It seems like ages ago I decided to build an inexpensive home studio. Way back in April I wrote an article on it, and in my mind I had myself set on September as when I would be done. I planned on having my credit cards completely paid off in September, and some other financial pieces were going to fall into place. Well, here it is August and I'm ready to go ahead. Let's see what's changed since April.

Basically the studio doubles as my living room (or the living room doubles as my studio, depending on your point of view), so there are some important constraints. I'm not going to be doing live drums. This means I don't need a lot of Mic Pre's. The drums are going to be MIDI, or recorded at the studio down the street. This means all I need to be able to do is record Bass, Guitar, and Vocals. I also want to be able to play keyboards for Midi strings, keyboards, horns, etc.

I had wanted to go with Mac, but I did a price comparison and found that for $700 I could have a PC that was the equivelant of a $3000 Mac. This is just a home / project studio, after all. While this means I lose the benefit of help from one of my more knowledgable friends who's a Mac/ProTools guy, I do have some fellow Windows audio folks who can help me out.

I was seriously looking at the MOTU 896 at the time, but it doesn't work on PC, so I was looking at the M-Box as a cheap way to get started. I don't really need more than 2 inputs at a time, and the Focusrite Pre's are supposed to be really good. Well, I just uncovered some information about the M-Box's latency, which is considerably more than the Digi001 (4ms v. 1ms). While before I was leaning towards the M-Box, now I've decided on the Digi001.

The Digi001 also does MIDI, and has 6 more inputs. Also, the Digi001 is also already out for Windows, and the M-Box doesn't support Windows yet. The Digi001 is older and doesn't have the Focusrite Pre's, but adding MIDI and 6 inputs later on would cost as much or more than the difference in price between the two - $350 street.

I was concerned with the M-Box and only being able to do one or two instruments at a time, but now with the Digi001, I can do electric bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, MIDI or live keyboards and vocals and more, all at the same time.

My monitoring system I discussed in depth in another article, but I saved quite a bit of money here too. I chose the M-Audio Studiophile 5B-SP speakers for $300. The Event 20/20bas or Mackie HR824 are around 5 times more expensive, though they are supposed to be extremely accurate, and the Event's are practically a new industry standard. I may consider upgrading one day, but for now, my $300 speakers will do.

I had been considering buying a smaller computer with only 2 PCI slots, but since the Digi001 requires a dedicated PCI slot, I'm going to go with a full sized computer so I don't have just 1 PCI slot free for future expansion.

Here's my new spreadsheet of costs. Let's see how it compares to the old one. Note that I've firmed up the price of the Mac with a Gig of memory and 2 hard drives, and chose the MOTU over the M-Box or Digi for comparison from my old article.

As you can see, I'm saving a lot of money by going PC with Digi001 and by buying much less expensive speakers. The Digi001 had been an option all along, but when I wrote my original article, I was leaning heavily towards the MOTU 896. For $350 less than the Dig001, I could go with the M-Box, but I would lose 6 inputs and MIDI. I would also introduce quite a bit of latency. It's also not out yet for Windows.

I already own two SM57's (microphones) and I think they'll be good enough to start. They're inexpensive (around $60), built like a rock, and common enough that just about everyone in the world is familiar with their sound. No doubt if you've played or seen a band in any club anywhere in the world you've seen these used. Since there are only 2 Mic Pre's in the Digi001, I don't need any more. Again, if I wish to expand/improve later, I can pick up a MOTU 896 (for more inputs), or a single nice Mic and/or Mic Pre for a better sounding signal chain.

Berhinger makes a test mic with a flat frequency response, omni polar pattern that I'm interested in. ($40... can't go wrong.) It will allow me to both test my system, and serve as, well, a flat omnidirectional mic. A second flavor to the SM57's, which are cardiod and far from flat. (I'm sure I lost half of you just now...)

So this is where I am today. I expect it won't take long to put this all together, the computer being the only remaining thing to be spec'd and built. I plan on doing it from parts. Being in NYC, I have access to a lot of computer shops, so finding parts inexpensively should be relatively easy. I'm hoping to have it done by September 1. Let's see how I do!

update August 29, 2002: Okay, here it is almost September 1 and I haven't finished it yet. Though I did pick up the DIGI-001. It comes with PC and Mac software, which is cool. Every once in a while I'm tempted to go Mac, especially now that the price of G4's dropped so much... but I don't want to spend that kind of money.

ProTools doesn't support dual CPU, so these old G4's are pretty much the top of the line for Pro-Tools Mac. Maybe in a couple of years when the prices really fall I'll pick one up and put the Digi001 in there. By then there'll probably be a good, inexpensive, A/D converter for PC that I can buy. I'm sure there already are, actually, but that's another story. Since the Digi001 comes with both PC and Mac software, I'll have lots of options at my fingertips and the ability to share files with just about anyone on the planet. But that's a few years down the line.

I have spec'd my computer and found a good store in the NY area, at least price wise, I haven't been there yet. If I like the place I'll post the link. After doing some shopping, I added a Monitor and MS Windows 98 which I had left out to the total cost before - @ $130 & $100 respectively. Oh, and I forgot to add a video card that can output to the TV so I can use it as a monitor. I have a decent TV and would love to be able to mix on it, maybe see if I can get it set up as a 2nd monitor.

The NY price with tax is about $950, but I can save a bunch of money (around $150) if I shop around for the absolute best price and have the parts shipped. Though, then I risk getting a defective part and having to return it, which is a pain. If I purchase locally, I'm paying for the convenience of being able to return it to where I bought it, having it now rather than later, and actually getting it at all.

I'm going to wait until after a mid-September vacation to build the system so I can test the parts while they're under warranty. I'd hate to have something delivered, not be able to test it because I'm out on vacation and come home to find that it doesn't work and the return policy has expired.

The system I spec'd is: 2ghz, Windows 98, two 40gb 7200rpm Hard Drives, 512mb of RAM (the most Win98 can comfortably handle, which really sucks), a 17" Monitor, a CD-RW, 400watt case, and floppy drive. I got my prices from pricewatch.com, and when I say shop around, I mean find places and prices on that site. If you know what you're doing, that's a great place to get hardware. If you don't, I'd stick to pre-assembled machines.

I'll mention brand names & model numbers once I've built the system and determined it's stable. It's funny how much computer parts, especially for audio, sell on reputation. I think there are two heuristics (simple decision making device) most people use when buying computers for DAW. One is reccomendations from people on websites, message boards, magazines, etc. The other is benchmarks and performance tests done at places like tomshardware.com.

According to Dell.com, $900 will get a similar system but with only (1) 20gb HD and 256mb RAM. To bring it up to my 80gb of HD space and 500mb of RAM using parts from Dell would bring the price up to around $1200, and those parts wouldn't be optimized for audio anyway. On MacMall.com, $850 will get me a 600mhz iMac with 128mb of RAM and (1) 40gb HD, no PCI slots, a 15" display, and a plain old CD-ROM.

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