Yes, this shows you how long ago I started writing this blog. I’ve had to change some bits from future to past tense. And so, with a whole new introductory paragraph, let me tell you the wonderful story of the birth of ProgPit Studios.
After a series of grandiose plans for my studio I eventually boiled all my needs down to:
A: A room
B: A Badass Computer
C: Auxilliary studio materials.
‘A’ was dealt with rather easily, as I also inhabit the room, so I can claim it as general living expenses.
The computer, however, was a much more interesting task. Since the majority of my university work is conducted on a Mac, I thought it would be a good investment in terms of labour saving and the ability to do more work at home to get one for myself. So now my computer desires have at least a very basic form.
Here’s what I was thinking at this point:
Now the problem with those 2 statements is that they directly contradicted each other. Apple products, by their very nature, are expensive. And I hoped that this computer would last me a while, and so therefore I had to buy a reasonably powerful one, or one that I could upgrade as and when I needed to. The latter sounded rather tempting, and I had heard about people building their own computers, and I have recently got into a habit of taking things apart and looking at how they work.
However, as a naive computer building virgin it had not struck me that one does not simply build a Mac, but in what can only be described as a flight of infinitely stubborn fancy, after being told that one does not simply build a Mac, my brain proceeded to ask...
Why not?To which the reply I got was: ‘You just can’t’.
Hohohoo. ‘You just don’t’ might have made me question further, but the use of the word ‘can’t’ pricked up my attention summat fierce! I therefore directed the rest of my questions towards the internet and various computer knowledgy friends, and after a month of searching, I found a solution.
Basically, what a Hackintosh is (aside from a rather terrible pun) is a home built PC, which, through a long and labourious procedure can be made to run on Snow Leopard OSX, by installing the Mac operating system on the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) of a computer shortly after it is built. It then runs through the rest of its life using the Snow Leopard operating system, and to all intents and purposes, is a Macintosh computer. The appeal of this is twofold, firstly, having a home built computer makes upgrades both easier and quite possibly cheaper and secondly, because the price gap is just beautiful.
Building a Hackintosh gave me the ability to be very specific about the specs of my computer, and once I decided on the power and memory capacity of my desired unit, it turned out that an iMac with the specs that I wanted would have cost more or less £2500.
I do not have that money. I am a student.
£2500 is the price of 1000 beers.
One...
Thousand...
Beers.
Or a reasonably good car.
I will come back to this figure later...
So I made up my mind to build a Hackintosh. It would have 4-8Gb of RAM, at least 250Gb of internal memory a nice 1080p screen. Or two. This however, meant that I had to learn about computers and the building thereof. Luckily I have friends like Harry and Harry, who taught me about this whole computer building business, and how to get me a thoroughly preposterous amount of proverbial bang for my proverbial buck. So here is the shopping list that I ended up with...
Now, as I understand computers there are certain things I should be spending a bit more money on, despite my relative attitude of cheapness towards the studio at the moment. One of these things is the PSU, or power supply unit, which I have on good authority is a bad thing to suddenly go wrong. It essentially breaks up the big electricity from the mains socket into little baby electricities that run around inside your computer feeding all the other components. So it’s breaking would effectively melt the insides of the poor ol’ thing, and I can’t record Worlds Apart on a smoking pile of molten plastic and metal. So as a result, I shelled out for this badboy:
Secondly, I was told that for audio recording I needed to cram as much RAM as I could get into the computer to make it run fast and smooth even with massive amounts of audio, and due to my habit of double and triple tracking vocals and guitars, combined with my love of massive harmonies, it sounded like I was going to need a LOT. Buying RAM is an odd task, as it seems to fluctuate in price based on seasons, and for those who don’t know, RAM comes in sticks which are inserted into the motherboard of the computer. I ended up buying two 2Gb sticks of tasty, tasty RAM, making a thoroughly respectable 4Gb.
Next, I needed a graphics card. And because I don’t really have any intention of pushing the boundaries of HD gaming, I opted for a reasonably cheap low end Zotac one which will provide my eyes with ample entertainment as I record my number one debut album that makes me famous...
Hopefully.
Also, as all computers, It needed a CD/DVD drive so I bought this one!
I can't remember what type it is, but as far as I know a DVD drive is a DVD drive is a DVD drive.
Now, one of the few things I know about computers is that you need to see what you’re doing on them, so to this end, I decided to buy a nice 22” 1080p full HD screen off ebay, and somehow it only cost me £80. I have a small TV in my room which was given to me by a friend last year, and to this day I’m still working out how to connect the two together. But that is another story for another blog.
Finally, at the centre of operations, A motherboard and CPU. These were perhaps the most important choices, as I needed not only high spec components, but also components that would be compatible with running a Mac operating system. However, budget was still pressing, so I bought a mid range motherboard:
and an absolutely effing beautiful i7 CPU. Originally I had a problem in that the first CPU I bought was a newer model and therefore incompatible with the motherboard, but as I got it for reasonably cheap off ebay, I might even be able to make some money by selling it on!
Oh, and I got a nice, cheap, cool looking case which is ‘Tool-free’ meaning I don’t have to break out the spanners every time I want to change something, which is handy.
So with it all ordered I bought my copy of Snow Leopard off the internet and waited for all my things to arrive...
I don’t know if you’ve ever waited for so many things to come in the mail, but seriously, the excitement was actually nearly killing me. My room is right next to the front door, so I’m really the only one who hears when the postman knocks, and that’s usually when I’m still in bed. Day after day I was woken up by the door, got dressed as fast and clumsily as possible and ran to answer the door, more often than not to be greeted with a small letter for the previous owners, but eventually I got everything.
It. Was. Well confusing.
Had I not had Harry on hand to help with the putting together of things I would have almost certainly cocked everything up. But due to a small amount of expertise on his part and a large amount of nagging on mine, everything ended up plugged together and working.
And that is Harry on the right. The girl in the chair is Sophie, a housemate who has had to put up with me gushing about this whole process since about march.
Now came the hard part.
(Hehee. Hard part.)
Because of repression of bad memories and some blind following of instructions, I can’t recall the exact procedure with which I installed Snow Leopard. Suffice to say, it was surprisingly simple and easy in the beginning, and then ironing out all the little niggles at the end made up one of the most frustrating days of my life.
If anyone is interested in Hackintoshes then I strongly recommend you look at the blogs of Tonymacx86 which is where I received all the info I needed for this project, and it explains the process by which you can turn the right computer into a Mac. However when I had finished all this, I was left with a Mac with no sound, no internet, and no applications. This is where I had to use MultiBeast.
MultiBeast is another creation of Tonymacx86 which sorts out all the little bits of your Hackintosh to make it run like a normal computer, without personalised help, however, it gets VERY confusing. Fortunately, I found personalised help in the form of a different Harry, who showed me how to get everything working.
One of the biggest shocks I had when the Hackintosh was built was the lack of internet. Looking back, I hadn’t bought any kind of wireless card or WLAN receiver thing, when building the computer, but just expected it to have wireless capability. I was WELL gutted when I found out it hadn’t. But 1 10m Ethernet cable later, I was online, and hopefully, the cable internet will prove to be more stable than wireless anyway.
In terms of audio hardware and software, I bought an Alesis io2 Audio Interface off ebay for £60, and that has catered to all of my input needs. It allows me to independently connect 2 inputs (Jack or XLR) to my computer via a USB port and control the input gain of each. It has phantom power for condenser microphones in input 1 and digital and MIDI input and output ports so everything is catered for.
The MIDI controllers are my beloved Axiom pro 61 MIDI keyboard and a roland DD55 MIDI drum kit I have had lying around for a while. It needs fixing, and parts are currently on their way via some internet transactions, so that should be working before long. The computer’s main audio is patched into my old stereo with some nice speakers on which give me good sound quality and a nice big bass sound.
All the software I use so far has been downloaded, and cracked by various sources, because after spending the money on the computer, I decided to treat myself by saving on it. I record on Logic Pro 9 and use Absynth, Massive, and Battery for most of my synth sounds. Guitar Rig 4 and Superior Drummer have already featured on my vlog, which if you haven’t already seen, you should give it a quick look over.
http://www.youtube.com/user/DrBlowThingsUp
Overall, the full price of the studio was around £800. That means I saved just less than £2000 pounds from building the Hackintosh, so to all who were involved, the people who advised me via the internet on what to get, or how to put it together, thankyou so much.
On that note, it’s getting late, and I have to be up early to listen for the postman, so I’ll see you all soon!
Bye!
xxx
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