The term DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation, is just a fancy name for a computer that is optimized in both software and hardware to be used in the production of music/audio.
There really isn't that big of a difference between a DAW and the standard home computer. The differences usually come down to configuration and hardware choices.
In my home studio I have two DAWs both of which I built custom so that I could have the utmost control over all the critical components. I found that while today you don't save much by building computers from scratch you do still save a little. For me the reason for building from scratch is not so much the little bit of cash you save as it is the flexibility in configuration options.
Main PC (DAW #1) Configuration:
Slave PC (DAW #2) Configuration:
Hardware Choices:
A couple things you probably notice are that on DAW #2 I'm using a different mother board, different graphics card, and different audio interface. Let me explain...
First, the mother board. A lot of people will recommend the Gigabyte P35-DS3R mother board, but I don't, and here is why. After about 15 days my P35-DS3R shut down and would never come back to life. The motherboard would never make it to the bios post process. It would power on, beep 3 times and then restart over and over again. I did a search on the Internet and found out I was not the only one having this problem. Apparently it was an issue a lot of people were experiencing. Luckily I only had the board for 15 days, but since I didn't have my receipt I had to exchange it for the exact same board. So far my second P35-DS3R has worked great.
Second, the graphics card. Do not buy the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE Graphics Card. This graphics card fan is so damn loud and I mean very very loud, it's ridiculous. The ASUS EN7300GT Silent is SWEET! It is exactly that, silent, it does not use a fan.
Finally, the audio interface. In my slave PCs I only need ADAT since I'm sending ADAT out from the slave to the main PC. The E-MU 1212m is a heck of a deal and a great sound card, although patchmix is a little confusing at first.
How it's all connected:
DAW #1 handles all the recording and sequencing as well as all the effects processing. DAW #2 is simply a powerful VSTi host that consists of just instrument sample libraries.
I'm using Midi-Over-LAN to send MIDI information from DAW #1 to DAW #2 over my LAN. Midi-Over-LAN words great and I highly recommend it. I tried FXTeleport and Steinberg's V-Stack and Midi-Over-LAN plus ADAT has worked the best for me.
It's important when working with multiple sound cards that they are in sync and share the same clock. DAW #1's Audio Interface, the firestudio, uses internal clocking and sends the clock signal across S/PDIF to the 1212m on DAW #2. I send ADAT (8 mono audio channels) to the firestudio's ADAT IN connected to DAW #1 so now I can record all the audio from DAW #2 without having to go through any A/D D/A conversions. It all stays in the digital domain and latency is kept to a minimum. NOTE: Sending clock from the 1212m to the firestudio did not work for me, for some reason the firestudio could not stay locked.
