Advice on Upgrade of System 4 Mbox

[LDJ]

Dear All,

I am a total newbie who just bought an Mbox with PTLE 6.7.(It is not opened yet so I can take it back.) Of course when I described by system to the sales person, it was no problem. Talking to Digi Tech support indicated that my Athalon XP1600+ is below their recommended specs. Then checking the Digidesign website I find under the “Known Incompatabilities” section: “computers with motherboards containing mixed chipsets from AMD plus VIA combined.” Now I am thinking compatibility issues and/or upgrades to my system and/or return the Mbox.

My System (actual and planned):

Planned: Dual Boot Win XP Home (SP1 on disk) (with 1 XP install totally dedicated to Pro Tools and I XP for general business. I am not a gamer. Space considerations prevent having separate system.)
Main HD: Seagate Baracuda 7200 rpm 200GB (3 partitions, 1 for PTLE)
Second HD: Western Digital 7200 rpm 250 GB to be dedicated to Pro Tools files
CPU: Athalon 1600XP+
MOBO: ASUS A7V266-C (VIA chipset)
RAM: Mixture of 256MB PC2100, 256MB 333MHz, 512 333Mhz Kingston (don’t know the PCxxxx rating of the last two)
NVidia GeForce 4 MX 420 video card
USB 2.0 + Firewire generic add on card
AVerTV TV tuner add on card
Wireless LAN card
ATX case
400 watt power supply

I am just getting back into music after a 6 year lay off due to a new schooling program. I was never very accomplished, so I am starting over with guitar and vocals. I do have a Roland VS 1680 for any basic recording needs.

My Application (in order of current priority)

1. I need a better sound card for monitoring iPod song transfer from CDs.

2. Transfer an extensive vinyl collection into digital. (I am a low level audiophile so sound quality is an issue - will work in wav.) I do have a decent stereo preamp with a phono stage.

3. Pitch shifting of commercially recorded music to get into a lower key so that I can sing along for a pleasant from of vocal training (not looking for ultimate sound quality here).

4. I get a lot of song ideas as fragments. This is where I thought that I could use PT to assist me to construct those fragments into songs. As my skill level is rudimentary, having the absolute maximum sound quality is not the issue - yet. I figure that it will be awhile before I’m good enough to really want to keep finished product for anything other than song ideas. The VS 1680 can be used for this, but the interface is cumbersome. Since I needed a new sound card with some digital I/O (the E-Mu 1820 was my other option) the Mbox made some sense. This all assumed that Mbox could function as a USB ext. sound card.

So now that you know more about my needs than you might have wanted:

1. Does anyone know if my motherboard falls into the dreaded AMD & VIA
mixed chipset issue?

2. If #1 above not an issue, does anyone know if I can upgrade my Athalon to a faster chip (if so to what level) with the existing MOBO and have that make sense performance & dollarwise?

3. If an upgrade of MOBO and CPU is due, is the current thinking to go with the Athalon 64 over the P4? I’ve heard that for general music software compatability it is best to go with Intel CPUs. Is this so? (If I upgrade, stability is desired over having over-clocking performance levels.)


I’d like to keep my upgrade costs to approx $400 or less. And keeping it to about $250 would be very good. In this scenario, would the NVIDIA video card be able to make the transition (cost factor)? I need a MOBO with a minimum of 4 PCI slots, maybe 5. (Eventually I’ll want to add another sound card such as the E-MU for general duties and/or other music programs.

I tried to follow the links for building a P4 system but most of the posts seem to go back to 2003 and prior, at least as far as I followed (50 pages or so). I am thinking that that’s out of date in terms of current hardware. Are there newer P4 recommendations, in a low to mid price-point taking into consideration my current needs and hardware?

Based upon these desires, are there any recommendations for MOBO & CPUs?

I’ve heard some conflicting input on the native PTLE pitch shifting. Are there any other programs and/or plug-ins recommended for my application needs?

If I get another program like ACID or FL (for pitch shifting), I assume that I can import into PT as well as to use the Mbox as a playback device/ext. sound card. Is this thinking correct?

If you got this far, thanks for listening and for any help you can give me.

Cheers,
Laurence