On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 02:17:28PM -0400, Jason Bechtel wrote: > Fear not. I'm not looking for hand-holding through the entire ordeal. I > can RTFM. Actually, I'd be worried that what's going to bite you is the kind of stuff that you can't put in the FM. Here are some random suggestions from my experience that may or may not be in some document somewhere, but are my take on building a quality free software studio at a reasonable cost: 1) Hardware specs are important, but not that important. I mean, be smart about buying a fast computer. Get a big fast disk, but don't pay a premium for the best - remember that you care most about the sound. The number and quality of your channels is a much better place to spend the dough. Audio can be taxing, but don't drop an extra $200 on a workstation with a 5% faster CPU. That $200 will buy you an RNC! 2) Speaking of RNC, if you don't know about fmraudio.com, check them out. They make some killer gear for cheap. 3) If possible stick to a 2.4 version kernel. While others have probably found ways to totally trick-out 2.6 into being smoother-faster-awesomer, I'll guarantee that it was much more of a headache. Get a 2.4 kernel with the low latency patch and forget about it. 4) Experiment with different software! There's a lot of really cool software out there. I'm the kinda person that gets in a rut kind of easily. But anytime I look around, I find some pretty neat things. linux-sound.org is a great list. 5) If you don't have pretty decent Unix-like OS skills, and specifically, GNU/Linux knowledge, it will be hard. If you're off running when someone suggests (for example) you reload your ALSA modules with a few tweaks, you'll be much happier than if you need an explanation of how driver modules work, how to interact with them, etc, etc. 6) Have some kind of redundancy plan in place for the data. A tracked session cannot be easily reproduced if it's accidently deleted, lost in a fire, or sacrificed to the disk-death gods. The ability to backup large audio sessions will probably be out of your price range, so you might be looking at buying an extra disk to store backups, or maybe a DVD burner. -- Ross Vandegrift ross@xxxxxxxxxxxx "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell." --St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37
