Members LiveMusic Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 You guys that have studios or home studios... buying a DAW or some kind of decently productive recording setup... is there anything you do to combat the ever-increasing technological advances? I mean, in chip speed or RAM alone... do you think in three or four years, your machine will be junk or not so? What do you buy to combat this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Red Winger Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 I just never buy anything. That way, it won't go obselete. Ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Pro Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 Make the gear you have today pay for itself, so the cost can be offset by tax deductions and you can afford to update it later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 There is no way to future-proof a studio. However, if a system is working, it will do what it did the day you bought it...so as long as the hardware needed to fix something is still available, you can use a recording setup for as long as it works. I've found that my office computer is less forgiving. A lot of newer programs REQUIRE newer CPUS, and when you go on a site and it does a "browser check" and you can't run an up to date browser, you're kind of screwed. Personally, I figure on upgrading my computer every few years. I have to do it just to stay competitive in terms of my writing (I need a computer that can run the latest programs), but then the older computer becomes my new office computer. So both get updated at the same time. By that time, my old office computer is pretty much useless. I gut it for parts (fans, replacement power supply, memory) and that's about the best I can do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members doug osborne Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 Buy the best front and back you can afford - mics and preamps, speakers and amps, etc. Anything digital is past its expiration date as soon as you open the box, and obsolete in three years. Consider these as expendable commodities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted August 8, 2005 Share Posted August 8, 2005 I regularly update my DAW hardware... about every 18 months / two years or so. It's a part of doing business IMO. Yes, today's hardware will be obsolete in three years... that's the nature of things. It doesn't mean you can't do work on a three year old system, but the state of the art will have gone way beyond it by then, and your OS and DAW software may not run on a really old system, and they may require something newer / faster. I try to get as much out of my systems as I possibly can. My older DAW systems get handed off to friends, or rebuilt with newer parts, or used in different applications. For example, my office machine in the studio is an ancient P-I 200 MHz machine running Windows 98se, but it works fine for printing out reciepts, writing reviews and so forth. Another old DAW machine now serves as a dedicated Gigastudio platform, but that may get moved to office duty (retiring the old 200 MHz machine) and replaced by something faster. My Athlon XP 2700 system went to a friend, who uses it with a Digi 001. I've also got two systems in the house... a Athlon XP 2400 that I use for Internet duties, and an Athlon XP 2600 for my wife... she's a REAL noob to computers, so it's going to take a while until she's comfortable with them, but eventually I'll put a PT MP rig into that for her to use for songwriting and so forth. Probably the single biggest thing you can do to reduce the obsolescent issues and the costs involved with buying a complete replacement system is to learn how to do your own hardware upgrades. The case and drives you already have might be fine, but the mobo / CPU might be a bit behind the times... if you can work on your own system, you can fairly easily swap out those parts and for all intents and purposes have a "new" system. That can save you some significant cash, and still keep your systems fairly "current". We've got a thread about computer upgrades going on over on my forum right now that you might want to check out. You can read it right here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mr. Botch Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 , if a system is working, it will do what it did the day you bought it...so as long as the hardware needed to fix something is still available, you can use a recording setup for as long as it works. That's my mantra. I had to retire my Atari setup (MIDI only) because the dot-matrix print head wore out, and heads were no longer made (and Atari drivers for the newer printers weren't being written either). I'm still using my orphaned Opcode DAW software/hardware on a Mac G3, and it still works. When I make the jump into digital photography I'll be upgrading everything at that time. Since this is a hobby for me I need to discipline myself into just going with the Garageband package, not the $1,000 Logic package that I'd like to have... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WFTurner Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 It's true you can't future proof but today the capability in present computers is so powerful and the software at this stage so strong, even if in two years you can't or wont follow the next tech trend, what you have in your hands at present is probably more powerful than anything you ever imagined when you first got this bug.Not being able to stay creative with an oldDAW from here on out will be due to a mental deficiency not a gear one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ManiacManos Posted August 8, 2005 Members Share Posted August 8, 2005 IMHO the CPU power issue will be almost irrelevant in 6 years or so from now. By Moore's law the power of a PC in 6 years will be over 10x the power of a today's top-of-the line PC. I think that's OK for me! Ofcourse more CPU => more complicated software, so I may be wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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