Advice on a Music Production Rig

[Szaxachii]

Hi guys, as the title states i am working on building a new music production rig (Some gaming will be done on it as well). Just need a little assistance on what parts would be optimal for this rig. I have some parts already purchased btw.

Already Purchased Parts:

Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow Edition
Graphic Card: 2x XFX Radeon HD 7770 Double D Black Edition 1GB
Power Supply: Corsair Professional Series Gold AX650 Modular Power Supply

Parts To Buy:

Processor: FX-8350 4.0GHz

Undecided:

Motherboard: Sabretooth 990FX or GA-990FXA-UD5
Hard Drive: Single HDD or 1 SSD and 1 Smaller HDD
Memory: G-Skill or Corsair 2x8GB (Unsure which is better, Will upgrade to 4x8GB in the near future)
Sound Card: Completely lost on this one

A little help would be great!

[niko084]

Do you already have software in mind for production?

I would highly recommend going with an external firewire audio interface.

My system in my specs I use with Ableton, have used Sonar in the past, my interface is great however when gaming sometimes it likes to glitch out. I think a TI chipset firewire card would fix the issue, it's just not bad enough for me to make the purchase (around $50usd).

[Szaxachii]

Originally Posted by niko084

Do you already have software in mind for production?

I would highly recommend going with an external firewire audio interface.

My system in my specs I use with Ableton, have used Sonar in the past, my interface is great however when gaming sometimes it likes to glitch out. I think a TI chipset firewire card would fix the issue, it's just not bad enough for me to make the purchase (around $50usd).

Im still undecided as to what Software, but i know it will not be able using Ableton (Most counter intuitive program i have ever come across). Likely use Cubase or FL Studio to start.

Do you find there is any real difference between PCI Sound Cards vs External Sound Cards?

[niko084]

Internal cards can pickup noise is pretty much the biggest issue, plus depending on how many external devices you end up with, it can be a cabeling nightmare, most higher end external boxes are designed to be stacked with more. I mainly decided to go external so I didn't have to worry about noise issues, plus having real volume knobs within easy reach is pretty nice, and I never have to worry about internal space and/or open slots no matter what video cards and mainboards I buy.

[Szaxachii]

Originally Posted by niko084

Internal cards can pickup noise is pretty much the biggest issue, plus depending on how many external devices you end up with, it can be a cabeling nightmare, most higher end external boxes are designed to be stacked with more. I mainly decided to go external so I didn't have to worry about noise issues, plus having real volume knobs within easy reach is pretty nice, and I never have to worry about internal space and/or open slots no matter what video cards and mainboards I buy.

In other words, personal preference, besides noise issues? Cause the Sound Card i was looking at (Asus Sonar Essence STX) seems to have next to no backround Noise. The only downside i can see to that card is that ASUS seems to be phasing out their Soundcard line and have not been updating the cards at all lately.

[Suhidu]

Originally Posted by Szaxachii

In other words, personal preference

Brand preference, functionality(Dolby,EAX/OpenAL,16/24-bit,Hz,etc), inputs/outputs, quality, hardware/software compatibility, drivers. Also, you're very unlikely to run into any practical performance differences between PCI or PCIe, or between USB or 1394/Firewire (most crappiness is driver related). PCIe is more likely to work with your next build than PCI is, and future driver support may or may not be an issue. Also check forums and Google for driver horror stories, reports of recording latency, etc...

[niko084]

Most general cards are NOT well supported by production software and thus will result in terrible latency issues on top of some other noise issues once you get too many instruments or effects.

You will def. want to make sure you can get asio drivers.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Szaxachii

In other words, personal preference, besides noise issues? Cause the Sound Card i was looking at (Asus Sonar Essence STX) seems to have next to no backround Noise. The only downside i can see to that card is that ASUS seems to be phasing out their Soundcard line and have not been updating the cards at all lately.

Creative X-Fi cards have some of the best ASIO latency out there, ~3ms, while Xonar may have no noise, ASIO latency is only good at about 12 ms, which if you play live music, you're gonna notice.

I love my Xonar, don't get me wrong, 192-kHz recording as well as live encoding to Dolby and DTS are great, but that ASIO...sucks.

[Szaxachii]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

Creative X-Fi cards have some of the best ASIO latency out there, ~3ms, while Xonar may have no noise, ASIO latency is only good at about 12 ms, which if you play live music, you're gonna notice.

I love my Xonar, don't get me wrong, 192-kHz recording as well as live encoding to Dolby and DTS are great, but that ASIO...sucks.

Thank you for breaking it down to me in that sense. Definitely going to do some more research on Low Latency cards.

[Szaxachii]

Would these be suitable Memory to use with the build?

G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB DDR3 1866

Also which of the motherboards posted in my main post would be best?

[Pehla]

both are great boards..,and do use ssd+smaler hdd just for faster software loading!!
did u consider using Reason 6.5 for production??its a hell of a piece of software..for production and mastering!! i have been using 5 for some time..,tryed ableton...but didnt like it

[Szaxachii]

Originally Posted by Pehla

both are great boards..,and do use ssd+smaler hdd just for faster software loading!!
did u consider using Reason 6.5 for production??its a hell of a piece of software..for production and mastering!! i have been using 5 for some time..,tryed ableton...but didnt like it

Reason was the other one i was looking at. I've done more of my research towards FL Studio and Cubase simply because my friends in the DJ scene in my city use them for their productions. Im willing to try out whatever works though!