Up-grading for Cubase and UAD Computers

When was the last time you up-graded your recording (DAW – digital audio workstation) computer?

If you’re like me, it’s been a while. You watch as update after update rolls out. 2 cores, then 4, 6, 8 ! What’s next, a cellphone sized machine that will just record and mix what we hear in our heads? I know, don’t give them any ideas, right.

You have spent a lot of time and energy putting together a DAW that has all the necessary pieces and parts for your style of work. MIDI controllers, audio interfaces, processing cards, USB, Firewire, Light-pipe. You’ve learned all kinds of stuff about things you never imagined – not the least of which is getting all those handy gadgets and bits of software to actually do what they are supposed to, and why certain ones won’t when you try to use them together. Over a few years, you’ve had to work out all sorts of kinks on a system that was really obsolete the day you bought it.

Oh, did we mention all the cash you’ve dumped into making all this work?

New toys, bigger projects, major developments

in soft-and-hard-ware, failure and all sorts of things inspire an up-grade to the heart of a system that is precariously balanced on a precipice of one’s and zero’s. It was lightning that inspired my latest. A topic for a later post.

When the old machine went, I switched to an even older backup unit. And began researching how to start over, again. It’s always a toss-up. How do you take advantage of the latest improvements without spending $1,500, and come out with a machine that works with all of your (sad to say) out-of-date add ons?

Ah, the research,

At the same time my quest was really getting deep, a friend started a conversation about the older versions of some of the processors I use. Of course, some of our questions over-lapped a bit, so I gathered my findings to share with him, and thought they may be helpful to you, too.

I tend to work with computers from a generation or two back. This usually lets me use most of my old devices, and the kinks have mostly been worked out before I have to deal with them. After the following research, I went with a Pentium E processor on a Gigabyte board with 4 GB of DDR2 ram. Yep a bit dated but much more computer than I am accustomed to.

Here is my email to Lou.

In regards to:

UAD-1 : licensing is done via the card itself as we discussed. if memory serves, you can put your license key on a dongle such as I-Lock, making it possible to waltz into a studio with uad installed, stick your key in and go to work using the pluggins you have licensed. evidently there is an issue with using someone else’s license for plugs when you work in a studio for hire. this would be really cool if, for ex., you had roland space echo and we wanted it for mix, but needed my precision multi’s and limiters for mastering.

Cubase/ UAD-1 Problems: The most bitched about compatibility problems seem to be related to NVidia. Particularly the NForce series of controller chips. NForce N3 and N4 being the worst, N520 and newer don’t receive as many complaints. The problem seems to be exacerbated by boards with built in Video. The video is carried on the PCI bus and uses way too much of the available band-width. Another issue arises when using an additional video card in the AGP or PCI-x16 slots. It seems these boards don’t get on well with ATI in particular (that would have been nice to know a few years ago).

I am finding people who are having good luck running UAD-1 on the N4 chipset, but most have the latest revisions of the relative boards (way out of date at this point) and are using Nvidia vid cards as well. On-Board video must be turned OFF (dis-abled). In fact most of these forum posts are so old that I would wager those users have also up-graded since posting success with their set-ups.

Multi-core processors: the first editions of the UAD were not compatible with multi-core processing. Thus, most who (at the time) were up-grading to dual-core machines were having to turn off the multi-core capability of their rigs. This seems to have something to do with the computer architecture reading the processor on the UAD as a main CPU (my best guess).

I searched diligently for problems such as this in relation to the newer 4, 6, and 8 core processors. I did not find any real complaints. Although there may still be some concern with Nvidia chipsets.

It does seem that the most popular processors to use with Cubase and UAD are the Athlon Phenom II x2 and x4 ( 6 and 8 are still pretty new and not much has been posted about them). The Pentium D and E series seem to work well, but are a couple ( ) years old at this point. The Pentium I series seems very popular, but are definitely the most expensive at the moment.

So, all of that clearly in mind, this is my recommendation. Go with a Pentium E dual core (be prepared to run in single-mode) or the Phenom II x2. Use anything except Nvidia chipset. Intel p65 or AMD 770 should do very nicely. Run video from a separate card. You should be able to use the ATI ( I prefer their cards to most other bargain brands ). Turn OFF all on board video, unless you get one of the neat boards and cards that work to process video together (and that works well for you). Always use a dedicated Sound-Card (RME and M-Audio/Avid are still kings here).

One more issue to watch is RAM. Not important with my last build (mostly due to budget and RAM purchased), but definitely an issue this go-around is that memory bus architecture is not always what it seems. With DDR2 and DDR3, you have to use the right number of RAM Chips in the Right Slots on the board to get the full potential of the RAM configuration. For example, your board may support up to 16 GB of RAM, but if you read carefully, you may find that you can only use dual or triple layer capacity by inserting only 2 chips into slots 2 and 4, or perhaps by using a slower speed to begin with. Likewise, your Operating System will play a Huge factor here.

Windows 32 bit systems will only recognize 3 GB of RAM! That means that if you go buy a fancy new board with an 8 core processor and up to 16 GB of RAM, but you don’t up-grade to a 64 bit OS, you will be stuck in with only 3 GB of usable RAM and at 32 bits instead of 64, your machine will run at about 30% of it’s intended speed.