Can computer hardware effect your DAW's sound?

[Keyplayer]

I've been running (quite pleasantly, I might add) Nuendo 1.6 on a Pentium 3/933 with 512mb of RAM and a 9652 soundcard.

Overloads on the CPU have been successfully avoided by mixing on a DA7 with outboard FX, dynamics, and printing plug FX to the wave files.

Anyway, I'm ready to upgrade. I wanted to go for an AMD Dual Opteron 64 System. But sticker shock sent me back to my little P3. So I decided to just go to a P4/2.8GB with 2gigs of RAM and 400gigs of 7200RPM drives.

A friend of mine just built such a computer and is going to be out of town for 3 weeks. So he loaned me his tower to try it out. If I liked it, then I would purchase those components and upgrade my tower to those specs.

This afternoon we swapped over my soundcard
and drives to his P4/XP Pro/Optimized for Nuendo tower. I pulled up a project that I was working on this morning. EVERYTHING SOUNDS DIFFERENT!

One file sounded way brighter than it had yesterday. The one from this morning sounds a lot bassier. All I was expecting was more speed and ease of work flow. This is really bizaar to me.

Can the computer components really effect the sound? I can understand software and programs having these types of impacts, but the hardware running it???? Is this possible, or is something else going on?

[LumenStudio]

Did you mix in the same place that your used to hearing the mix? Could the faders have moved somehow without you realizing it? Computer hardware, other than your sound card, should not affect the sound.

[Keyplayer]

Absolutely nothing BUT the computer changed. The P3 had a 250PSU the P4 has a 400PSU. That, the latest drivers for my 9652 card & Midex MIDI interface and a super quiet housing for the P4 are the only changes. We even did the swap in my studio. So this audible change was instantly apparent. I don't get it!

[djui5]

Might have something to do with the soundcard having access to more resources for processing....also might have been something wrong with the internal buss of your old computer that was slowing it down and manipulating the data being sent to the sound card....

Just a thought.

[LumenStudio]

I could see more resources for the sound card, but no matter the buss speed, it should not manipulate the data passing through it.

[heinz]

Is the new tower positioned in front of your monitors? ok j/k but unless you are maybe using different drivers (98 vs. Xp Pro maybe?) I am not sure that this can be explained logically, I jump systems like this all the time and can't remember that actually happening. Can you push some audio through both and compare WAV files perhaps to make sure you're really hearing a difference?

[manisedap]

I heard that that's possible yes with the different power supply. There was like a freak ass long reading about it. The cables, voltage, electronics of motherboards and hoopla was said to have an effect on it. Can't remember where it was at though...

I pretty much thought it was bullshit.. but maybe I'm a believer now...

[jazzius II]

Has he got one of those new P4's with a tube sticking out the top?

[jazzius II]

Seriously, though....i can't see this.

It's hard to imagine that if something inside the 'puter was corrupting your 1's & 0's, it would manifest itself as an EQ change in your tracks......much more likely, your software would crash, or the audio would be horribly corrupted in some non-musical way.

I'm sure it's something like a plugin dissapearing, a pan law thing, or some software bug that's caused the project to be altered.

Good luck with it anyway!

[JonCraig]

is it possible that the new setup is clocking better, or rather, that the old setup had a bit of jitter that is not in the new CPU? perhaps due to the sound card, or processing resources, etc. just a thought.

--jon

[Keyplayer]

Here's the component list for the P3:

P3 Component List
AC Custom Computer System
MidTower ATX w/250W PS
Asus CUSL2 motherboard
Intel Pentium 3/933Mjz FCPGA
512MB RAM PC133DIMM
Matrox G-450 DH AGP-pro video card
WD 40GB 7200 RPM (O.S.)
IBM 60GB 7200 RPM (Audio Drive)
Promise Ultra-100 ATA RAID Controller
Teac 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Plextor 8x4x32 CD-RW drive int.EIDE
SonyWU 14A DVD-RW drive (added later)
107 key PC99 PS/2 keyboard
Windows XP Pro (Upgrade. Original was Windows Millenium)
Steinberg Nuendo 96/52 audio interface
Steinberg Nuendo audio production software

Here's what I swapped my IBM Drive and 96/52 card into:

P4 Upgrade List

Component Description
Motherboard Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, 4USB, SATA+RAID, Sound, LAN, AGP
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 P4 2.8GHz 800MHz BUS CPU Heatsink+Fan: Zalman CNPS7000A-CU CPU Cooler for Intel P4
CPU Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
Memory: Kingston 1GB DDR400 PC3700 DDR Memory, Non-ECC (X 2)
Case: Lian-Li Quiet Aluminum PC Case PC-6070 Power Supply: Zalman Silent 400W Power Supply Video Card: Asus 128MB V9520TD FX5200 Video Card CDRW/DVD: SONY Combo CD Rewriter and DVD ROM CRX320E
Floppy Drive: Mitsumi 3.5inch 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
DVD-RW: SONY DRU530A 8X DVD +-RW Keyboard and Mouse: Microsoft Natural Elite PS2 Keyboard and Optical Mouse
Wi-Fi Adapter: Linksys Wireless USB Network Adapter, Model# WUSB54G
Hard Drive: SATA Seagate 160GB ST3160023AS Serial ATA - Primary RAID-0
Hard Drive: IDE Seagate 200GB ST3200822A Baraccuda ATA-100 EIDE

That's all that changed. Same room, same files on the same 1.6 version of Nuendo.

Like I said earlier, it doesn't sound bad, like some wordclock or phasing issue. It sounds like all the settings have changed. I had no trouble correcting the "problem." It's just now I have to re-mix everything I worked on last week.

[DrDeltaM]

Did you use a different AC Cable?

[faeflora]

Maybe windows equilizer is turned on.

Or maybe your ears popped.

Or, most likely, you're f'ing crazy.

[LumenStudio]

Are you sure there were no plugins missing on the new setup? If not, you should look into using some plugins anyway, e.

Also check to make sure your Windows XP service packs and updates are the same. I think you can see the hotfixes in Add / Remove Programs. Are you using the ASIO drivers for your sound card? Are those drivers the same version? It's not going to be a hardware thing, it is going to be a software thing. The only possible hardware thing would be access to more resources, and how your software utilizes it. If you are using EQ plugins, maybe this is the case, but I don't know many companies doing resource saving without you explicitly checking a check box or selecting a light version of a plug.

If it helps your sanity, here's a brief review of the fundamental architecture of every modern computer. The five classic components of a computer are the processor, memory, input, output, and datapath. The processor gets intructions and data from memory; input writes data to memory and output reads data from memory. The sixth element is control (software, OS, drivers, audio apps, plugins, etc.). Control sends the signals that determine the operations of datapath, memory, input, and output.

Hardware is an underlying substrate to push digital signals through on. The basic components don't manipulate the data without the software (control) to tell it how to manipulate it.

Best of luck.

[jho]

I figured it out. It's those goggle glasses you are wearing. Take those off and everything should sound fine.

[joeq]

Originally posted by Keyplayer
and a super quiet housing for the P4

what about that? if there was a big contrast in fan noise, that could have quite an effect on your perception of the mix

[zenmusician]

It is the Power Supply... data should not be affected by computer hardware... but what u hear may be influenced by the power supply...

[norman_nomad]

Originally posted by joeq
what about that? if there was a big contrast in fan noise, that could have quite an effect on your perception of the mix

I agree... fan noise does change the way you hear audio.. but only in a subtle way, and increasing as you turn the volume down on your monitors.

A couple things... if your audio sounds dramatically different, and you're running on ASIO drivers there might be some sort of internal eq set that you're not aware of.

Hard to believe you would hear such a difference in sound over just fan noise and quality of the power supply.

[Keyplayer]

I've started working on new projects from scratch. Everything sounds fine. Even the older stuff that sounded different sounded okay. I t just sounded like different settings on the processing. I made the adjustments to the mix and went back to work.

[remo]

maybe you wanted it to sound different so your mind tricked you into hearing a difference? like a placebo effect?

... just a thought