When buying a computer, in addition to taking into account the various possibilities offered by the market, it is very important to evaluate your current needs, in short, to buy only what you really need. This is not meant to be a morality in homage to thrift, but a sort of insurance for future needs. You will soon realize that the money saved will soon be invested in something that you may not even know at the moment. Here is the beauty of those who do their hobby or profession in music: “Spesa semper Certain Est”, the “quid” or when is not important. Apart from the petty philosophizing, we can say that in the musical field the concept exposed is even more difficult to apply. What do we really need? We could, in the absence of clear ideas, opt for the best; Unfortunately, the choice of the “top” of the materials is not always synonymous with maximum performance and reliability. Precisely in this complex perspective, Projectlead was born from the rib of one of the leading companies in the professional audio sector, which offers a series of professional DAWs, designed for users who do not accept compromises. Le MusicDaw: Born to make music!
Prologue:
When I was entrusted with the test of a PC designed for musical use, I accepted with joy, as I am always looking for stable and reliable devices for my musical works. I was asked what system band I was interested in reviewing. Not knowing the products in question, I preferred an intermediate version; (Fig.1) I am always of the opinion that trying the TOP of a computer, whether this PC or MAC, is not of maximum use. Usually the "top of the class" are equipped with state-of-the-art motherboards, super fast processors, HD. with higher and higher caches; often both for the untested compatibility of the chipset of the last hour, and for unpleasant bottlenecks that can be created between hardware and applications (often due to a disproportionate speed), it can happen, as the saying goes, that "The too crippled" . Paradoxically, the system instead of being more performing becomes an ideal candidate for the dreaded and hated crashes. Who knows something about it, who like me, many years ago blindly relied on an NT operating system, equipped with a double Pentium II processor. A real hole in the water. At the time I paid around 3 million lire between motherboard, dual processor and original operating system, only to sadly discover that the plugs I owned had only been adapted to the new operating system. So goodbye to the speed and performance potentially offered by the dual processor. However, with time everything improves, by now many "improvised" manufacturers have disappeared, the assembly standards of motherboards, processors and memories have improved, not to mention the hard drives, the 7200 rpm are the order of the day and with for little money you can get decent performance for HD recording. So why rely on distributors like Audio Musica Recording to buy a bespoke PC that is certainly not that cheap either? Wouldn't it be enough to simply write down the list of components and create a clone in terms of performance with the help of a friend or a shopkeeper? Both the manufacturer and the distributor assert no for two reasons: the first is that all the components of their "creatures" are strictly selected on the basis of a tolerance factor, this precisely to avoid that while we are in the best of our musical performance, the system "droppi" or make other jokes. The second reason is that an excellent and not negligible HELP LINE service is made available to the customer with qualified personnel, hired to solve all HD Recording problems. However, apart from the words, and the natural perplexities, it must be said that the users of these systems are more and more numerous, and that the positive testimonies of "illustrious" people in the field are increasingly frequent on the site. What is up to me now is to scramble the DAW, turn it upside down and see this vaunted optimization and stability. We will leave the MusicDaw2 always on until the last test, without letting it know the relief of a shutdown!
Audio chain:
The software used for the tests is the following: FishFinder e Cubase SX as an audio and midi sequencer, Nuendo for the simultaneous management of audio and video signals. The cards used are: RME Fireface 800, Motu 2408 MK3 and accelerator card UAD-1. Music orchestration software: Symphonic Orchestra Platinum, Vienna Opus 1 and 2, String Essentials and Complete Classical Collection by Peter Siedlaczek. As for the plugs, I've really tried everything from those that simulate effects to those that simulate synths.
MusicDaw2 as it looks:
I have no intention of boring readers with a maniacal description of the components, however my geek nature requires me to take a peek into the case, necessary to formulate personal considerations. The "houses" it is vertical, in aluminum alloy, has a very refined and refined professional appearance, it gives the impression of having an almost indestructible object under your hands. The heaviness and thickness of the materials protects us from noise and interference, certainly a guarantee for those who work long hours and record external signals. On the "CASE"Flashy voltage meter is mounted (Fig 2).
At the top we find the power and reset button R, very convenient for those who, like me, after long hours of sitting work, do not even want to get down to turn off the system. We also find 2 USB, the input and output of the sound card, suitably disabled, and a firewire400 port (Fig.3).
Strange, however, that a DVD player is missing on board, there is only a burner, however I would recommend to those who want to buy the machine to commission the addition of a good player.
Let's open the case and see what it looks like:
The system is composed of an Intel Desktop Board D945PSN motherboard, one of those cards that I would not buy on purpose, an honest card that has the requirement of reliability on its side, is not very predisposed to geek features such as the overclocking. The card not supported more than 4GB of memory. The Processor is an Intel Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz with 2Mb cache, the actual bus speed of the architecture is 800 MHz. The system is not a dual core but EMT64 BIT technology is fully supported (64 Bit instructions). I believe that the absence of Dual Core technology was dictated by a precise market choice that I can share. The memory consists of 4 modules of 512Mb DDR II VDATA 533 MHz for a total of 2Gb of ram, made by Vdata, so no Kingstone or Corsair as I had assumed. The video output is entrusted to a 300Mb PCI EXPRESS ATi RADEON X 128 SE card that supports dual monitors (dual head) There are two hard drives: one 160Gb system and one 300Gb, both Maxtor S-ATA 7200 RPM . The circuit layout is very neat, (Fig.4) there are no flying cables, or attached with adhesive tape, the connectors have different colors according to the circuit they are going to power.
The main heatsink is a Thermaltake, (Fig. 5) with Heatpipe technology that guarantees better cooling with the least possible noise. The large copper base optimizes the heat transfer not only for the cpu but also for the cooling of the mosfets, the ram and the chipset, then there are other 2 silenced professional fans for the case. I really appreciated the choice of a good silenced ATX power supply LC6420 420W 120mm GOLD, I have been using it for a long time on my computer and my ears have finally found some peace of mind. A peculiarity: the machine has a keyboard with Itek cable equipped with voice commands that supports up to 12 programmable voice functions, but if the sound card is disabled by default how can we use these voice commands? Do we have to connect it to the optional card that we are going to use for our recording sessions?
The firewire 400 port is integrated.
How I did the tests:
Your computer comes with WINDOWS XP Professional Service Pack 1 operating system. The bundled software consists of a benchmark only, (Fig.6) there are no antivirus or other programs. I thoroughly checked if everything had been optimized to avoid any bottlenecks. In truth, I found an operating system not perfectly configured for a DAW and I promptly advised the distributor to make the necessary changes.
Orchestral test:
to carry out the orchestral test we used a real "bone breaker" for any computer, namely Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Platinum. The test was performed in Sonar and we loaded 4 instances of Native Instruments Kontakt importing a complete orchestral setup, for a single microphone. In the Platinum the samples are 24-bit and this naturally ends up adding to the load on memory and cpu, due to the greater flow of data loaded in real time. We were able to manage and arrange a fairly complex orchestral piece, with moments of "everyone" (for the layman, these are those phases of the orchestral scores, in which almost all the instruments are played at the same time). The performance was generally good even if in some parts, inevitably, the level of CPU usage has risen considerably; the system did not experience dropouts at the first loading (this is the hardest moment, as the system loads the samples needed for the execution into memory), and it offered a very important performance at the second execution (Fig.7)
The only problem we encountered was when we created an orchestral section with multiple virtual instruments, specifically Vienna and Platinum: the system load was too high and the HDs were full.
Synth Test:
We had some problems installing some software as our DAW, having no modem, did not meet the requirements of the KEY response mechanism. Fortunately, at my house I have a manager who does not need a modem and I was able to proceed with the installation. For the test synth we resorted to one of our favorites, the Linplug Octopus, a hybrid synth "matrix" with an extraordinary voice and, from time to time, a little heavy on the cpu. The system withstood over 10 instances of the synth in question, even in this case we can say that the performances did not disappoint. We used both “light” presets (with a reduced use of generators and oscillators) and more demanding presets, equipped with arpeggiator. In all instances, the Octopus internal effects section was active (Fig.8).
Synth Test + Effects:
This time the rehearsal involved both the session created with Symphonic Orchestra Platinum, and the one created with Linplug Octopus. Here, too, the criterion was to use quite demanding effects for the processor. We opted for a convolution reverb, the Voxengo Pristine space (www.voxengo.com), in which we loaded a double pulse wave file (one for the right and one for the left channel) from the “Samplicity” library (www. samplicity.com) .The system proved to be quite stable, even if the cpu suffered from the amount of work when the load of Virtual instruments and effects was at its maximum. Although some clicks were heard, the execution continued. Below, for the final blow, we used the waves mastering plugin L3, and here are the first real difficulties: (actually expected) the plugin puts a heavy burden on the computer. Overall, however, the stability did not betray. We finished the tests using cards with dedicated dsp: the UAD-1 card from Universal audio and the APA 32 basic version; by replacing the VST effects with those generated by the cards, our session did not have any problems, on the contrary it seems to have gained in management and sound.
Video Test + VST:
I think this is one of the most difficult tests to carry out. Normally we think of the computer only as an audio and midi management tool, but it is undeniable, especially in recent times, that the market expects increasingly effective audio-video synchronization functions from PCs. Naturally, for this type of activity, better performing DAWs are preferred, equipped with video cards designed for signal management so that audio-video synchronization is not compromised. At the Conservatory I teach my students the rudiments for the soundtracking of commercials, documentaries and cartoons. For this test I made use of some works they carried out during the year. I mounted my two monitors to MusicDaw2, and uploaded some video and music sessions: In play I had no problem, keeping the small screen video on one of the two monitors, I didn't notice any slowdown. The problem arose when I started replacing the original plugs in the composition. Usually to save resources, I recommend to pupils the use of light plugs, at least initially to spread the ideas; Products such as Symphonic Orchestral Silver, Philarmoniks Miroslav, Garritan, light VSTs such as FM 7, Kompakt, X-treme Fx are usually used, as well as noise samples in wav format made by themselves. For the test I tried to replace the orchestral sections with Symphonic Orchestral Gold, I did not voluntarily use either Vienna or Symphonic Platinum, being aware of their greed for resources; I set the image to full screen on the second monitor and the computer gave out miserably. The system didn't hold up, it didn't crash, but it started losing synchronization, slowing down randomly. The problem persisted even by eliminating a monitor and making everything work on a 17 "screen (Fig.9). This should not be considered a drama, we know well that you want to work smoothly by integrating video and audio, you need to resort to more performing machines, with higher performance than those offered by our DAW; this does not take away the possibility of a compromise, working with lighter VSTs, or working with a few tracks at a time and rendering them or "freezing" them every time the computer starts to "sob".
Audio Test:
For the audio tests, I used two cards: the Motu 2408 MK3 and the RME Fireface 800. The two cards worked at different times, always under intense strain. I managed to open up to 36 separate sessions in recording, for a time equal to about 60 minutes; I have not encountered any drop problems, working at 16 bit 44 Khz and without using any virtual multi-effects. I also tried to mix everything internally using this time, for the effects section, the excellent convolution reverbs of the APA 32 board (Fig.10). For the rest of the effects I used the always fascinating, obviously optional, UAD-1.
Conclusion:
During the tests, the Daw demonstrated a contained heating and an excellent quietness, important factors for a system dedicated to recording and mixing. Design, silence and stability are the fundamental and winning elements of this machine. The system wins, because it is a product with attention to every detail starting from its elegant, robust and silent chasse, up to the software settings to speed up system performance, even if as I said earlier I found some flaws in the default settings . I liked the system of the doors that allow the assembly of internal peripherals without having to remove the front flaps. The machine is elegant and well-ordered inside. I would have preferred 2 HD 300 Gb and an additional DVD player. There is no modem, a useful tool for those who need to download software updates or activate the KEY response of programs, let's remember every now and then that we are in the computer age and that some products can only be purchased by downloading from the Web. I don't even understand why the installation of a burning program was not planned. Finally, the warranty terms offered by the house are good, 2 years with On center intervention. My advice for buyers is to ask the company directly to mount the sound card, and the consequent optimization of all the music software. And let's not forget that it's always a good business card to have instruments with an elegant design and a professional look in the studio. In addition to meeting these requirements our MusicDaw2 also offers excellent reliability, that "added value" that is strictly required for both long-term work and inspired ideas of an "impromptu" nature.
Intel Pentium 4 3400 processor
Motherboard with Intel 945 ChipSet,
2GB Ram DDR II 533
1 HD 160 Gb S-ATA 2 7200 rpm
1 HD 300 Gb S-ATA 2 7200
16x dual Layer DVD burner
128 MB Dual Head PCI-E Video Card
450W Certified Low Noise Power Supply
Mouse and Keyboard.
USEFUL INFORMATION:
Producer: project lead
Model: MusicDaw2
Website: www.projectlead.it
Distributor: www.audiomusicrecording.com
Price: Euro 1.590,00 VAT included
