build a pc for recording audio and some video

[mnman]

Hi Rob,
This is my first post on your site.
I discovered it last week while searching for information on how to build a PC.
I really like the way it is organized and the attention being given to member questions.

My question is this:
I would like to build a PC for general use plus I do some web site development. In addition I would like to be able to record audio and sometimes video for a friend who is a professional musician. Can you please advise me as to what hardware (and possibly software) I should include in my build?

Thank you in advance and Thank you for providing such a wonder service and site.
-MnMan

[Rob]

Thanks for the good words. I'm going to open your question to the general community. I don't really have any special expertise for this particular use.

So, anyone?

[RickyTick]

Hope ya'll don't mind, but I moved this thread to the "Build Your Own PC" section.

Welcome MnMan to the forums.

[zburns]

Hello MnMan, welcome to the forums.

I am late giving you a response and I apologize. I guess I have a first question. Do you intend to edit the audio and video recordings, manipulate the material artifically, etc., or do you basically plan to record with no editing or a very limited amount of editing.

Here is a brief comment on audio recording: I will start with a quote or definition from wikipedia: An overtone is any frequency higher than the fundamental frequency of a sound. The fundamental and the overtones together are called partials. Harmonics are partials whose frequencies are whole number multiples of the fundamental (including the fundamental which is 1 times itself.) These overlapping terms are variously used when discussing the acoustic behavior of musical instruments.

The wikipedia definition on overtones essentially says that music is made from multiple sine and cosine waves of different frequencies at different sound pressures. If during a musical presentation there is no break in the music, then the presence of the music (in the room or auditorium) is continous. A computer with its cpu, RAM memory storage and hard drive processes data in bits and streams, stopping and starting. The cpu will not process what the RAM cannot release, so the cpu waits until the RAM releases the data, or better, the cpu and the RAM has to wait on the Hard Drive to 'feed it'.

Music thru a computer, particularly one with 4 or 8 (4 real and 4 virtual) cores must then have software that will break up the music input into multiple threads thru all or some of the available cores and put it back together again in perfect and continous sequence and then it goes thru amplifiers and the speakers.

So the challenge in meeting your request is to find audio recording cards that are designed to fit multiple core cpus and then give you an output of a continous stream of music. The company that would provide such cards would also provide the hardware to manipulate and alter the sound. I suppose the cost of such hardware is like anything else. Low prices ranging to very high prices.

My first question is are you still looking for assistance in a computer build for audio and video recording? Wait to hear from you.