Recording - June 2013 - 18

My Recommendations – Buy what you
can afford, but there is sharp point of
diminishing returns to stay on the “bleeding edge”. I prefer to look at a CPU
as a “price per core” perspective
(e.g. a $400 quad-core CPU would
be $100 per core) to give a good
feel for bang for the buck.
The Memory
Affects – Overall performance can go
south if there are limited memory
resources and can prevent certain projects from playing smoothly or at all.
When to Upgrade – Running out of
memory for large projects.

DDR3 (short for Double Data Rate type 3)
memory modules or DIMMs (Dual Inline
Memory Modules) are now the de facto
standard and have been for the past few
years. However, you will need to figure out
which DDR3 memory speed is supported by
the processor you choose. For example, the
Nehalem and Sandy Bridge microarchitecture chips have supported DDR3-1066 (also
referred to as PC3-8500), DDR3-1333
(PC3-10600) or DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800),
depending on the processor. Keep these
paired names in mind while shopping to
help you get the right memory, as the two
disparate names can be confusing.
As you’ll notice when doing your
research, some motherboards and DDR3
memory modules support faster than stock
speeds; for example, DDR3-1866, DDR32133, DDR3-2400, etc. Keep in mind, if
you go with faster memory, you’ll be overclocking your system. The motherboard
you’ve chosen will dictate how much you
can tweak the memory settings to make the
system stable... or not so stable.
In general, when selecting memory, I
would recommend two things for the least
18

RECORDING June 2013

samples like libraries for Kontakt, and/or
you regularly back up your data elsewhere,
recycling older drives might not be a bad
idea and can still be a good money saver.
My Recommendations – If you can afford
to splurge ~$125, you should be
able to pick up a 120GB SSD drive
for a boot drive. Then plan to store
your bulk of your audio data on a
few Terabytes’ worth of spinning
disk(s). The SSD will make the OS much
more snappy and enjoyable to use.
number of problems; buy the amount of
RAM you plan to use up front in a single
matching set, and buy the stock speed of
memory designed for your CPU.
Yes, you certainly can buy two 4
Gigabyte DDR3 modules today and two
more modules six months from now. But by
doing so, it’s possible to run into compatibility problems between the two sets of
DIMMs. This problem is even possible when
selecting the same make and model of memory a few weeks apart. This happens
because the memory manufacturers can
and do use different physical chip makers
from day to day. These memory chips don’t
always cooperate between brands. Skip the
potential headache and buy all the memory
you need up front in a matched set, or plan
to replace all the memory at once if you
want more memory in the future.
My Recommendations – Buy memory
modules that are middle of the road for
specs and price; the cheapest modules
could prove to be questionable, but top of
the line is designed for guys who compete
professionally for the best PC ever built.
Hard Drives
Affects – Speed of loading of projects,
smoothness of the OS, smooth sample
playback, and number of simultaneous
audio tracks that can be played at once.
When to Upgrade – Out of space on
the drive, can’t support required sample
and audio track streaming, the drive is
more than a few years old.
Between Apple helping to push Solid
State Drives in MacBook Airs in 2010 into
the mainstream and a shortage of spinning
disks because of the flooding in Thailand
in 2011 (where ~25% of all the drives in
the world were manufactured), SSD prices
today have thankfully become more “reasonable” for a reasonable amount of
space. Bang for buck, nothing beats a
standard hard drive for capacity. Still, SSD
drives can handily outperform spinning
disks in transfer rates and access times.
Recycling a hard drive is such an easy
thing to do. However, this is one area I
would recommend upgrading every time
you wish to upgrade your system. Out of
every single component within your PC, the
only thing that’s not replaceable is your
data. However, if you have a static set of

Optical Drives
Affects – Speed of installing software
and burning music and data to discs.
When to Upgrade – When a particular
desired format is not supported by your
current drive (e.g. Blu-Ray).
Recycling a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM is practically a no-brainer. The only real upgrade
you could do would be to purchase a quieter drive, as speeds have remained relatively the same for years. However, if you
only have a DVD-ROM burner, this might
be a time to consider a Blu-Ray player
and/or recorder if you so desire.
My Recommendations – Recycle that
old drive unless you really want Blu-Ray
and you don’t have a Blu-Ray drive.

Audio Adapter
Affects – Quality of audio playback in
many aspects: pops/clicks, quality of the
DAC (Digital to Analog Converter), and
quality of the driver for smooth operation
under load.
When to Upgrade – No drivers for OS
being upgraded to (Windows Vista/7/8),
no available interface ports on new system, or need more inputs or outputs.
Oh, how the market has changed over
the last decade! PCI cards were the dominant force for audio adapters for many
years with USB and FireWire as the “alternative” answer. With FireWire issues still

Recording - June 2013

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