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Pc for music production
- Thread starter peppeorso
- Start date
WTGR you might as well ask us to chose your mode of transport! Desktop or laptop? What sort of music genre? How many tracks do you want to record at once? Do you need blindingly low latency? That will govern the speed of processor to go for but the interface will also have a big impact on that (e.g. go for RME)
To give an example. Up to say 16 track recording with decent sprinkling of plug ins you would get away with an i7 CPU and 8 G of fast memory. With a good interface latency would be good but not outstanding. If you want a massive samples library budget for a 2Tb or bigger second hard drive (or an external USB 3 drive) The system and DAW drive must really be an SSD but 500G should be plenty with extra storage/backup.
Better men than I will surely comment.
Dave.
To give an example. Up to say 16 track recording with decent sprinkling of plug ins you would get away with an i7 CPU and 8 G of fast memory. With a good interface latency would be good but not outstanding. If you want a massive samples library budget for a 2Tb or bigger second hard drive (or an external USB 3 drive) The system and DAW drive must really be an SSD but 500G should be plenty with extra storage/backup.
Better men than I will surely comment.
Dave.
rob aylestone
Moderator
The facts really are that virtually every computer can do audio quite well - because the critical bits are no longer inside it! Fast external storage - lots of it, maybe added extra hard drives inside, like fast big SSDs. Bigger monitors, exernal audio devices. If you want the best bang for bucks get one built with things you can't do yourself, but make and model are becomin less and less important. Are there any slow ones on the market now from the currys type shops? Not many. If you wanted video editing in 4K - then video cards and processors become important. The onboard graphics on even cheap computers can run nice big screens. Sample libraries are my downfall - terrabytes of the damn things - so nice fast drives - or maybe a NAS drive. For me, that is the major advance in years. All my computers in two sites sharing data seamlessly. It's improved my workflow tremendously. I would have to go to each computer to check the specs - not vital any more.
OK, well, if going laptop you won't be doing zillions of tracks coz you won't see 'em! I would go 15.6" screen minimum and looking at some Dells they seem over budget for an i7 CPU. An i5 would probably serve but others might have other thoughts?
RAM should be 8G min but 16G better. Main (C) drive SSD and 256G min but twice that if you can. What kind of interface are you considering? I am happy with my Native Instruments KA6 but have a yen for the new MOTU M4. Two mics, two line ins on both plus MIDI.
Dave.
RAM should be 8G min but 16G better. Main (C) drive SSD and 256G min but twice that if you can. What kind of interface are you considering? I am happy with my Native Instruments KA6 but have a yen for the new MOTU M4. Two mics, two line ins on both plus MIDI.
Dave.