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I mentioned in a previous post my need for a computing platform to support a home recording studio. After some investigation, I decided to purchase from eBay a custom PC (rather than buy an expensive brand name or build one myself). Well, the machine arrived last week and I could not be happier.

The idea here is rather than buying a single, standalone recording appliance (for example, a TASCAM 16-track hard disk recorder), I would go the way of the studios and use a software-based solution on some decent computer hardware.

I use Sonar Producer 4, which is one the very best software packages available for both consumer and professional musicians. It supports full audio and MIDI recording scenarios (64 audio and unlimited MIDI tracks), has built in software synthesizers (some of which emulate the vintage synths like Korgs and Moogs), tons of effects (things like echo and delay and compression … eliminating the need for racks of outboard equipment and wiring), and provides very detailed views for recording parameters as well as a mix mode that looks like a real studio mixing board. It even can be used for mixing and editing music and video. Here is a mashup of some of the screens:

Here are the specs of my rig (much of this equipment, outside the PC, I already owned):

• Intel Pentium 3.2GHz Custom Workstation (2G RAM, 160GB Hard-drive, CD/DVD RW)
• Creative Audigy 4 Soundcard supporting 24-bit sound and soundfonts
• Samsung 17-inch Flat-panel Monitor
• Altec-Lansing Speakers with Subwoofer (need to replace these)
• Rhodes MK-80 Electric Piano/MIDI Controller/Tone Generator (88 weighted keys … really sweet)
• Roland M-120 12-channel Line Mixer (supports MIDI, 1/4-inch, and XLR inputs, effects sends/returns)
• M-Audio Fast Track Pro 4×4 USB Audio/MIDI Interface (preamps and phantom power)
• Alesis SR-16 24-Bit Stereo Drum Machine
• Sonar Producer 4 Studio Software

My daughter Mia and I got the rig hooked up this past week and within twenty minutes had recorded our first multi-tracked song together. I’m practically giddy with excitement to dig in and start playing and recording again.

As a side note, I should mention that the whole eBay experience was very efficient and pleasant. The vendor, eCollegePC, kept in constant contact with status updates, shipped the machine on time, and once received, I found the machine exactly to specs and ready for installing the OS. I would definitely buy from them again and even recommend them to others.

I also want to thank my dear friend Rodger for all his advice on platforms, standards, and practices in the industry. His insights were key for me being able to pull this together.

I dearly wanted my next PC to be a Mac. I have serious Mac-envy. My Windows PC, in fact, is tricked out to appear like a Mac, as is my Ubuntu desktop. But alas, the cost of admission still is too steep. (Although it amazes me, the twists of logic one can produce to convince oneself–and perhaps one’s spouse–that a purchase is truly required and justifiable.)

Now that school for me is close to complete, I intend to use my time otherwise spent studying and writing papers to delve back into making music. My mission is to gather some of my old equipment now stored in a closet (mixing board and some outboard effects) and combine them with a PC-based recording system. I looked at a lot of stand-alone recording systems, but the prices are high and I already own really great recording software. This also seems to be the way studios are going, software based systems on very high-end computing platforms.

So, I began looking around at PCs that were up to the task. I thought first of building my own PC. I’d heard that you can buy all the components and a case and build a new PC for significantly less than a major brand. While that is true, the system I configured and priced would still have cost near a thousand dollars.

I spoke with my brother Keith, who has made many purchases from eBay. I looked around on eBay and found some really kicking systems for astonishingly good prices (I kept thinking of the Crazy Eddie commercials of my youth: ‘Noooobody Beats Crazy Eddie!’). I wrote to several of the vendors to ask how they could sell these things so cheap and the answer, predictably, was that they make so many of them that they get their parts at discount rates. Another reason for the low cost is because most of them come with no OS installed, like Windows or Mac OSX. (I have a Windows XP Pro disk so this is not an issue).

So I took the plunge and ordered a custom system with the following specs, all for around $400 (I already have the monitor, mouse, and keyboard):