Whats the Best PC for music prodution
- Thread starter Angeldevimon
- Start date
Since you are getting macbook, then you start using macbook as your main DAW. That little white plastic can make some pocket money. All you need audio interface and a mics. While using the given Garageband. Then you can know what you really for a full blown DAW. Also it is not uncommon to see mobile producer.
blueprintstudios
New member
eieioeioeo : i see some people still recommending you to make efficient use of your macbook as DAW, and I see you still asking questions regarding what specs to get that's value for money for PC. in turn , you haven't mentioned what is your "purpose" for this DAW. and what do you aim to achieve from this purpose?
recording? few instruments? multitrack full drums ? midi? all of the above? mixing? light mixing or heavy mixing (depending on your experience). I apologise if I appeared to just easily slap a DIY recording FAQ link on you but it's all for good reasons. people are trying to help, so help us to help you.
are you familiar with PC maintenance? because from all the mac vs pc wars we had in the past, this seems to be the result in my opinion :
1) mac, expensive , still affordable. stable, but when it crashes it's merciless. so please backup often.
2) pc , highly affordable. stability ,depending on your maintenance habits. spend less money, spend more time maintaining.
recording? few instruments? multitrack full drums ? midi? all of the above? mixing? light mixing or heavy mixing (depending on your experience). I apologise if I appeared to just easily slap a DIY recording FAQ link on you but it's all for good reasons. people are trying to help, so help us to help you.
are you familiar with PC maintenance? because from all the mac vs pc wars we had in the past, this seems to be the result in my opinion :
1) mac, expensive , still affordable. stable, but when it crashes it's merciless. so please backup often.
2) pc , highly affordable. stability ,depending on your maintenance habits. spend less money, spend more time maintaining.
base on soft suggestion 1tb hdd, so i went ahead & bought 2x 500gb hdds.. can right?
next should i stay with ddr2 system or go for ddr3? now got like atom, C2D, Core i3, i5 & i7??
budget is moderate more to value for $ in terms of performance x current 2010 sls market price ratio???
next should i stay with ddr2 system or go for ddr3? now got like atom, C2D, Core i3, i5 & i7??
budget is moderate more to value for $ in terms of performance x current 2010 sls market price ratio???
DDR3 and at least 7200 rpm for main harddisk(got 10 000rpm even better).NO ATOM processor.C2D is ok, i5 or higher for current or coming soon high quality sampler and synth.
If you are more on recording and sampler instrument (mainly acoustic instrument ). Harddisk and ram is very important,this include motherboard bus speed also. These task demand a lot of disk streaming. If using hundreds gigs specialise sampler library, CPU come into play too.
If you are on more sound design(eletronic music, soundscape), CPU and RAM is more important. Some synth even using a single osc can peak CPU easily.
If you are more on recording and sampler instrument (mainly acoustic instrument ). Harddisk and ram is very important,this include motherboard bus speed also. These task demand a lot of disk streaming. If using hundreds gigs specialise sampler library, CPU come into play too.
If you are on more sound design(eletronic music, soundscape), CPU and RAM is more important. Some synth even using a single osc can peak CPU easily.
base on soft suggestion 1tb hdd, so i went ahead & bought 2x 500gb hdds.. can right?
next should i stay with ddr2 system or go for ddr3? now got like atom, C2D, Core i3, i5 & i7??
budget is moderate more to value for $ in terms of performance x current 2010 sls market price ratio???
I think you will regret your decision. at this age most of the HD are already fast enough, you should have invested your money on top of the line firewire audio interface and software. One thing that you want to avoid when recording is latency which it related how fast your interface and audio drivers process your signal back and forth between your interface and your software.
Another thing, I also started using PC as a DAW but I was never successful. I already have a decent laptop but there is still latency when I trigger MIDI using my roland vdrums. But when I tried my wife's old iMac, I don't have those problems!!!(even though the iMac is a slower system).
Cheez
Moderator
Actually, if using a desktop/PC, one should go for PCI or PCIe audio interfaces. You don't need to choke up huge money for very expensive ones. Echo, for example, are very reasonably priced and gives you excellent near-zero latency. I've used that since my PIII days with no problems. Of course I've moved on since then and I'm now using RME. It's many more times more expensive, but in reality, there's no difference in latency when you compare with other brands like Echo.
As for HD, antrishred is half right. Most HD (if it's 7200rpm) is fast enough - for recording. But if you are going to do extensive sample streaming, you need that extra seek time or you may encounter clicks and pops. The bottle-neck is NOT at the transfer speed (ie most USB2/firewire/SATA etc HD are all fast enough in terms of transfer speed) but at the seek time. It comes to the fundamental question (like what many have been asking above) - what exactly are you going to use your DAW for. Based on what you want to do (or focus on), you may have to tweak your system to focus on certain strengths at the expense of other things which you are not going to focus on.
That goes for HD space as well. If you have huge projects which include video + sound editing, you may need huge HD space - hence 1 TB may be necessary. For me, I use it for everyday use (office etc) + DAW. Hence I have 3 HDs:
1. Windows, applications and data storage - 320GB (dual booted for everyday use and one dedicated to DAW).
2. Recording - 250GB (don't need super huge for recording, hence part of it is partitioned for data storage; once a recording project is done, that project is rendered into audio gets put into storage and leaves the recording partition)
3. Sample - can't remember the size but large. This is because of streaming - it requires 1-2 dedicated HD to run it. I used to have 2 SCSI drives for sample streaming - but that was 10 years ago when HD speed wasn't as fast as today. When I said HD speed, I'm not talking about rpm but seek and read time.
Any large video files which I need to save, I move them into my external HD to free up space. I don't do videos - any videos I have are those of my kids playing around.
As for HD, antrishred is half right. Most HD (if it's 7200rpm) is fast enough - for recording. But if you are going to do extensive sample streaming, you need that extra seek time or you may encounter clicks and pops. The bottle-neck is NOT at the transfer speed (ie most USB2/firewire/SATA etc HD are all fast enough in terms of transfer speed) but at the seek time. It comes to the fundamental question (like what many have been asking above) - what exactly are you going to use your DAW for. Based on what you want to do (or focus on), you may have to tweak your system to focus on certain strengths at the expense of other things which you are not going to focus on.
That goes for HD space as well. If you have huge projects which include video + sound editing, you may need huge HD space - hence 1 TB may be necessary. For me, I use it for everyday use (office etc) + DAW. Hence I have 3 HDs:
1. Windows, applications and data storage - 320GB (dual booted for everyday use and one dedicated to DAW).
2. Recording - 250GB (don't need super huge for recording, hence part of it is partitioned for data storage; once a recording project is done, that project is rendered into audio gets put into storage and leaves the recording partition)
3. Sample - can't remember the size but large. This is because of streaming - it requires 1-2 dedicated HD to run it. I used to have 2 SCSI drives for sample streaming - but that was 10 years ago when HD speed wasn't as fast as today. When I said HD speed, I'm not talking about rpm but seek and read time.
Any large video files which I need to save, I move them into my external HD to free up space. I don't do videos - any videos I have are those of my kids playing around.
blueprintstudios
New member
well he still hasn't mentioned anything about purpose..
Angeldevimon
New member
Hi Guys! Thx a bunch on all the suggestions and advise really!. Ok. Sry if my question and info was too vauge. ok i did many many research and here wad i gathered so far.
What i wanna do:
1.Audio recording as well as some MIDI production. A standard mix of both i guess. I think audio recording would be more of multi-tracking and so at most 4 recordings at once?
2. Music producing. Mix my records and stuff. Editing of my records and arranging. Mastering the record . Basically build a quality record from scratch.
Been checking out some softwares and think gonna use Pro Tools or Cubase. Most likely pro tools. Will it be able to do all the things i want?
Ok to the computer! its not a mac or pc war no worries. LOL. Ok
Processor: Intel i7 or C2Q
MotherBoard: Not sure yet
Cooling: Is fans a good option? heard liquid coolant is SUPER EXXX
RAM: 6GB should be ok la
HDD: 500gb for software/storage/OS
500GB for recording
Both would be good HDD ba. 7200RPM, seek time 8sec plus, cache 32MB, internal so will be SATA, noise lvl at performance speed about 29dBs Ok anot?
OS: Windows 7
Graphic card: think now all should be very good ba
I still not sure bout the PCI slots, audio card driver/ audio interface and stuff. I am confused and dun understand what are those!!!! Hope you can help me in tat and would be good if some pro can show me his tools and guide me i'm onli 20 yr old!!
What i wanna do:
1.Audio recording as well as some MIDI production. A standard mix of both i guess. I think audio recording would be more of multi-tracking and so at most 4 recordings at once?
2. Music producing. Mix my records and stuff. Editing of my records and arranging. Mastering the record . Basically build a quality record from scratch.
Been checking out some softwares and think gonna use Pro Tools or Cubase. Most likely pro tools. Will it be able to do all the things i want?
Ok to the computer! its not a mac or pc war no worries. LOL. Ok
Processor: Intel i7 or C2Q
MotherBoard: Not sure yet
Cooling: Is fans a good option? heard liquid coolant is SUPER EXXX
RAM: 6GB should be ok la
HDD: 500gb for software/storage/OS
500GB for recording
Both would be good HDD ba. 7200RPM, seek time 8sec plus, cache 32MB, internal so will be SATA, noise lvl at performance speed about 29dBs Ok anot?
OS: Windows 7
Graphic card: think now all should be very good ba
I still not sure bout the PCI slots, audio card driver/ audio interface and stuff. I am confused and dun understand what are those!!!! Hope you can help me in tat and would be good if some pro can show me his tools and guide me
i'm onli 20 yr old!!
Cheez
Moderator
OK. Your specs are fine. The most important thing - make sure your PC is dedicated only for DAW (that means no games, no internet, no antivirus program, no microsoft office etc). Most of the time, that's impossible since you usually want to do other stuffs on your PC as well, unless you plan to have 2 PCs. So the way to go about it dual booting. Do a search in SOFT and you'll find many threads on how to go about doing that. You just need to make sure you partition your HD correctly.
For 6GB, you'll be using 64-bit Windows. Yes, that's sufficient. If you are going to use lots of plugins, you may want to max out at 8GB. In my opinion, mastering should be left to the pros - pro mastering and amateur mastering is really different. But since you mentioned you may want to do mastering, you'll be looking at lots of plugins or RAM-hungry plugins - which means you'll need lots of RAM.
Audio interface is the thing that "gets the sound into your PC and out into your speakers". It's the "soundcard". PCI/PCIe are the cards you slot into your motherboard inside the case, as opposed to firewire and USB interfaces. Echo Gina 3G, for example, is sufficient for your needs. Card is inside the box, but there's a breakout external box to which you connect your audio inputs/outputs and midi. Don't worry about drivers. Just download the latest from the website from whatever brand of interface you intend to get. Just use ASIO2 and you're fine. I'll not confuse you with other drivers like WaveRT etc.
Cubase or Protools are fine. Sonar is another option. Each has it's own strengths and weaknesses, depending whether you are focusing on recording, post-production, or sequencing etc.
Remember to factor in plugins and software in your budget.
For 6GB, you'll be using 64-bit Windows. Yes, that's sufficient. If you are going to use lots of plugins, you may want to max out at 8GB. In my opinion, mastering should be left to the pros - pro mastering and amateur mastering is really different. But since you mentioned you may want to do mastering, you'll be looking at lots of plugins or RAM-hungry plugins - which means you'll need lots of RAM.
Audio interface is the thing that "gets the sound into your PC and out into your speakers". It's the "soundcard". PCI/PCIe are the cards you slot into your motherboard inside the case, as opposed to firewire and USB interfaces. Echo Gina 3G, for example, is sufficient for your needs. Card is inside the box, but there's a breakout external box to which you connect your audio inputs/outputs and midi. Don't worry about drivers. Just download the latest from the website from whatever brand of interface you intend to get. Just use ASIO2 and you're fine. I'll not confuse you with other drivers like WaveRT etc.
Cubase or Protools are fine. Sonar is another option. Each has it's own strengths and weaknesses, depending whether you are focusing on recording, post-production, or sequencing etc.
Remember to factor in plugins and software in your budget.
Protools on Macbook, but Protools is not cheap . It come with MBox series interface. Since only 4 input you want. Mobile will be great advantage to you. But Protools is not cheap as you need as you need the Digidesign hardware. I would say recording is easier to learn so touch this area first, then music arrangement. You don't need PCIe interface solution like Protools HD for your case.Note that Protools LE(come with Mbox series) restrict work up to 48 stereo track.
Macbook can do some complicated music arrangement, but you use the given plug-in that provide by Protools to know your need. You could help to produce piano base MMO or demo. This help you to earn a bit of money.Then built PC for just music arrangement. You have to think which commercial plug in to use. You could consider Sonar rather than Cubase. Sonar is easier to understand. Cubase and Sonar have no difference to me generally when I learn a lot of soft skill.
My suggestion start with Protools and Garageband on your Macbook and start learn everything darm thing about music making.
When I buy Logic Pro, I do not produce anything for one year plus. There are tons of technical and musical stuff to learn. Only mid last year, I start to earn a bit on music making.
It is very common to have two DAW software. One on recording and mixing, one for midi base music arrangement.
Macbook can do some complicated music arrangement, but you use the given plug-in that provide by Protools to know your need. You could help to produce piano base MMO or demo. This help you to earn a bit of money.Then built PC for just music arrangement. You have to think which commercial plug in to use. You could consider Sonar rather than Cubase. Sonar is easier to understand. Cubase and Sonar have no difference to me generally when I learn a lot of soft skill.
My suggestion start with Protools and Garageband on your Macbook and start learn everything darm thing about music making.
When I buy Logic Pro, I do not produce anything for one year plus. There are tons of technical and musical stuff to learn. Only mid last year, I start to earn a bit on music making.
It is very common to have two DAW software. One on recording and mixing, one for midi base music arrangement.
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blueprintstudios
New member
angeldevimon :
my recommendation -
PC : cubase.
Mac : protools.
protools on PC = Protools M powered (your audio interface will need to be somethin m audio)
yes you will be able to do anything as long as you read the manual and be familiar with your DAW.
Processor intel's fine. mobo Asus is usually my option. cooling - well does your room have aircon? if you get 2 hdds avoid stacking them right next to each other.heat.
ram ok, hdd ok (I think. sorry I got 7tb. i don't know how to gauge).
noise wise, the more hdds/fans you have running the noisier. so try to isolate during recording or go bios to temporarily change the performance of the fans to "silent" for slower rotations or somethin. or somehow isolate your PC in a well ventilated + cupboard, or in another room even better.
OS : win7 i can't recommend well cos i'm still on winXPsp3, but at 6gb ram i'm assuming you're going 64 bit ? cos 32bit OS only can recognise up to 4gb max.
graphic card : even an onboard VGA will do.
PCI audio interface slots are soundcards that look like these :
http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/PCI/MiaMIDI/index.php
whereby you directly plug it into the motherboard.
audio interface are actually just "Recording Soundcards". the difference between these soundcards and your onboard creative/realtek audio soundcard is that one's made for recording, one's made for "playback" consumer use.
if you read http://tinyurl.com/diyrecording, there's PCI/USB/Firewire audio interfaces. each has its pros and cons. calm down, there's alot to learn, the best thing is it gets addictive from here.the more you learn, the more things there will be for you to learn/discover.
cheers
my recommendation -
PC : cubase.
Mac : protools.
protools on PC = Protools M powered (your audio interface will need to be somethin m audio)
yes you will be able to do anything as long as you read the manual and be familiar with your DAW.
Processor intel's fine. mobo Asus is usually my option. cooling - well does your room have aircon? if you get 2 hdds avoid stacking them right next to each other.heat.
ram ok, hdd ok (I think. sorry I got 7tb. i don't know how to gauge).
noise wise, the more hdds/fans you have running the noisier. so try to isolate during recording or go bios to temporarily change the performance of the fans to "silent" for slower rotations or somethin. or somehow isolate your PC in a well ventilated + cupboard, or in another room even better.
OS : win7 i can't recommend well cos i'm still on winXPsp3, but at 6gb ram i'm assuming you're going 64 bit ? cos 32bit OS only can recognise up to 4gb max.
graphic card : even an onboard VGA will do.
PCI audio interface slots are soundcards that look like these :
http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/PCI/MiaMIDI/index.php
whereby you directly plug it into the motherboard.
audio interface are actually just "Recording Soundcards". the difference between these soundcards and your onboard creative/realtek audio soundcard is that one's made for recording, one's made for "playback" consumer use.
if you read http://tinyurl.com/diyrecording, there's PCI/USB/Firewire audio interfaces. each has its pros and cons. calm down, there's alot to learn, the best thing is it gets addictive from here.the more you learn, the more things there will be for you to learn/discover.
cheers
For DIY PC, heat control is very important. Make sure your bios not overclock or settling to the highest limits. If you use a lot of soft synth or heavy effects, you alway find that the CPU resource is over 30-40% and peak at 80% above regularly. This will cost your CPU to heat up regularly and decrease in performance over built up heat. Decrease performace could crash your PC more often than games.
Cheez
Moderator
Heat dissipation is usually not a problem if:
1. You don't overclock
2. You keep the inside of your PC free of dust (ie clean it regularly using compressed air or similar blower to get rid of collected dust)
3. As blueprintstudios said, don't stack everything up on another (ie HDs). A tall casing with good ventilation is something you want to go for. Make sure your wires in the case are not all over the place as it cause problem with air-flow. Tie them up neatly.
For noise reduction, make sure you get silent fans. Fast rpm fans can reduce temperature at the cost of noise. Don't use too many fans for your casing - which generate noise. Some fans are really silent. I use Scythe S-Flex - great low noise solution. Is your room sound-treated? If not, the fan noise is probably less than the ambient noise around anyway, so you don't have to worry too much about PC noise.
For CPU cooling, I don't suggest anything too fancy. The stock fan is sufficient to cool your CPU if you have good ventilation. I use Thermalright IFX-14 (a 12-14mm CPU cooler - took up almost my entire casing space!). It even has a CPU backside heatsink! Looks like this (without the fan and backside heatsink):
But really, I don't find that it dissipates heat any better. It just look nice with my glass side-panel case and makes me feel psychologically "safer" as I'm using Quad core.
1. You don't overclock
2. You keep the inside of your PC free of dust (ie clean it regularly using compressed air or similar blower to get rid of collected dust)
3. As blueprintstudios said, don't stack everything up on another (ie HDs). A tall casing with good ventilation is something you want to go for. Make sure your wires in the case are not all over the place as it cause problem with air-flow. Tie them up neatly.
For noise reduction, make sure you get silent fans. Fast rpm fans can reduce temperature at the cost of noise. Don't use too many fans for your casing - which generate noise. Some fans are really silent. I use Scythe S-Flex - great low noise solution. Is your room sound-treated? If not, the fan noise is probably less than the ambient noise around anyway, so you don't have to worry too much about PC noise.
For CPU cooling, I don't suggest anything too fancy. The stock fan is sufficient to cool your CPU if you have good ventilation. I use Thermalright IFX-14 (a 12-14mm CPU cooler - took up almost my entire casing space!). It even has a CPU backside heatsink! Looks like this (without the fan and backside heatsink):
But really, I don't find that it dissipates heat any better. It just look nice with my glass side-panel case and makes me feel psychologically "safer" as I'm using Quad core.
blueprintstudios
New member
Cheez's heatsink looks like what IR will look like after they renovate this one.
as I was saying, only when you're RECORDING then set the bios to spin the fan slower/quieter. when you're mixing only, hell as well blast to the max, spend $20 on an akira fan at giant to blow at your pc
as I was saying, only when you're RECORDING then set the bios to spin the fan slower/quieter. when you're mixing only, hell as well blast to the max, spend $20 on an akira fan at giant to blow at your pc
There are some "silent" CPU casing, but often not easy to find in there. Note to be careful with heat sink paste.Cannot be too much or too little, follow instruction. Power supply get as big as 500W. My friend went nut over power supply. They do affect the lifespan of electronic(like going to use for 100year -_-"). Heatsink, power supply and casing, you could spend more, as they are reusable for upgrades.
The care of DIY is as extreme as building ultimate gaming machines, minus the over clocking part.:mrgreen:
My last word, building PC can be expensive as Mac counterpart if you put some effort on every single bits on PC building.
But people still go PC way cos they can get illegal plug-ins for a small fee. Only in PC world able to do that,especially there are no way on crack down on this. I was offer a few hundreds on 10 plus major plugin that cost ten time more on legal ones. These plug-in are very stable too.
The care of DIY is as extreme as building ultimate gaming machines, minus the over clocking part.:mrgreen:
My last word, building PC can be expensive as Mac counterpart if you put some effort on every single bits on PC building.
But people still go PC way cos they can get illegal plug-ins for a small fee. Only in PC world able to do that,especially there are no way on crack down on this. I was offer a few hundreds on 10 plus major plugin that cost ten time more on legal ones. These plug-in are very stable too.
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Cheez
Moderator
Oh yes, Kongwee brought up a very important point about power supply unit (PSU). Make sure you have enough wattage, and a good supply PSU with high efficiency. I'm using a Zalman PSU (can't remember whether it's 600W or 700W - it's been a while since I built it) that gives off a nice blue light. The nice thing is that it's modular - you only plug in the wires you need, so you don't have excess wiring floating around. Also, the wires are contained in netted sleeves, which really organizes your wires and prevent them from going all over the place in your case. It also has a heatsink. Note that the PSU also has a fan which may make noise. Good PSUs uses silent fans.
Use this to calculate how much power supply you need.
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
This is just an estimate. I would go slightly higher than the amount of wattage the calculator tells you.
Actually, it's still cheaper than a Mac even with carefully crafted parts. But then, Mac uses a Xeon...
Use this to calculate how much power supply you need.
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
This is just an estimate. I would go slightly higher than the amount of wattage the calculator tells you.
Actually, it's still cheaper than a Mac even with carefully crafted parts. But then, Mac uses a Xeon...
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