use these for monitoring system sounds and your hardware again, just
metronomes, but don't think about recording like the 1st time you ran
sensitive audio with them. They usually sound it. You should dig out your
average, at best, compared to a consumer level PCI Windows CD Rom, because
soundcard and may sound worse. So if the it may need it to load drivers
motherboard touts "onboard" video cross it off the for new motherboard
list. components. All your old
applications are there, and
they all work as before, only
faster and hopefully,
better. I say "hopefully"
because there is always a
chance of system conflicts
when new drivers are
installed.
Always check and double check and triple check that the Motherboard works with
the type of CPU and the speed of the CPU you plan to use. There are
motherboards for Intel's Pentium 4 and others for AMD and they are not
interchangeable. They use different chipsets and have different CPU sockets
and slots. There are many variations. You have to do your research here. Also,
different motherboards require use of different memory types. Some may only
want you to use a certain type. See, just like the motherboard manufacturers,
the memory makers want you to upgrade your memory every time too.

The point:

CPUs and memory and motherboards are not interchangeable. Don't fall into the
error of thinking, as many newbie upgraders do, that you can save money by
using the same motherboard for your next upgrade too. The industry is hip to
that. They want you to buy a new motherboard for every upgrade and make it
almost impossible not to. It keeps their factories busy. Save yourself aggravation
of thinking you'll find a motherboard you can re-upgrade in 2 years. It won't
happen. Instead, focus your motherboard search with criteria of features and
reliability optimized for the CPU you want to run. Or go with a
motherboard/memory/CPU bundle that is known to work. You are very likely to
get burned if you try to mix and match things without checking.

How much RAM?

Answer: Its a compromise between the the motherboard can take and what you
can afford. It makes little sense these days to build a DAW with less than a
gigabyte and 2 is definitely better. This is assuming you are running windows
XP. More RAM means better performance with softsamplers and better streaming
of audio files. If you are running 24 bit, 96khz audio tracks, your RAM will help
keep things running smooth.

So How much is all this going to Cost?

Most important of course is which

Tweak's EZ processor (CPU) are you going
to buy. AMD and Intel are the
Guide two major options.
figuring out
what you Don't think that an Athlon XP
2100 means it is 2.1 ghz. Here's
need how AMD interprets the clock
frequency spec:

3700+ operates at a frequency of 2.4Ghz

3400+ operates at a frequency of 2.2Ghz
3000+ operates at a frequency of 2.0Ghz
2100+ operates at a frequency of 1.73GHz.
2000+ operates at a frequency of 1.67GHz.
1900+ operates at a frequency of 1.6GHz.
1800+ operates at a frequency of 1.533GHz.
1600+ operates at a frequency of 1.40GHz.

But this does not mean that an Athlon 3400+ is equivalent to a

Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz. We have been conditioned to think that way by
the years of Intel's domination over the CPU. Clock speed does not
tell the whole story. It's more a matter of how much work the CPU
can do in an interval of time.
1. What type of RAM do you want? Always a great
idea to buy RAM matched for the motherboard. I
suggest you not try to deviate from the specs on the
motherboard.

2. How many slots for PCi cards do you need? One

cool thing is that many MOBOs now come with onboard
Firewire, USB2, Ethernet. This may replace some of
your old PCI cards, so you may not need as many slots.
If you have an older ISA card you need to use, note that
today's motherboards no longer support them. I
recommend you dig a little hole in the yard and say a
prayer for any ISA cards you have. They have no
business being in a fast computer. Just by sitting there
they might slow the machine down.

3. What Chipset do you prefer? Always best to go

to Google and type the following once you have a
configuration in mind.

Problems AND [name of soundcard] AND [name of

chipset]

4. Do you want to Overclock? Should you

Overclock? Note that you will have to take extra
precautions to cool the CPU if you decide to overclock,
and you may trade off stability for speed. In the balance,
for now, considering today's prices, I'd say don't
overclock. Just get a fast CPU and fast RAM.

5. Other things that vary from board to board are the

type of hard drives you can install. Some go with the
ATA (IDE) style drives and others with the newer Serial
ATA with its smaller connector. If you are going to be
bringing over your old drives make sure it has the right
drive slots.

If you have gone through all of these items, there should

be only 1 or 2 motherboard/memory combinations to
choose from. Congratulations. You should now know
what you want.

Generally, the cost of upgrading CPU and RAM and Motherboard can be anywhere
between $400 and $800 depending on the components you choose. The latest
CPUs are always going to be expensive but the one's that came out last year are
usually very reasonable.

Where does on find out more information on motherboards, CPUs and memory?

Of course, you should check out The BUZZ on this site so you can tailor your
newsgroup searches like I did for the above results. On the Web, a place I go for
info on stuff is Tom's hardware guide is also a good place on the net to educate
yourself on these issues. You can get VIA drivers and great MOBO info from
Viahardware.com In addition to having great information, there is a message
board where thousands of users post their experiences with varied hardware
configurations. There are plenty of pics of building computers from scratch.

Which OS?

Windows 98SE or Windows 2000 or Win XP, or Vista 32 or 64? Wait till
Windows 7?

updated April 2, 2005

98SE? Is this a joke? It wasn't when I first wrote the question when Microsoft
released XP, on October 25th, 2001. W2k and XP have proved to be a much
more stable and robust platform for running sequencers, software samplers, and
audio editing programs than 98 ever was. If you ask me whether you should go
with Win2k or XP, I say XP. Win98SE is dead. Cubase SX and Sonar 4 all work
great on XP now. New drivers have been written, tested, and released. Win 2k
remains a viable platform, though I think it's best for corporate environments.

I'd stick with XP, then re-evaluate when Win 7 has been out a year.

And you can read more about this in my article on upgrading to Win XP A

64 Bit OS are not far away but don't bleed on the edge.

Tweak's Spin: Soon a 64 bit version of Windows will be released. You might want
to get a CPU that can handle 64 bit operation. The main advantage, once the
new Windows version is released will be greater memory. The old barriers will be
shattered and it will soon be conceivable to run softsamplers with a terrabyte of
memory (that's 1,000 gigabytes). This will mean even larger virtual studios will
be possible at extremely high audio resolutions. Let's hope the soundcard
makers can keep up! While there may be plenty of compatibility issues at first,
once they are ironed out we will find a much more powerful and stable platform
for our work.

• CPU: AMD Athlon "Thunderbird" at 1.4 gHz (today I would go for an

Athlon XP 2200+)
• Motherboard: Asus A7m266
• Video: ATI Radeon VE, 32m
• RAM: 512m of DDR
• 80 gig WD hard drive @7200 rpm
• Server (full height) tower case w 300 watt Power supply (go 400w if you
have lots of drives)
• Soundblaster Live Value (for monitoring and soundfonts, system sounds,
cd's, etc.)
• M audio Delta 1010 (for recording, playback, digital transfer, mastering)

I ran into some difficulties, which I will blame on old drivers on the Win98 SE CD
Rom. I had a bad crash while installing the video drivers (takes a while to
recover from one of these) There were many reboots to get the Microsoft USB
optical mouse to work, so I was forced to use the keyboard to navigate. Once I
upgraded the USB drivers and got rid of the ones from the win98se cd, all started
flowing. I had no significant problems with the sblive card (it took a few reboots
to get the resources straightened out). The Delta 1010 was the smoothest install
of a sound device I have ever experienced. Perfect the 1st try. I was expecting
trouble with my network drivers, but once I found the floppy disks, for the hub,
all was fine. MIDI and SCSI came up easy

Installing the cpu, ram, hard drives, getting power to hard drives...setting hard
drives master/slave, on primary and secondary busses exactly as they were on
your old computer. This makes sure what was drive E on your old system, for
example, is still Drive E on your new system. This is the easy part.

Then adding cd roms then cards, then finally booting and dealing with bios, then
drivers, system conflicts. Your new motherboard and CPU have to negotiate with
all your PCI cards and ports. The trickiest is video, and it should be done before
adding other cards into the mix. Get the basics down first--keyboard, video, your
mouse. Then add your most important cards next. Before you do, get all your
installation cds out for your peripherals. Yep, go find them before you start, so
you're not a screaming banshee when you windows will not recognize hardware
due to a problem with drivers. Did I say this was easy? The windows "where's
the driver" part can be frustrating if you can't find the right disk. (keep in mind
you might not be able to get on the net till you get your modem up).
We have solid video, and 90% of the conflicts are resolved. The new system
moves to its very own closet in the TweakLab. A day later, all is well with a
100% stable system with tons of speed, memory, and audio horsepower.

Which Soundcard/ Audio Interface?

June 2001
If you are to go through the trouble of upgrading your computer, you may also
want to upgrade your audio interface. You now have a super fast computer, you
don't want to compromise on the quality of your audio. The critical issue here is
the quality of analog to digital conversion and digital to analog conversion. Don't
even think of going with an old SoundBlaster AWE 64, or even an SB Live. In
fact, forget soundcards all together. By virtue of residing in the computer amid
intense electrical fields, and to the low 16 bit bandwidth of these cards, the result
will be stressed, compared to the great sound possible today with 24bit 96kHz
audio interfaces with outboard converters. Another factor to consider is the
cabling to and from the interface. Soundcards, again, won't cut it with their
unbalanced 1/8th inch phone jacks. The fact that that are unbalanced makes all
the audio traveling through cables susceptible to picking up hum and radio
frequency interference, no matter how good your mixer is. Going to an interface
which allows you to use balanced cables is a difference you will hear!

One of the things made possible by having a fast DAW is that you can run more
audio tracks in your sequencer, use more plugins, and keep things in the digital
domain longer. You can transfer digital audio files from one application to
another easily and can do digital mixdowns easier, and you'll finally be able to
record your MIDI tracks as audio, and really do your entire mix in your sequencer
if you want, even elaborate pieces with lots of tracks. I could never get this to
work right on my P550, but now it's a new technique to explore.

My choice for doing this was a Delta 1010, using my Mackie 1402 as its front
end for mic and line preamps. Of course there are many other possibilities here.
The main thing is to be able to get the audio into the computer as cleanly as
possible. Limiting, if possible, the number of conversions from analog to digital to
one, keeping you bandwidth as high as you can till your final digital mixdown to
16 bit 44.1 kHz. I've written more about this method in my article Doing it with
Digital (link below).

One last tip on Soundcards and audio interfaces--read the feature list carefully.
Make sure you see "Windows 2000 compatible" somewhere. I huge issue with
older, even high quality cards is that they may not run on Win2000. The older the
card, the less profitable it is for companies to update it with new drivers. If it
doesn't work in W2k, most likely, it's not going to work on Windows XP either.
Unlike CPUs, RAM and motherboards, which you may need to replace every year
or two, you don't want to get into this habit with an expensive interface. Plan
ahead, get one that will get you through 3 years or more.

The Tweak's Kitchen Table after the upgrade

Tweak's Current PC Daw

Built Spring Break 2005

• Home tweaked PC with AMD Athlon 64 3400+ CPU,

• 2 GB Kingston PC3200 400mHz RAM
• GigaByte GA-K8NS-Pro motherboard Dual BIOS
• ATI All-in-Wonder 9600 Video card
• EMU 1820M Audio Interface
• Antec TruePower 2.0 430 Watt Power supply
• 320 gigs of storage on 3 drives
• Sony DVD-RW.
• In a connected enclosure is a SCSI bay with CDRW, and 2 SCSI hard
drives which are dedicated to an emu sampler.

Working good here. Excluding the RAM which was expensive the MOBO and CPU
cost a mere $320. Had some trouble with the ATI All-in-Wonder 9600 Video card
in Vegas doing analog video capture. Overall its a very fast machine

To sum up

The computer landscape is changing fast right now. With a little research into
motherboards, CPU's and memory you can turn your old machine into a
screaming fast audio processor usually for 300-600 bucks that is ready for new
developments with the Windows OS. You will achieve new levels of performance
from your sequencers, plugins, audio editors, and software synths. You can build
an entire system from scratch for less than $1000 that performs as well, or you
can buy a 'barebones" system where you simply pop in your cards and drives.
This is not only easier and cheaper, it's better than a brand new off the shelf hi
end Dell or Gateway computer that retails for over 2300. In fact, this is exactly
how such companies make their profits. You don't have to reinstall all your
programs, reinstall an OS and copy thousands of files from old drives to new
drives. With luck, you can be humming away on some new tunes in an hour or
two, but now on a machine that can keep up with your audio demands. The final
advantage to doing it yourself is that you will never again feel you are a hostage
to your computer's hardware shortcomings. After building your system you will
have the confidence to continue to tweak it into a better, faster and more useful
machine for your studio. May you will always have a state-of-the-art music
machine.

I hope you enjoyed watching this upgrade and that this article has
helped you build the DAW of your dreams.

Rich the Tweak N Geek