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as a musician, i really find these articles helpful.
these days, even though Mac is still pretty much 'it' for the professional field, more and more DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) users 'get in touch with' PC because it's getting more powerful to catch up the Mac's performance. and it's more flexible, too!
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
anyways, here's my experience with noise..
there are lots and lots of home recording studios now, thanks to the powerful PCs, and these days, you can make a pretty decent DAW with $5000 or so..
but many of the home recording studios don't have enough budget to make a another isolated room, so in many cases, they either have to seperate a room in to two different regions, or just recording everything in the room.
so many semi-pro musicians started to look for the silent parts, and i dare to say that almost everything in PC parts can be silenced. cool so far.. i said 'almost', because there's just one little guy who screams inside of PC : Hard Drive.
i used lots and lots of drives, and for that, i agree very much with SPCR's articles.. but i think that the 'seeking noise' is a bit overlooked..
in studios or semi-pro home recording studios, we use very, very very sensitive condenser mics; that can literally pickup the conversation in the next room, or even downstairs! and that means it can surely pick up the HD noise.
recording in DAW means saving the musician's performance without any dropouts, and that means accessing the HD continously, means lots of seeking noise..
i have Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and Western Digital Caviar WD800JB. i think that 7200.7 spins quieter, but WD's seeking noise is definitely lower.
unless if it's a real loud humming noise, the spinning noise can be easily gated (means cut the certain amount of low volumed sound), using noise gate.
but the 'seeking noise' is a big problem for the sound recording. it contains LOT MORE frequencies than a 'spinning noise', so that it's harder to gate the recorded seeking noise than a spinning noise.
that's why i'm recording my sessions into the WD Caviar WD800JB; it's a bit slower, and older, but at least it doesn't throw lots of frequencies to my sessions.
in my opinion, Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 is a very quiet HD, but also at the same time, not very quiet for the musician's sessions. Maxtor HD with 'quiet access option ON' had the quietest seeking noise i've every heard. though i didn't heard the Samsung's PATA HD yet; it's too old..
we computer musicians want silent for seeking noise, but also want the latest technology; being HD is one of the slowest part of the computer, we like it fast!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
so i wish that in the future article, there was a review of latest (fast) HDs which has very low seeking noise, but also has a relatvely low spinning noise..
i think it would be a great, great article that can help many musicians all over the world!
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just my personal opinion though..
thank you very much again for the very best website about silent PC. since i (finally) found it, i'll visit website and forum more frequently.