How much computing specs does one realistically need?

C

Chelonian

Member
I'm looking into various options for a new computer for recording (and maybe for all my computing use).

What are reasonable specs these days? I anticipate probably wanting the option to have up to about 20 tracks and to use various effects and plugins, then to mix down to mp3 or whatever. But I'm not sure what I really need.

If I get an SSD, for example, how big of one do I really need? Should I just get a small one, like 128 GB, and then store the project files on a cheaper HD? (But I might want to have a zero HD computer to reduce noise in the room).

Also, how much RAM do I realistically need? Is 8GB enough? Or, realistically, should I get 16GB?

At some point, I may want to do YouTube videos as well, though I doubt it will be anything too intense, just video footage + titles. Would I need more specs for that?
 
For doing audio, just about any contemporary PC or laptop will do just fine.

However, it is to your advantage to get a higher specced machine, e.g. 16gb RAM, I7 processer, maybe 250GB SSD.

But an external drive for all your data is a good idea.

If you are going to start making videos, then the more power and capacity the better.
 
If you are going to produce HD videos, it doesn't matter if you are just adding titles, etc, the computer has to take the file you made and convert it to your video format (MP4, etc) - that's where speed and more RAM will help. With my 8G RAM 3.00G processor, yesterday it took about 45 minutes to render a 15 minute video. And forget trying to do anything else on the computer while its doing that.

OTOH, my studio computer, 8G RAM, 3.3G processor, 256 SSD is lightning fast for audio (using Reaper). The fan(s?) are silent. I've done 40+ track projects with multiple VSTi's, multiple reverbs and Melodyne all running at the same time (although I tend to render MIDI files to audio once I have finalized them).
 
A 500GB Samsung Evo860 is $60. There's no reason to go anything smaller. I put one of those along with a 2TB Seagate Barracuda in my recording computer, and thats enough for a lots of audio and video projects.

An I7-10700 processor with 16-32GB ram should handle way more than 20 tracks with effects. Its got 8 cores and runs at 2.9GHz. You won't need a super high end video card, but you can offload video tasks with an external card if you want. It should be "future proof" doing audio for at least 5-7 years.

One Example: For $799 Lenovo® IdeaCentre 5i Creators Edition Desktop PC, Intel® Core™ i7-10700F, 16GB Memory, 512GB Solid State Drive, Windows® 10, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB Dedicated Graphics

I've read threads elsewhere of people wanting to get the fastest AMD Threadripper and I9 processor and overclock them. For audio processing, that's simply not necessary. Its like having a 'vette and wanting to supercharge it to get more horsepower, when you're only going to drive it on interstate highways. You're not going to really see the difference between 500 and 600 HP when the speed limit is 70mph.
 
Chelonian said:
At some point, I may want to do YouTube videos as well, though I doubt it will be anything too intense, just video footage + titles. Would I need more specs for that?
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This changes your computer specs significantly. If you were to stay with audio, most likely the PC you're using now for surfing the net would be adequate, even if it's a P4 with 2GB of Ram running Win7. Audio doesn't require much.

But video? You'll need processing power, even for video that is not "too intense". The three biggies for video are processor, RAM and external video card. The PC spec'd out by Talisman would work fine. And it should work when you want to add more to your videos than just titles. When you start color correcting, adding effects, crops, multiple video tracks, etc... it will use every last resource your PC has, but it is definitely worth it.

Anything that will work for video will be way more than enough for audio.

LOL, I have an older dual-processor Dell workstation. When I render videos, the fans on that thing scream!!! It's hard at work and definitely likes to complain about it. Whatta whiner. :D
 
Chili said:
This changes your computer specs significantly. If you were to stay with audio, most likely the PC you're using now for surfing the net would be adequate, even if it's a P4 with 2GB of Ram running Win7. Audio doesn't require much.

But video? You'll need processing power, even for video that is not "too intense". The three biggies for video are processor, RAM and external video card. The PC spec'd out by Talisman would work fine. And it should work when you want to add more to your videos than just titles. When you start color correcting, adding effects, crops, multiple video tracks, etc... it will use every last resource your PC has, but it is definitely worth it.

Anything that will work for video will be way more than enough for audio.

LOL, I have an older dual-processor Dell workstation. When I render videos, the fans on that thing scream!!! It's hard at work and definitely likes to complain about it. Whatta whiner. :D
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It does change a bit but if he’s not doing any color correcting on, say, DaVinci Resolve, he doesn’t need anything super powerful. I bought a 2011 iMac that I use for mostly audio, but I use it for video editing, and it handles just fine. It only cost me $400. The GPU is an old onboard version of the Radeon HD 6770.
 
CrowsofFritz said:
It does change a bit but if he’s not doing any color correcting on, say, DaVinci Resolve, he doesn’t need anything super powerful. I bought a 2011 iMac that I use for mostly audio, but I use it for video editing, and it handles just fine. It only cost me $400. The GPU is an old onboard version of the Radeon HD 6770.
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Wow makes you wonder why they develop new computers doesnt it. How do you get on with 4K being as the first 4K tv wasnt released until 2012?
 
Orson said:
Wow makes you wonder why they develop new computers doesnt it. How do you get on with 4K being as the first 4K tv wasnt released until 2012?
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Ah, 4K does indeed change things. I’m still satisfied with 1080p. My eyes aren’t great so I can’t tell the difference between 1080p and 4K.
 
CrowsofFritz said:
Ah, 4K does indeed change things. I’m still satisfied with 1080p. My eyes aren’t great so I can’t tell the difference between 1080p and 4K.
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Neither can most other people especially on a 6"x3" phone screen as most people use to watch video today. But that as they say is another can of worms.
 
Orson said:
Neither can most other people especially on a 6"x3" phone screen as most people use to watch video today. But that as they say is another can of worms.
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For real :thumbs up:

The only reason I see for using 4k is the ability to pan and crop within the video frame without sacrificing resolution. Other than that, 1080 is fine with me.
 
I still do most of my viewing on a 42" 720p plasma TV. Its old, and eventually its going to die. When it does, it will be replaced with a 65" with 4K. I dont know what kind of source material I'll feed it, since the DVDs, Blu-rays and cable signals I have are all 1080 or less.

Most of the time, I do my videos in 720P 30fps. It gives me more recording time on a 16GB SC card. I do editing in Cyberlink's PowerDirector on a I5-4750 and while it takes some time to render the videos, that's not really a problem. If it takes 30 minutes, I just go off to another computer if I want to browse the web, etc.
 
I think most video on the internet is under 1080HD and definitely not 4K.

Quality counts. Although people will watch bad video but will not listen to bad audio.
 
Orson,

My feeling is that content will win out over quality 95% of the time. The 'net is filled with crappy videos from cell phones that just happen to be of good performance, and some of them have millions of views. I can guarantee that an 8K Imax version of my crappy guitar playing wouldn't garner a half dozen views.
 
mjbphotos said:
OTOH, my studio computer, 8G RAM, 3.3G processor, 256 SSD is lightning fast for audio (using Reaper). The fan(s?) are silent. I've done 40+ track projects with multiple VSTi's, multiple reverbs and Melodyne all running at the same time (although I tend to render MIDI files to audio once I have finalized them).
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Can you let me know more details about this computer? I'm trying to find a used computer to buy and these "proofs" of what works are really helpful. Also, which audio interface do you use with it? Thanks.
 
I uploaded a 'special' video to Youtube which was 11gb in size last week. On my crappy upload connection it took 14 hours to upload. My pc can skim it off no problem but nobody will watch it in 4k on their phone or possibly tv. It was just an experiment.

My old pc does the sound. That pc is from 2014 and handles it no problem.

Hard drives I could fill in no time. I have 3 tb on my main pc and last week had to offload 1tb to another external hard drive.

Steer clear of anything higher than 1080 video. Nobody needs it and its expensive in every way.
 
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My 2014 computer for sound recording is 16gb ram no ssd just normal hard drive. I think it is 3.6ghz and i5. No problem.
 
NewEgg has a 1 TB WD SSD on sale this weekend for $90, and a Samsung EVO SSD for $119. That is INCREDIBLY CHEAP! I've put SSDs in all my computers except for the 10+ year old I3 laptop which is just for having a spare to log into email and browse the web. They make things run so much quicker, especially when booting up. Your time is worth more.
 
Totally agree - some of my big sample packages are on a 3tb drive and load time can be sometimes over a minute for a project in Cubase. A minute is not really long - but when you are waiting .......
 
Music stuff I have no idea. That has 500gb standard hard drives I think 3 and the vocal stuff we record doesnt take up much space and it is only one track at a time. But I have used it for 1080 hd video processing and it perfectly handled that.

Quiet it isnt because it has standard processor fans which arent quiet.

For quiet you need 'Be Quiet' processor fans which will cost about £50.00 or $75.00
 
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