Advice on a new PC & audio interface

[Oldrottenhead]

they are still selling the laptop i got but a lot cheaper http://www.3000rpm.com/acatalog/IBM-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T410-Intel-i5-2.40Ghz-Laptop---8GB.html than i got it for.

i think you could use your tonelab with this via usb.

as i currently can plug in my kos nanokey and use that in my cubase daw (without the need for additional audio interfaces)

[Johnny Robbo]

Thanks again, James but I really can't afford to spend more than £100 & even that's a stretch. I could get lucky & find that the eBay machine will run OK, but I can't afford to gamble, so I'm not going to bother. Time to accept that I can't afford the machine I need, so it's a case of making do with what I've got I think.

[Johnny Robbo]

UPDATE: After some digging around on the Cakewalk Music Creator forum, I learned that a 3Ghz Intel Dual Core processor with 4GB of RAM will run Music Creator 7 OK... if a little slower than ideal. I've just pushed the button & ordered a refurbished Dell Optiplex PC from eBay for the grand total of £45-00 which still leaves me enough slack in the budget to to get an ASIO compatible USB audio interface if I need it. With any luck, I'll be able to use the Vox Tonelab as my audio interface: it says I can in the manual. Whether it is "ASIO compatible" or whether it can be made so by using ASIO4ALL remains to be seen, but I have a few quid spare to shell out on a new USB device should it be needed.

Thanks again for the help & advice, chaps (especially all the technical gen from 64Guitars - you're a star, mate). I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

John.

[Flash Harry]

The pc will work fine. Where it may struggle is when you're using loads of cpu heavy vst's, so be smart with your effects, keep soft synths to a minimum, don't keep tracks that you don't need.

I have a really (8 years old) pc which I run my DAW on with only a single core processor. It does fine for everything I need. 

[Johnny Robbo]

Thanks Flash!

Yeah, purely for the sound of it, I don't like having too many VSTs running - too much midi makes it sound a bit "plastic-y" to my ears. Obviously I'll have a drum track & one, maybe two, keyboards running on any given tune. Just out of interest, what DAW are you running on your PC?

The problem I'm having with MC4 on my current XP machine is that if I record something & fluff it, I'll use the "undo" function and I end up staring at the Windows "egg timer" for up to 5 minutes at a time while it carries out the arduous task of deleting 30 seconds of audio. There are professional chefs who see less egg timers than me on a daily basis 

It has it's benefits though - it's made me really KNOW my parts before I hit record so that (hopefully) I can get it right in the first take... which does happen occasionally!

[Flash Harry]

I use Reaper, it's inexpensive and capable and doesn't have the bloatedness of the ProTools, Steinberg, etc. software.

I like it. Easy to use and I haven't got to a point where it doesn't do something that I want to do. I spent my money on a Focusrite sound card instead.

If you're struggling with undo's you may want to invest in a SSD for your machine in the future, they outperform the old spinning disks by a considerable margin.

[Oldrottenhead]

keep us posted johnny on how things go with the pc. looking forward to what may come out the other end.

you should get kenny mac to send you a standalone recording studio, he has house full of them, he must have a spare one.

[Johnny Robbo]

Well... the long running saga of my new PC has taken a couple of twists & turns since I last posted about it:

I found a cheap Win7 unit with the spec I needed on Ebay for a mere £45-00, so I hit the "Buy It Now" option and waited for it to turn up. And waited some more... then waited a little bit longer. Went back to the listing to check what the estimated delivery time was & it said 4-5 working days. A week after I'd paid there was no sign of it, so I contacted the seller who replied in broken "text-speak" English that he had been ill & hadn't been able to send the item. But he hoped to be despatching it "soon".

Fair enough... but were you too ill to send an email, explaining the delay & apologising? Apparently (and it was genuinely difficult to decypher his replies... REALLY bad English) the reason he hadn't been able to contact me was because of the Easter holidays. Apparently, the internet shuts down over a Bank Holiday... news to me! Anyway, given that I ordered the PC on the Tuesday AFTER Easter, I fail to see how that was an issue!

Another thing I noticed was that the listing quite clearly showed the item as having FREE P&P, but checking my bank statement, I had been charged £5-00 for delivery. Again I went back to him and told him, politely but firmly, that I wanted the PC sending immediately via express courier (as it was already overdue) and a refund of the £5-00 he'd wrongly charged me for delivery. I got back a string of abuse (phrases like "son of a whore" and "whining sucker") and a grudging refund of the whole purchase price. We both ended up leaving negative feedback for each other & moved on.

Anyway, with the refund, I set about finding another PC & finally got one. Another Dell Optiplex, 2.7GHz; 4GB RAM; 160GB HDD. Perfect for my needs. Hooked it all up this morning & found...

a) The PC will not recognise my VOX Tonelab, even using ASIO4ALL.
b) Despite the Ebay listing stating that the PC has a CDR/W drive, there are no optical drives on the machine at all, making it impossible to install the drivers for my WiFi dongle and printer.
c) Despite the listing saying that it comes with a pre-installed GENUINE version of Windows 7 Professional, there is a little message in the corner of the desktop saying "This Is Not A Genuine Version Of Windows".

Needless to say, I am hopping mad! I've contacted the seller on Ebay & requested a refund, based on the fact that the item is not as described. And even though the listing states that the buyer is responsible for return postage costs, I'm blowed if I'm going to pay to return an item that was mis-sold!

Anyway, I'm back on my old WinXP machine now, and I'm probably going to stay that way. It works and does all that I need... if a little slowly at times. What I might do, though, is buy a cheap laptop for the internet & disconnect this machine from the web, which should keep it safe from attack. Alternatively, I may just do nothing. The only sensitive thing I do online is my banking & that is accessed via a card reader, using my bank card - I get a unique randomly generated pass code every time I log in, so even if anyone IS logging my key strokes it won't get them into my bank account. I feel pretty secure & given that I'm a stickler for keeping my internet security up to date, I feel pretty safe.

As the old saying goes... if it ain't broke, done't fix it!

[64Guitars]

a) The PC will not recognise my VOX Tonelab, even using ASIO4ALL.

Does the ToneLab show up in Device Manager?

b) Despite the Ebay listing stating that the PC has a CDR/W drive, there are no optical drives on the machine at all, making it impossible to install the drivers for my WiFi dongle and printer.

You can get drivers for just about anything online these days. And the drivers you'll find online are likely more up-to-date than the ones on the CD that came with the hardware. Try the manufacturer's web site first. If you can't find the driver for the product there, then just do a Google search for it.

c) Despite the listing saying that it comes with a pre-installed GENUINE version of Windows 7 Professional, there is a little message in the corner of the desktop saying "This Is Not A Genuine Version Of Windows".

I think that just means that you need to Activate Windows.

[Johnny Robbo]

Thanks, 64!

I think I'm going to let sleeping dogs lie & stay with my old XP machine, on reflection. I have it dialed in to work exactly how I want it to and apart from it running a little slow now and again I'm otherwise happy with it. I only decided to upgrade to a newer OS because XP is so out of date & everyone tells me I'm at risk of having the PC infected/attacked. Well... isn't that what my internet security software is for? If I end up just using this machine as a stand-alone recorder with no internet connection  & grab a cheap laptop for internet stuff, that would work if I thought I was at genuine risk. I could (I suppose) keep the new PC & just use it for email/browsing alongside my "recording" machine but I'd need a new monitor too. And space is an issue - a laptop I can just about squeeze in; another full PC & monitor? Not enough room.

Anyway... In answer to your questions...

Yes, the Tonelab shows up in the device manager. However, I get a pop-up message telling me that there are no drivers installed for it. I downloaded ASIO4ALL and the relevant Vox driver on my old PC, put them onto a USB drive & installed them on the new machine, but I still can't get any sound out of the Tonelab. If I go into the Windows Audio Mixer, and look at the Audio devices, I DO see a USB Mic though. If I check the "Listen" box in the properties for this, I get a horrible bass feedback-type sound. This "USB Mic" disappears if I unplug the Tonelab, so I'm guessing the PC is seeing the Tonelab as some kind of audio device, but I can't get it running properly.

I understand that I can get drivers from the web, but in order to get onto the web, I need internet access (obviously) and if I can't get my WiFi dongle to work (because I can't install the drivers), then I can't get onto the internet to search for them & download them. Catch 22... I need the drivers to get onto the internet to download the drivers that I need to get onto the internet. I suppose I could download them on this XP machine & transfer them across via a USB drive, but it would mean dragging the big heavy desk out from against the wall... yet AGAIN to disconnect the rat's nest of black wires & reconnect the new machine back up. Frankly, I've had enough of it today.

I googled the error message I was getting & although it seems that there is a similar message displayed for unregistered copies of Windows 7, I'm pretty certain that the copy I've got is hooky. Apparently Microsoft can remotely disable it and I'm left with an unusable PC. Not something I want to chance. I'm told there is a "crack" to get round this, but there's a principle involved & I don't really do "pirate" stuff, to be honest.

As I said... thank you so much for devoting your time to helping me with this. I truly appreciate your help! However, I've instigated the return/refund process on Ebay so the die is cast, really. Just got to wait & see what the seller comes back with now.