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Old 04-11-2017, 07:34 AM   #1
frethand101
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Default Total Newb Prepping for Conversion to DAW...

Hey Everybody,

I've been wanting to convert to DAW for some time but due to an ever-changing budget & the various situations that day-to-day life generates I'm just now reaching a point where I can finally start planning my cross-over..

I've spent a lot of time reading up on DAW & needless to say I have a pile-up of questions covering the many different aspects of pc recording..

The immediate topic that is of the most concern to me is whether or not my current laptop will be able to keep up with demands of using Reaper/Plugins as my full time guitar rig & at the very least replace my current 8-trk porta-studio until I can afford a new laptop..

I'm still putting money back but I hope to be buying monitors, audio interface & an external hard drive by Fall-2017.. So far, the gear listed below is what I'm planning to launch with & I've posted my first couple of questions below the gear-list..

- Behringer UMC204HD Audio Interface
- Glyph Studio-Mini "1TB x 7200rpm" External Hard-Drive
- iLoud Micro Monitors

I'd be running everything with this laptop..

- HP-2000 Laptop: Purchased in December 2014
- AMD E2-3000 w/Radian-HD Graphics
- 1.65GHz Processor Speed
- 4GB Ram (3.45 Available)

My questions cover installing & running everything from the Glyph Drive such as Reaper, all my VST/VSTi's, etc.. My immediate standalone needs will be a dependable guitar rig for both work & play everyday.. On the DAW side I'll definitely need to be able to put together drum loops so I can at least record guitar/bass tracks for vamping over or capturing song ideas, etc.

Questions:

1)By installing & running everything from the Glyph will I greatly reduce the short-comings of the laptop I'm currently stuck with?..

2)How exactly will this method effect the performance my laptop, or rather, what kind of results can I expect from running everything from the Glyph using a low-end laptop?..

Last edited by frethand101; 04-11-2017 at 08:36 AM.
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Old 04-11-2017, 08:23 AM   #2
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Hello frethand101 and welcome to these forums. You'll find many helpful people here and a lot of useful information. Make sure that you:
In your position I would install Reaper on your laptop right now and try it out. Then get the audio interface (so that the sound sounds that much better). You may find that you do not need the external drive.

Some random questions:
-- what third-party plug-ins do you have in mind?
-- does your laptop have USB 3.0, FireWire 800 or eSATA connectors?
-- does the Glyph have its own power supply?
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Old 04-11-2017, 08:34 AM   #3
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Can you explain exactly what you're try to do?

What is your "8-trk" and what are you using it for? If that's a solid-state recorder, there are some advantages to a stand-alone recorder even if you are going to mix on the computer.

Quote:
1)By installing & running everything from the Glyph will I greatly reduce the short-comings of the laptop I'm currently stuck with?..
I doubt it? How is it going to interface with the computer? I assume your computer doesn't have an eSATA port?

Quote:
2)How exactly will this method effect the performance the HP-2000, or rather, what kind of results can I expect from running everything from the Glyph using a low-end laptop?..
I don't think anyone can give you a solid answer. It depends on how many tracks you're recording simultaneously and what resolution you're recording at, and what effects you're applying, and what kind of latency you can live with, etc.

Quote:
as my full time guitar rig...
What's your current guitar rig and are you playing live or recording? Computers are the least reliable things we own so for live performance I don't trust 'em. And, getting latency down to an acceptable level can be tricky. A guitar amp can last a lifetime without a show-stopping problem, but everybody has a computer problem once in awhile. If you have an a back-up computer ready-to-go or if you can bypass the computer and still do the gig, then I wouldn't worry so much.

Quote:
- Behringer UMC204HD Audio Interface
If you only need two inputs, that should be fine. It's got zero-latency monitoring which is a nice feature.

Quote:
- iLoud Micro Monitors
I' dont' know anything abut those monitors... Monitoring can be a complicated subject and you can get into room measurement and acoustic treatment.

I'd generally recommend monitors with an 8-inch woofer, or smaller monitors with a subwoofer. But, you'd have to double your budget.
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Old 04-12-2017, 07:42 AM   #4
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Hey thx for chiming in guys, I'll try to map out the situation as best as I can..


For the sake of back story...

In January 2017 I was coming out of a 2-year recording hiatus & I was looking for something to help get me back into the groove, so I started using Audacity to build drum tracks to record onto my Tascam DP-02 8-Trk.. Needless to say, it was this recent Audacity experience that directed my attention toward the vast amount of resources that are now available to help the Average Joe build & use a laptop home studio..


Where I'm at now...

My 8-Trk has gotten me this far, so I'm not really concerned with pc recording on a professional level, at least not at this point.. I'm also not lookin' to have the extra cash for an interface until this coming September.. So for now, I'm just trying to sort through all of the questions that have been building up in my brain from all the reading & vid-watching I've been doing.. =P


Overall, my two main objectives for the initial launch of my first DAW is to "hopefully" be able to..

1) Use Reaper + Free Plugins as a standalone guitar rig for my daily practice routine, jammin' around, etc.. I'm talking about a guitar, a cord, an interface & my laptop being used as a solo day-to-day guitar rig.. I only need to monitor one track to do this so I'm fairly confident that using just an interface with my laptop should be enough to handle this particular duty..

2) Where my doubts begin to surface is with being able to handle 10-20 tracks of record/playback audio with little-to-no interference, if possible.. I'm pretty sure that my $400 laptop isn't going to be able to handle this task with just an interface.. This is where the concept of streaming everything from a 7200rpm hard drive is definitely of great interest to me..


I linked in this "Reaper To Go" article that I found a few days ago & it seems to me that slaving an external hard-drive might just be the trick to get me by until I can afford a laptop that's better suited for pc recording.. Heck, at this point I'd be happy if I was just replacing the 8-tracks I currently do have with my Tascam, 10-12 tracks would be even better.. =P

http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/reaper-go

Last edited by frethand101; 04-12-2017 at 08:51 PM.
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Old 04-12-2017, 08:54 AM   #5
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FWIW, I've used an old Lenovo X61T for years with Reaper. I was using it to just record and playback tracks in a live situation. No Plugins during record. It has worked fine to record 24 tracks for 90 minute shows with the band I used to tour with.


The laptop is a Core2Duo 1.6ghz machine with 4 gigs of ram and a SSD running Win7. Recording done to the internal drive.

I would later go back and play with these tracks and load up a dozen or so plugins. It handled it fine. Never had a problem recording or playing back with Plugs. Reaper will run on a pretty humble machine it seems.

I have used it with the Midas M32, Behringer X32, Focusrite Saphire 56, and the Sound Devices USBPre. Handled all of those just fine.
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Old 04-13-2017, 06:32 AM   #6
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Well, this tells me that I'm at least thinking in the right direction for being a beginner.. It also tells to me that streaming all my audio from the Glyph is probably going to be the best method for me to start with.. I'm feeling more & more like the Glyph is falling under the "better to have & not need than to need & not have" rule.. =P

When I looked up the specs for the X61T, I noticed that it boasted a 7200rpm hard drive which is very fast for a laptop.. Coincidently, this is also the magic number that many producers (as well as all the major DAW's) recommend in order to achieve the best results for pc recording..

If I'm lucky, my laptop is capable of a max-rpm of 5400, worst case scenario could be as low as 4200.. My time spent playing PC games has taught me that you can lose hours of game-play simply because your processor couldn't keep up with the flow of information required to run the game..

In the world of pc recording, "the game", could be 20-30 tracks of carefully sculpted audio that was painstakingly worked out over days, weeks, or possibly even months.. Now I don't know about anybody else, but to me, spending an extra $150 in an attempt to avoid even the "slightest risk" of a forced reboot in the middle of a large project could definitely be seen as money well spent.. LOL ;P


As far as just "playing" my guitar from day-to-day using just one track to monitor the sound (w/vst amp & fx), I really don't feel like I would have too many problems using just an interface & my laptop..

Last edited by frethand101; 04-13-2017 at 06:45 AM.
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Old 04-13-2017, 09:28 AM   #7
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I'll let those with more computer geek cred chime in if they want, but I don't think you need a 7200 drive to do what you want. I would think your processor and RAM would be a greater limitation than the speed of your drive. Running 50+ tracks laden with effects and samples on a bloated ProTools - sure, max out your system. I have an older Dell latitude with a 5400 rpm drive, and it has handled 30 tracks plus fx with no issue (I have 4gb ram). Reaper is very efficient with resources. BUT, you are right about safeguarding your work. I would use your external drive as a backup, speaking from experience! You can get a TB of storage for about $50, or 4 TB (way more than I'll need) for $130 or so.
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Old 04-14-2017, 07:04 AM   #8
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Very cool points made & there's no complaints here about having 30-Tracks with fx to work with, that's for sure!.. Heck, that many tracks could keep me blissfully busy for a good number years.. =P

As far as using (or not using) an external-drive, I'm just sorta chillin' on the buyers fence for now until I can get a better idea of what I'm dealing with regarding my "1.65GHz vs. 4GB Ram" host.. I have spent some time playing with Reaper's virtual keyboard & some free plugins I downloaded, but for now, I'm trying to get more familiar with the CPU Usage that's already occurring from just using my laptop as a laptop..


Which leads me to CPU/Disk/Memory Usage....


I spent the day watching the Task Manager while just doing normal stuff like typing this reply here on the forum & opening various different websites, etc.. I always set anti-virus scans & windows updates to manual so my laptop isn't really busy to begin with, but if anyone here has some tried-n-true suggestions of any other tasks that would be safe to shut off, please feel free to sing out.. ;-)


This is what I noticed when watching Task Manager do its thing during, what I would consider, normal pc stuff....


1) With just the Reaper forum opened, the CPU idles at around 1-4%.. If I'm juggling a few windows around it can jump as high as 25% or so.. A good example might be when I click "Preview Post" here on the forum, the CPU's can rise up to anywhere between 15-30%.. When opening some websites, the spikes can sometimes boost more toward the 50-65% limit..

2) The Disk activity is what really caught my attention.. For the most part, it seems to follow along with the CPU percentages I just mentioned, but as soon as I open a site with a lot of Ad's like "VST's-4-Free", the Disk Usage "redlines quickly" to 100%.. There were a few times where the Disk Usage jumped up to 100% & all I was doing was reading, typing, or scrolling the mouse..

3) So far, the Memory seems to idle at about 40-42% regardless of what I'm doing on the web.. I would imagine that the Memory Usage probably won't show any noticeable spikes until I actually start recording & playing back tracks in Reaper, or when I'm downloading something..


Now with all that in mind, I have a couple Newbie-Q's..

1) "CPU's, Memory & Disk", how will the recording process effect these tasks individually, collectively, etc?.. To put it another way, what exactly is going on between the host & Reaper, or what's running/using what??..

2) What kind of handicaps could be expected when launching your first DAW with a "1.65GHz Processor" & "4GB of Ram"??.. Are there any preemptive measures that I could take to help curb some of the issues that I might run into using a lower-end laptop as my DAW host??..
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Old 04-14-2017, 08:14 AM   #9
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Quote:
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In your position I would install Reaper on your laptop right now and try it out.
Those high CPU % could be graphics rendering.
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Old 04-15-2017, 12:01 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkStar View Post
Those high CPU % could be graphics rendering.
Graphics rendering, is that the wait-time that comes with all the Ad's loading up on heavy laden webpages like VST's-4-Free?.. I'm familiar with the "term" from gaming, but outside of that I've really only been using this pc to store my Tascam DP-02 tracks via the USB route..

I did finally manage to find the pdf manual that I downloaded after I bought this laptop.. There's way more product details than what I could remember, with the best being that I can in fact squeeze another 4GB of ram in after all.. ;-)


I listed the most important specs here....


- 1.65GHz AMD E2-3000 Accelerated Processor
- 1MB L2 Cache
- 4GB DDR3 SDRAM (1 DIMM) / Maximum Supported = 8GB (2-Memory Slots)
- AMD Radeon HD 8280 Graphics
- 500GB / 5400RPM Hard Drive
- External Ports: 3-USB 2.0 / 1-HDMI / 1-VGA (15-pin)
- Standard TRS-Type "Mic-In / Headphones Out" Jacks


It seems pretty much standard fare considering what I paid for it, but at least now I know exactly what the host that I'm starting out with is made of in terms of its max-ability..
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Old 04-15-2017, 07:42 AM   #11
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By 'graphics rendering' I meant all the CPU time needed to draw images on the screen (and refresh / animate them). But your graphics card should take some of that load. Try using some sort of Ad Blocker plug-in for your Browser (which one, by the way?).

Also, the only ports for an external drive may be the USB2.0 ones.

How would you plug your guitar into the laptop?
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Old 04-16-2017, 03:02 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkStar View Post
By 'graphics rendering' I meant all the CPU time needed to draw images on the screen (and refresh / animate them). But your graphics card should take some of that load. Try using some sort of Ad Blocker plug-in for your Browser (which one, by the way?).

Also, the only ports for an external drive may be the USB2.0 ones.

How would you plug your guitar into the laptop?
For my browser, I'm using Internet Explorer 11 on the 8.1 OS.. I'll have everything shut off as far WiFi & Auto-Updates for anything I'd be doing in Reaper, so I shouldn't have any browsing issues to worry about during a session..

The 3-USB 2.0 ports on this laptop are my only connection options, but that should be good enough to get me started with the Behringer interface, the Glyph & a mouse..

As for my initial guitar connection, I was planning to start with just the Behringer interface & my laptop.. I figure once I have a better idea of what my laptop is actually capable of I can better decide on whether or not a portable install to an external drive would be worth trying..

I'm feeling pretty optimistic as far using my laptop to launch my first DAW which was my biggest concern.. I think there's a pretty good chance that I'll end up with enough pc capability to keep me busy for awhile..

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