A good basic college student set up

[HPMSound]

If you are just starting to make a home studio. They key things to me are, computer, DAW (Pro Tools), and a good pair of monitor speakers. And an interface. My over arching question is not what you think is good. I am wondering what is a good way to set up a decent but powerful pro tools rig with a good 2.1 set up on a tight budget.

Any input?

[Ben Jenssen]

I think you left out the most important aspect: What do you aim to use this setup for? Recording yourself thru mic a track at a time, creating beats and electronic music, live multitrack recording? What's your vision?

[HPMSound]

I am planning on doing sound design for short films. And wanting to begin on a small set up with a sub then maybe save up and get a 5.1 rig down the road.

[JuanPC]

Originally Posted by HPMSound

I am planning on doing sound design for short films. And wanting to begin on a small set up with a sub then maybe save up and get a 5.1 rig down the road.

Only ProTools HD or PT with CompleteProductionToolkit2 license has Surround.
if 5.1 is down the road... HD or CPTK2.

there is no Upgrade from PT standard to HD,
the only way to upgrade PT to HD is the Hard to Find CPTK2 license.
but don´t know if CPTK2 works with PT11 & PT12.

so aim for HD software, ilok account with login & password.
forget about iloks with No password.

Hardware:
A MacBookPro 8-cores, fast GHz, with Bootcamp and Windows7x64 or 8.1Pro
is nice, but...
RAM, 16GB minimum, ECC required, Registered also Required if 64GB or more are installed...

-->don´t know if MBP has ECC.
so better buy a MacPro5.1 that has ECC.

unbuffered RAM is "ok" if less than 32GB.

SSD not required if you have 64GB of RAM or more.


Soundcard:
anything PCI/PCIe/PCIx

PT HD Accell cards only work up to HD10.3.10
cheap... but DSP does not have Fast Bounce of PT11, required for long Audio Files, usually common in Sound for Video.
1 hour bounce becomes 30min at 2x.
so better aim for PTHD11

soundcards like Lynx or RME.

MIDI:
try to avoid USB MIDI & Windows7

there are plenty other options.
LAN to MIDI boxes, etc...

[LochNESS]

Not sure what is more confusing to me (a novice), all the various versions of ProTools available, or trying to decipher these tech speak abbreviations.

If I read correctly, you have recommended a MacBook running Windows?

What is Bootcamp? What is "ECC"?

It looks like HD is the way to go, since you can't upgrade from standard to HD, and HD is better.

My motherboard manual says it can only take up to 32GB of DDR3 so, I guess 64GB is out for me. Soundcard is the interface, yes? What components will reduce latency? or is that not an issue with PCI-express? Better sound card = less latency? I guess what I'm asking here, is what factors will improve (or worsen) with soundcard quality ...