Advice for Basic Non-Professional Home Recording Studio

I am new to Mac (2 months) but am interested in setting up a VERY basic recording studio at home using Garageband to record primarily voice only, plus maybe a single instrument (non-digital Dulcimer) in the future. Main purpose is to record a single acappella voice to create 4 part harmony by individually recording harmony tracks one at a time. Final output will be to use the song files in Slideshows and iDVD movie projects. Also will plan on burning music CDs of the songs for family members and non-commercial use.
So... no need for a major budget or high level professional equipment. I have used my Intel iMac's internal mic for recording test songs as I learn my way around garageband. Internal mic works pretty well but I am wanting a little more control of ambient sounds and possibly some voice boost. I have been reading the forums fairly extensively and have some equipment in mind already but would appreciate experienced input and suggestions from the forum members.
My current equipment ideas are:
Shure M57 Cardioid Dynamic Mic - $89 Amazon
Shure A2WS Windscreen -$10 Amazon
On-Stage Stands Tripod Mic Stand with Boom -$23.55 Amazon
XLR to XLR Microphone Cable - $8 Amazon
M-Audio DMP3 Dual Mic Pre and Direct Box $160 zZounds (if I just need a mic preamp)
M-Audio Fast Track US44010 USB with Session Software - $89 Amazon (if I need an audio interface)
Since I am certainly not a recording expert and have never setup anything like this before, I could use honest input regarding what my studio needs are for the planned purpose as stated above.
If I have read forum articles correctly, using an external dynamic mic such as the Shure M57 will require that I get either a preamp or audio interface that can bring the mic signal up to a compatible level with the Line input jack on my iMac?
Is there any advantage to getting an audio interface instead of just a preamp for the recording purposes I have planned?
If I do decide to add the Dulcimer instrument, since it is non-digital I would just need a second mic to add its input into the iMac using either the second XLR input on the M-Audio preamp or the audio interface?
Am I overlooking any obvious equipment, cables, hookups I will need for the simple voice recording planned?
Any comment on the prices listed above and better sites to purchase equipment from?
I know this is a lot of questions. Appreciate any comments, input or ideas that your experience can offer. Thanks!

Well I just ordered the Samson C01U Recording / Podcasting Pack from Amazon for $145. Includes the mic, clip, 10ft USB mic cable, MD5 Desktop mic stand, SP01 Shockmount, Cakewalk's Sonar LE software and a nice aluminum protective carrying case. For the price I figure I can't go too far wrong and seems like a good entry level setup into basic home recording. Thanks for the info on this USB mic. I will probably download the Samson free software since I have read that can solve some issues with the gain.
Hopefully I can report back in a week or so and give an update on how its working on my iMac.
Thanks for your help!

Similar Messages

Can I use Solaris with my Home Recording Studio?

Hello,
I am currently building a basic home recording studio. I recently assembled a new computer and will be purchasing music recording equipment very soon. Before I purchase the audio recording gear, I was curious about a few things pertaining to the use of Solaris as my possible choice system.
The data that I store on my hard drives will need to be secure. I had originally considered RAID 5 though recently found out about RAID Z, which appears to be far ahead of the other RAIDs. I am curious to know more about how to set up a RAID Z system.
The computer will be running Solaris, various Linux or BSD, and Windows Vista. I have 500GB x4 hard drives. I am considering separating one and using it strictly for Vista, and using the remaining 3 with a RAID set-up for nix. If I had a choice, I would put much less hard drive space into Vista (capping it at 150 to 200 GB), though I have yet to come across a RAID system that effectively or efficiently cooperates cross-platform. With that in mind, the majority of the remaining 1.5TB can go into my studio OS - hopefully Solaris - while left-over hard drive space is set aside for various other *nix.
I've used Solaris 10 before, though haven't really gone into detail on the mechanics of such features as ZFS, zones, now RAID Z, and the many more amazing features that Solaris provides. Likewise, I am not really familiar with how well the system might operate with software/applications that I could use for recording and composing music.
Beyond the available 2TB (or 1.5TB RAID-ready) space, my computer is running on a new 64-bit quad-core AMD CPU (~2.6GHz) and currently has 4GB 1066MHz RAM. In my search for preparing a computer that suits me for high performance recording - including the editing and mastering of audio - I am attempting to narrow down my options on the software side of things. I have been very satisfied with the general file management of Solaris, though am unsure of how well it might run as the software side of a home recording studio. An additional factor in deciding will be the software's compatbility with audio PCI cards and external recording/audio interfaces. There is always a question of whether or not the necessary drivers, firmware, or similar is available between any given hardware and software components.
Some other *nix options I have considered - "Ubuntu Studio 64-bit" (though it appears to prefer 32-bit) and "64 Studio" (also Debian-based, though appears to be optimized for 64-bit). Some colleagues have used Gentoo with studio applications, though I don't know of any Linux distributions that offer the versatility, power, stability, and efficiency of Solaris for the operating system that it is.
If I use something like "64 Studio", I will have the advantage of a system that is ready-built for studio recording purposes as well as a system that I know is compatible with the sound gear that I am considering purchasing. However, those systems are restricted by their file system types, RAID availability and dependability, and the general disadvantages of using the Linux kernel in general. (I enjoy Linux, though I admittedly prefer Unix over it.)
Can I use Solaris with my home recording studio?
Thank you!
Edited by: the_professor on Nov 9, 2008 6:26 PM
Corrected a typo.
Edited by: the_professor on Nov 9, 2008 6:30 PM
Caught another typo.

I'm not sure what your question is. If you have particular software you want to run, you should see what you can get that package to run under. Sound hw stuff don't tend to be too portable unless it's written on top of OSS (htttp://www.opensound.com). Were I you, I'd consider separating out the storage part and the processing part. Get something like a cheap dell sc440 to be a file server and give the drives to that (unless you actually can get all the components working under solaris).
-r

Is Aperture for me? (Photo organisation for a non-professional)

I'm not a professional photographer, I'm just looking for a way to better organise my personal photos. However I am a graphic designer and know my way around editing photos and I have some of RAW files too.
So, currently, my iPhoto library is a wasteland- mostly duplicates that I imported at some point for some reason or another.
The rest of my photos are simply in named folders. I have about 200 gigs of the stuff, going back to 2006 (plus older ones on other drives)
Currently, I simply use cover flow and quick view to browse photos. It works surprisingly well, but it's no match for a proper solution (geotagging, face recognition, creating books, flagging, rating, etc.)
So, if you use Aperture, I'd love to ask you:
• Is Aperture your primary photo organisation tool, or do you also continue to use the finder or other solutions at the same time?
• How is storing photos on an external drive handled in Aperture? Is it easy, or does it involve a lot of dragging stuff around and messing up your existing events/albums?
• Once photos are stored on an external.. how do you back them up in case that drive fails?
• On the Apple "iPhoto to Aperture" page, they say iPhoto and Aperture share their libraries. So what happens to photos Aperture has moved to an external drive, do they disappear from iPhoto?
• How's the speed? I always found iPhoto to be slow and unresponsive. I do have the 13" MBP from 2010 (2.4 Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo) but it does everything else smoothly so I fail to see what is so intense about iPhoto to justify the poor performance.
I plan to upgrade to a new MBP, so maybe this is a moot point.
• Is importing all my old photos gonna be pretty straightforward? I'd assume Aperture will take the dates on the files, rather than the date I import them.
• Since I never used iPhoto much, I don't get the difference between an Event and an Album- though I assume that events are for separating photo dumps (say, your visit to italy and your skiing trip) and albums are for combining an arbitrary set of photos (for instance your best travel photos featuring images from italy and the skiing trip among others), so when you delete one from an album, the image is still in the event, but if you delete from an event, it goes to the trash?... is this correct?
• any other advice you may have
Thanks!

I will comment on some of the items and exclude the external drive questions as I use a 'Managed' library on the internal drive.
• Is Aperture your primary photo organisation tool, or do you also continue to use the finder or other solutions at the same time?
I use Aperture specifically for organizing, viewing and enhancing images from my camera (with one proviso noted at end of this section). Since I use Photoshop and Illustrator to create composites and other graphic images, I keep that type of work outside of Aperture and use Bridge to view those in the finder disk structure. Basic line of thought here is just like iTunes is for music files, Aperture is for camera image files.
Although I could hold composite PSD files from Photoshop inside the Aperture library, I don't simply because I don't know if Apple may decide not to support those fully in the future. I used to keep PSD files in the library, but moved away from that practice.
Note - the proviso mentioned above is that I do have one Project that contains imported composites and rasterized Illustrator files that I wish to sync with iDevices. This is the only place I keep anything other than JPEG or RAW original camera files in the library.
• How's the speed? I always found iPhoto to be slow and unresponsive. I do have the 13" MBP from 2010 (2.4 Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo) but it does everything else smoothly so I fail to see what is so intense about iPhoto to justify the poor performance.
I plan to upgrade to a new MBP, so maybe this is a moot point.
Aperture's speed depends on what you are doing in the program. Importing many images can take a little time, but no more so than other programs (e.g., Lightroom or even Bridge - which has to build it's cache). Face detection can take some time if you have a lot of faces in the images, but once it completes it is done.
Making adjustments to images can be quick in most of the adjustment bricks and HUD's, although; the retouch and skin softening brushes can become slower when you are adding a lot of local adjustments. This is no different than in Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW when using brushes. Photoshop actually edges out these programs if you use layers and masks when brushing as far as processing speed goes, but that takes time to create a layer > fill > brush adjustment. Since Aperture does the masking for you on the fly, the speed is pretty much a wash.
Note - if iPhoto is slow and unresponsive on your machine, it may be due to something in the library database being the issue. However, it seems that most software creators (Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.) always want to take advantage of the leading edge hardware when possible, which can lead to depleted performance in underpowered machines. With your machine, I would probably look at the library first aid items to improve performance though as iPhoto should be able to run decently.
• Is importing all my old photos gonna be pretty straightforward? I'd assume Aperture will take the dates on the files, rather than the date I import them.
Importing is easy and you have a number of options. Aperture will read the metadata of the image files and if the date and time are there, you can use that as the naming scheme if you wish. I would suggest reading the bit about file naming presets here:
http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=4%26sec tion=6%26tasks=true
I will leave the external drive ideas to others who run a reference library as they will have much better information than I can provide.
• Since I never used iPhoto much, I don't get the difference between an Event and an Album- though I assume that events are for separating photo dumps (say, your visit to italy and your skiing trip) and albums are for combining an arbitrary set of photos (for instance your best travel photos featuring images from italy and the skiing trip among others), so when you delete one from an album, the image is still in the event, but if you delete from an event, it goes to the trash?... is this correct?
In either iPhoto or Aperture, you have to import image before the programs know about them and therefore before you can work with them in the program. iPhoto uses 'Events' to hold imports and Aperture uses 'Projects'. They are really the same thing - a container for the imported images.
In both programs, Albums are manually created collections of 'aliases' to the imported images that reside inside the Events / Projects. If you delete an image alias in an Album, it only removes the link to the image in the Event / Project. If on the other hand you delete the imported image from the Event / Project, then it will remove the image as well as any aliases to that image that you have created in Albums.
In both programs, if you delete an image from the Event / Project where it resides, it will go to the program's internal Trash first. If you then emtpy that internal Trash via command, it will go to the Finder trash. Note - you can put an image back from the program's internal Trash without re-importing. If you send to the Finder trash, you will need to re-import the image if you want to replace it.
Both programs also incorporate 'Smart Albums' which are created using filtering criteria and remain dynamic. Meaning any current image that meets the filter criteria will be shown as well as any future image that meets said criteria (either via import, ranking, keyword, adjustment, etc.).
Note - the library structures in both programs don't really mirror the file structure on disk. While you can try to set it up that way (and many users may well do that) - I just felt it was too time consuming for me. So I just use Aperture like I do iTunes. Camera image in > organize > enhance as needed > enjoy.
One thing in Aperture that is really nice is a feature called 'Quick Preview Mode'. With the click of a button or a keyboard press, you can tell Aperture not to worry about rendering an adjustable version and just show you the image as it currently is. Really great for cruising the images. Just remember to switch off the Quick Preview Mode when you want to make adjustments.
http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=5%26sec tion=7%26tasks=true
Hope that helps.

M-Audio Recording Studio for GarageBand

This is most likely dude to my unfamiliarity with GarageBand, but I've connected my guitar (acoustic for now) through the Avid Recording Studio. When connected, Garage Band prompts me with this:
"GarageBand is scanning your system for audio devices, and has detected a device named “Fast Track”."
I agree to use this device, but then it doesn't register in Garage Band. How do I designate the actual device to a track?
Again, thank you. I'm terribly unfamiliar with GarageBand, but this will change soon.

i have external speakers plugged into my mac mini. THey are working fine-tested in Itunes, etc.
Also tried headphones direct into fast track....nothing....but when I speak into the mic I see the signal.
just not able to hear anything.
I did do all the going into preferences etc and have the track on mono2 for both guitar and mic.
So much for plug and play. I spent 2 hours reading every thread, knowledge base on maudio site, and You Tube. Very sad....

Is My Equipment ok for High Quality Home Recording?

Hi There,
I have a band and we want to start the process of producing a CD on October this year (choose the songs we have written,groove, arrange, etc.) We want to start recording as early as possible in 2007.
We play mostly Worship at a non-denominational church in Germany and we play Rock/Pop.
I've been using very unregularly Cubase SX 3.1 under Windows but i want to buy a new iMac20 starting 2007. So I've been researching the equipment i would like to buy to make a Budget.... maybe if God wants, find some Sponsors as well.
So maybe you could give me your advice and tell me if with that equipment I could achieve a High Quality Home Recording project ??? Just equipment related, i know there are tons of other things to achieve a good Home Recording project. We will give our Recordings to a Studio for Profetional Mixing and Mastering, we will not do it our selves.
I have some money available for all that but i am neither rich, so i'm on a budget. Somethings i already bought.
Hardware/Equipment
1 x iMac 20" - 2 GbRAM - 250 Disk - ATI 256 Mb (should i get better a 500 Disk ?)
1 x MOTU 828 MK2 - Firewire
2 x Genelec 8030 + 1 Subwoofer 7050B
1 x Neuman TLM 103 (only for voices)
1 x MindPrint EnVoice MK2 (already bought it)
Software
ProLogic 7 (or the newest version on market when i buy the iMac - Cubase will find its way in eBay)
Celemony Melodyne Cre 8 (already bought it - only for voices)
FXPansion BFD (already bought it)
OK... hope i am not forgetting anything. That stuff is the most important for your advice. Please drop your toughts
Cheers, cesar.
Following are our Instruments, but we are not thinking of buying new instruments... maybe somethings for our bassist.
Music Instruments
(Not all the instruments are mine :))
1 x Roland TD12 eDrums (will use it with FXpansion BFD)
1 x Korg TR 76 Keayboard (should i use it only as Masterkeyboard and use the instruments in ProLogic better?)
1 x Koch Multitone 50 W + TS 212 H Cab (it has an amazing recording output, but wanted to record the eGitars not only with the recording output but simultaneously with a mic, is that a good idea? Could I use the Neuman TLM103? or should i get a Shure 57 ?)
1 x Marshall TSL601 (which we want to exchange for another Koch Multitone when we have the money)
1 x Warwick Sweet 15 (thoug we are thinking of exchanging it for a Warwick WC CCL ND8 2x10)
Gitars: We have a 500 something Taylor... really good but i don't know the details since i don't play it and one Epiphoe Custom LesPaul (change the Pickups for 2 Gibson BurstBucker Pro and now sounds like its Gibson Custom counterpart) and a Tokai LP..... hmmmm and a very cheap Yamaha Bass, our bassist hasn't had money to buy something better.
Take care and thanks for your advice and thoughts!!!!
Thinking about buying one

Hi and thanks for all your replies!
I guess i have lots of work ahead of me... I will defenitely get an external Hard Drive for my backups.
About the Audio interface.
Motu 828 MK2 - 730 EUR vs RME Fireface 400 - 880 EUR
Motu 896 HD - 1230 EUR vs RME Fireface 800 - 1300 EUR
What would you recommend me ?
Remember I have the Mindprint EnVoice MK2 Compressor/PreAmp. My Instruments/Mics will be connected directly to MindPrint and MindPrint via SPDIF to my Motu/RME interface. I will record one instrument at a time, so I don't need so many inputs. Just the eGitars will be recorded with 2 inputs.
With this configuration, should i still pay some 500 Extra and get the next level either in Motu or RME ? Is the price difference going to give me really a much better sound to justify those extra 500 ?
Apogee Ensemble - 2050 EUR Is the only Apogee product I can find available here in Germany so far and is out of my league.
From Lynx haven't found anything.

ADVICE FOR GETTING STARTED IN RECORDING

I have just purchased a new IMAC 24 inch 2.4 core duo with 4 gigs of ram. I was wondering what a good setup would be in getting started in home recording, would a good audio interface such as the presonus firestudio, with garageband be good, or something like presonus firestudio, with logic studio, be better, or maybe apogee ensemble, with logic studio? We will be doing some song writing, and recording a band. Any help would be appreciated. Like I said totally new to this.

TCHADWELL wrote:
Hey thanks for replying, garageband is a pretty cool app. and I would not mind starting in that , what ever I start in to learn, I want to stick with that and learn it. How much of a learning curve will it be to go from garageband once I learn it, to logic? Audio quality is going to be important for song demos and ect.
The thing about GarageBand is that there's virtually no learning curve. It uses the same sound engine as Logic, but with a distilled interface that boils everything down to basics. Also, the latest upgrade to GB makes it less of a toy, and if you wanted to get started recording your band today you could plug and play into GB and do your thing with minimal technical distraction.
Logic has a bigger learning curve because it lets you control a million more things, but if you are motivated to learn it, that shouldn't be a problem. I actually enjoy learning and using Logic and you might too. Logic Studio also comes bundled with many extras that make it a terrific deal. You could always start recording in GB while you learned Logic, or just jump right into Logic if you were motivated to dive into the deep end first!
As far as interfaces go, as a practical matter, I think you would need to figure out if you're all you going to play and record together as a band, and if you have enough inputs for that. If you weren't going to use a separate mixer, the interface would need enough inputs to accommodate all the cables that were carrying signals from you instruments and voice(s).
The NRV-10 is very flexible for rehearsing + recording, although you would get better sound quality from either the Ensemble or FireFace. I would guess the Firestudio hovers around the NRV-10 in terms of sound quality. The truth however is that any of this stuff will likely sound good enough especially as you are just getting started. While it's easy for pros to wax poetic over master clocks and vintage pres, the fundamental technology has advanced to the point that any of these interfaces in the Firestudio range on up is going to enable anyone just starting out to get terrific results. And after you have some experience, and find that you have a specific need or want to lift the audio quality of a particular component, then there's a world of gear out there clamoring for your Benjamins .
So if it were me, I'd want to make sure that whatever I was getting was compatible with my system, could accommodate my inputs, and had sound quality that was good enough for my immediate goals. Also, as you are just starting out, I can almost guarantee you that you will need things that you don't yet realize you need. So whatever your budget is you should leave a little wiggle room for unanticipated expenses.

Advice for recording spoken word directly into FCP?

I want to teach some kids to record spoken word directly into FCP with most likely a USB mic. I know that this is not the best way to do this, and a mixer would help greatly. With that said, can anyone provide any suggestions for getting the best quality out of a basic mic and a Mac with FCP?
Thanks.

I'm with David on this. My sweet spot for peaks is in the -6 to -3 range as well. I'm talking about ideal for "recording" your VO, not necessarily for delivering a final mix to the client as already mentioned.
When you record anything through a microphone, there will be a noise floor to contend with. Even the quietest recording studios with the best isolation and the quietest mic preamps have noise and hum at some level. So it's critical for us without ideal recording environments to keep our recording levels as hot as possible without clipping in order to achieve the best signal-to-noise ratio. If you record something too low, and bring it up in post, you will be bringing up the noise floor along with the signal.
Eddie

Hi, I need help and advice. Basically me and my ex partner both had iphones and synced it with the same computer under the same ID. We split i have a new laptop and now it keeps asking for the old ID or it'll erase my apps bought on theold account.

Hi, I need help and advice. Basically me and my ex partner both had iphones and synced it with the same computer under the same ID. We split up and now im trying to get all my apps and info onto my new laptop with a new account but it keeps asking me for the old apple ID which she is still using and she changed the password. i tried backing it up but still nohing. When i try to back up purchased items being apps etc its keeps asking for the old one. help

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device. But you'll still need the password.
Once you have the computer authorized to use the account she could change the password again to stop you buying apps on her card (assuming it's not on yours!). It would lock you out of upgrading them too but they should work unless she uses the deathorize all feature.
It depends on how amicable the split is...
tt2

Is the Mac Mini for me ? (used for basic operation and recording)

I have always owned a PC and ready to make the change to Apple, since we have iPhones and iPads.
Here's a list of what we would use the computer for:
- basic Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc)
- browsing
- storing files (ITunes movies and music)
- storing photos
- streaming video
- recording music via pro tools (demo versions)
Thanks for the help; very unfamiliar with Apple desktops.

dwb wrote:
Depends on how many wires the user wants on and under the desk. I’ve related a number of times my own experience with a base 2012 mini which I found frustrating to use until I upgraded the RAM and installed an SSD. I started with a quality USB 3 enclosure - not all enclosures are created equal - and that was significant but an SSD in a Thunderbolt enclosure tested as fast as when I installed it internally. One thing is certain - for the 2012 with Yosemite, the SSD made a bigger difference than the 8GB RAM in my usage tests and both upgrades created a very enjoyable computer. One thing is certain - Apple did us no favors by making the new mini basically unupgradeable.
I hear ya. My 2012 Mini's HD is quite a bottleneck, but fortunately, I don't think that matters for my intended use. I found that even running it from a 7200 rpm HD in an external FW800 enclosure was zippier than running off the internal drive. Thunderbolt must make a huge difference. Apparently you can get at the HD in the new model, but you need a TR6 Torx Security screwdriver to get into the Mini. The iFixit teardown does not look like fun.
According to a someone I know who does certified repairs on Macs, improperly-installed and/or incorrect RAM accounts for quite a few problems, so the move to soldered RAM will eliminate that possibility. But it's disappointing to those of us who are careful about such things.

I Need a wish list for an "HD recording studio"

I was hoping someone could help me with a list of, what I would need to have a High end HD recording studio.
I already have a Yamaha DM 2000 mixing board.

I don't know if this would work remotely, but for local apps that are indexed by Spotlight you can use a command like
mdls -name kMDItemVersion <path to file>
So for iPhoto.app in my /Applications folder, I get:
$ mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/iPhoto.app
kMDItemVersion = "8.1.2"

RAID for speed....for use with home recording

Hi all, I want to get my G5 dual 2.0 faster for home recording with logic 8 using another hard drive. I was told RAID is the way to go? I am NOT familiar with RAID at all or how to do this but I am very good at picking this stuff up. Unfortunately this G5 only has 4 slots for RAM so I can only max out at 4GB. Can anyone tell me how to make this machine fastest I can make it? Thank you. BTW I have 160GB hard drive now running Leopard, which is the highest I can go.

Xserve RAID is a Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (FC SAN) storage hardware product, and it has been discontinued. The replacement product is the Promise SAN storage controller series, and that is probably out of your price range.
As for RAID...
RAID-0 is also known as striping. Clumps of data are written to each disk, so you end up with the aggregate speed of two disks. But if one disk fails, you're rolling in your backups.
RAID-1 is also known as mirroring or shadowing, and you can survive the loss of one disk. Read performance is decent, write performance is slower as you have to write to both disks.
RAID-5 is a format best avoided; it's an old scheme from when disks were dinky and expensive. This format engenders massive I/O recovery loads on failures (approximately 80% of your total I/O bandwidth into the array is consumed for hours, and potentially as long as overnight for a bigger array), and the load increases as disk capacity increases, and (surprisingly) prone to blowing a second disk during recovery due to the I/O load, and leaving you with a catastrophic array failure. The bigger your disks (or the more unstable your disks), the more likely a second error will arise during recovery, meaning that RAID-5 is a format best avoided. It's comparatively slow. The Apple hardware RAID-5 controller performance isn't comparable with mid- or upper-end SAN-based controller RAID performance, in my experience with both. (Various of those SAN controllers have fully virtualized storage, so the whole concept of RAID is, well, rather different.)
RAID-6 (various names) is a variant of RAID-5, with additional replicated data. If you want RAID-5, then RAID-6 is usually a better choice as it's less prone to blowing a disk during recovery.
RAID-10 is a combination of RAID-0 and RAID-1, where you have striping across a mirror. It's a decent-performing RAID controller, and it doesn't have the massive recovery load.
RAID-50 is a combination of RAID-0 and RAID-5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
RAID is not an archival strategy. If your data is important, you need a copy not on your RAID array.
Best bang for your money is probably a used Intel-based server of some ilk; the QPI-based Xeon boxes are screaming-fast boxes. A box swap for whatever G5 box this is. Spending a whole lot on a G5-class box isn't going to be particularly effective.
Best "cheap" bang for your money is probably a SSD; your existing capacity is in the same range as the entry-level SSD drives. A disk upgrade. Below that, you're left with either an internal upgrade, or (depending on which G5 box you have) a PCI-X-based, or a FireWire-based or USB-based external storage, in decreasing relative order of performance.
As for home recording, if you're running a G5-class box, then pretty much anything out there will work; performance will probably be adequate. Once you figure out what your I/O load and your CPU load might be, you'll probably either be happy with a minimal (disk) upgrade, or you'll be looking for a new box. You'll inevitably be looking at a box upgrade over time as the PPC gear falls off the supported list for the products you're using, however.

Considering an iMac for basic college use. Any tips/advice/recommendations?

Hey guys, I am getting some loan money that I can put toward a computer and I have always dreamt of getting one of those beautiful iMacs.
I am thinking of just getting the basic model (and taking advantage of the free ipod touch that comes with it)
I was just wondering for basic college use, do you think its an ok choice to make or am i better off doing something else. I do NOT need a laptop as I already have one.
I just need to know if you guys have any advice for my purchase, any add-ons, any programs you recommend. Any advice would be great.

For basic college use I would think the iMac would be great. A couple of things I would recommend first is try to max out the memory (don't buy from Apple) and you should probably get either (or both) iWorks 08 and Microsoft Office Student Edition. My suggestion is start out with iWorks and if you feel you need it get MS Office later. I would also recommend getting Apple Care to protect your investment.
If you are a good shopper you can get good 4 MB of quality memory (Kingston, Crucial, or anything that meets Apples specs) for about $100, Apple Care is about $169 (or less) and iWorks will be about $79 (or less.) Last get yourself an external hard disk for Time Machine back-ups, for that I would a good quality firewire drive. There are a lot out there to choose from.
Get what you need, it will just make the experience all the better!

I am an individual non professional Lightroom user. My question is if i buy the basic creative cloud package, can i use it in differnt device i.e. my computer or my laptop? e CLOUD PACKAGE

I am an individual non professional Lightroom user. My question is if i buy the basic creative cloud package, can i use it in differnt device i.e. my computer or my laptop? or i need to buy to each device another license?

Just wanted to add that two activation that is allowed can be on the same machine or different machines.
Regards
Rajshree

Explainer video for non-professional user

I am making an explainer video for my small consulting company. I am very new to all of this but need to do this in-house. My question is, can I buy a template from a place like video hive and fully customize the movement and colors? Will a non-professional user be able to get up the learning curve to learn the aspects of doing so?

what Ben says …
in addendum:
I'm no professional user of M5, just made me a few plug-ins/animated titles/generators for my FCPX' projects.
M5 has a steep learning curve!
As a beginner, you think, you have to do it all by 'key frames' until you realize the power & beauty of M5's Behaviors … in combo with a 'paint app', such as Pixelmator, which supports psd-format = delivering layers, you can create impressive animations within minutes ... ok, hours
but ready-made templates for 'explainer videos' - never saw that??
You have a link to an example, what you like to accomplish? .....

Which mac pro would be good for a recording studio

Hi, i am trying to gift a friend a mac pro.i am really clueless about which of the mac pro's would be best for a recording studio.

Apple Special Mac Pro
$2100 2.8GHz
The cpu can be upgraded to 6-core W3680
3 x 8GB RAM
SSD system
Mac Pro does not really benefit much from RAID of SSDs - lack of bandwidth
That is a good solid system - and one processor is even more efficient.

Advice for Basic Non-Professional Home Recording Studio

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