Rackmount PC as VST enclosure - what do you think?

[Poldi-1]

Thinking about replacing my laptop with a PC in a 19" enclosure for my rack next to the drumkit. Would be a luxury version of hardware VST container like Receptor 2, but for about half the price or remarkably less depending on what audio interface I choose. I'm interested in what you guys think about the project.


Here's the hardware I'm thinking about:

Supermicro 512-260B schwarz, 1HE, 260W
Gigabyte GA-EG41MFT-US2H, G41 (dual PC3-8500U DDR3)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6700, 2x 3.20GHz, boxed (BX80571E6700)
G.Skill RipJaws DIMM Kit 8GB PC3-8500U CL7-7-7-18 (DDR3-1066) (F3-8500CL7D-8GBRL)

I tried to select everything kinda power-saving yet still powerful. The biggest problem is the case atm: It's just 1HU but can host a slim DVD drive, but will the RAMs and CPU cooler fit in it? The back of the case looks kinda fixed, so I doubt the rear connectors from the mainboard will fit in there... Trying to get more info from the manufacturer
I chose a motherboard with Firewire for an external Firewire audio interface, or do you guys think an internal PCiE soundcard would be a better choice? Then a 3HU case would be needed at least...

[Bean]

Poldi-1,

If this was my setup then I would use the internal 0404 PCiE from E-MU, external Firewire audio interfaces are subject to the performance of the Firewire chipset on the motherboard so I tend to stay away from Firewire. Firewire is awesome if you have a chipset intended to deliver low-latency ASIO performance.

At the moment I’m running the 32-bit version of Microsoft Windows XP Professional on an old Hyper-Threading Intel Pentium 4 CPU @ 3.06GHz with 2 Gigs of Ram. I have the E-MU 0404 PCI audio card and use it with Toontrack Solo just for live SD20 play and love it. The sound card has hardware-accelerated effects and hardware mixing / monitoring that uses no CPU power. So it handles my 6-tom, single bass, dual ride, dual crash, splash & snare configuration without flaw. Now that I have the MegaDrum-56 the idea of more pad's is reachable goal for me.

If I had the money to spare then I would upgrade to 6 gigs ram on a 64-bit OS and the PCiE version of the 0404. Just a little warring in advance, the Windows 7 Driver is Beta thus NO technical support is expected for beta drivers and applications from E-MU. The last Beta release was October last year and is considered to be in the final stages, thus the next release is likely to be a final release (non-beta version). I will admit that I have been awaiting the final release of the 0404 drivers prior to plunging into 64-bit.

If you like to see the spec’s then the link to the sound card is:
http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp ... duct=20022

And beta driver info at is:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/emu/default.aspx

Hope this info is useful for you,
- Bean

[Poldi-1]

Thx for the input Bean! The card you suggested has a decent price! I saw some carsds with "hardcoded" ASIO drivers, like this - will those be in advantage somehow?
Are there any doubts 8GB of RAM will be enough? RAM is not so expensive - I could just double it up

[Bean]

The card you pointed out is not an audio interface; it is a low-latency hardware-accelerated DSP interface for effects, mixing and monitoring of up to 52 channels with external hardware. So if you got the RME HDSP PCIE card and connected it to the external device like the RME MULTIFACE II then you would be able to direct the audio channels in SB20 to the 8 physical jacks on the RME MULTIFACE II. The MULTIFACE II converts the digital 44.1kHz data from SD into analog audio. This is for a person whom wishes to have DAW as a home studio, (DAW=digital audio workstation), with many VST instruments and line inputs to record live audio and play it all back using as sequencer.

To answer your question, on any Windows based OS system you want the ASIO compatibly to pipe the data to the type of physical jack’s required to connect to your stereo system. A sound card for games don’t perform the same way as a card for virtual instruments in the Windows OS even if the game card "supports" ASIO. Cards with low-latency "hardcoded" ASIO drivers will allow you to pipe sound data through so it appears as real time performance, and you can do this with other VST instruments running at the same time if you wish.

... If the card has real time DSP then you can nurse the sound in real time without using computer power and without adding delay/hesitation to the performance. Make it sound like you’re playing your drums on a stadium or on stage in a live performance. The goal is to not notice the work done by the computer; that if you close your eyes and play you will believe these are real drums and you could have it is if your performing somewhere else as you play. If you are planing on only running a fully installed SD with Toontrack Solo (unlimited layers and voices) as the VST on a 64-bit OS then 4GB of RAM is all you should ever need on a fully loaded set. If you intend to run your setup as a DAW then make sure you have enough ram for the DAW configuration plus ram for SD20, also make sure if useing ToonTrack Solo that the audio card supports the 44.1kHz format.

[Dee]

In 2006 I added dfh Superior, Custom & Vintage, Percussionist, and Cocktail on my Receptor and they have been worth every penny. This platform eliminates much of he headache that I experienced running vst's on computers. Long term it might be worth the extra cost to just turn to the Receptor side.

[Bean]

Long term it might be worth the extra cost to just turn to the Receptor side.

Dee, if the option you suggested existed today, then I would agree with your recommendation. The reboot of "dfh Superior" is "Superior Drummer 2.x" and it is yet to be Receptor-ized.

You might want to see this link on Toontrack’s support forum:
http://www.toontrack.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=81122