I also have an old Boss DR660 drum machine that is stored somewhere gathering dust. Should I connect this too? And how do I apply and use it? Is it necessary or is software enough?
Software can be enough although, sometmes, hardware can be more immediate than turning on a pc and waiting for it to boot. For example, it would probably take minutes for you to program the DR660 with a nice loop, immediately after turning it on. A pc can take a few minutes just to boot into the OS then you have to launch your DAW software. You can have the best of both worlds by midi'ing up your BR to your pc. It will take some doing but we can guide you through the process - why not make a new thread for that when you get to that situation?
hi. what's the difference between a 32 bit and 64 bit computer system in recording?
A lot in terms of addressable ram, sometimes file sizes and operating systems. Normally, though, the emphasis is on addressable ram which is important to some who like to use LOTS of it, notably those with samplers that load gigabyte size sample libraries. XP will only address 2 gigs of ram, 3 gigs if you engage the /3GB switch; 64 bit OS allow you to address up to 128 gigabytes of RAM. If you don't do a lot of sampling, having that much ram won't benefit you much, but you sure can run at least a hundred instances of MS Excel each with several large spreadsheets.
The problem with 64-bit systems are the lack of drivers for audio devices. Some soundcard manufacturers have developed Vista drivers, but none have developed any WaveRT drivers and only a few have 64-bit drivers. Then, there are those who are saying that latency is worse in Vista. I'm waiting for Vista SP1 to come out before I will even try it out, even then, I don't fancy spending P25k for an OS. Rest assured I'll be posting updates on Vista when it is confirmed that we will be benefitting from that new OS, which some say is turning out to be the new Windows ME.