Choosing a computer for home recording PLEASE DON'T DELETE

[PauBass]

What a great thread Skol...thanks for your work!

Time for a new PC since the one I got is on its last breaths...so what a better time to get one good enough for recording

I will be using the monitor, keyboard and mouse I have so more money towards the tower.
Any recommendations, please?

Edited March 12, 2015 by PauBass

[Dad3353]

I'll be listening keenly to replies to the above, too...

[Mornats]

It depends a lot on a few factors really. A preference for Mac or PC is one and to be honest, there's no right or wrong answer there, it's the system that works for you. Laptop or tower is another option - sometimes out of your control if space or portability is an issue. If you're PC inclined, then a good place to start is with Scan. They put together the right type of PC components for audio machines. Peruse this lot: http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/daw-digital-audio-workstation-pcs/form-factors. If you're Mac inclined then it's a bit simpler. Choose desktop or laptop and get whatever's at the top end of your (presumably considerable) budget. Buy me a $10,000 watch whilst you're at it too hehe

I bought mine as separate components and put them together but I know that not everyone can, or wants to do that. I went for an overclocked i7 4970k - a fairly high-end CPU with multi-threading galore, with 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM and a gaming motherboard (it doubles as a gaming PC). The case is soundproofed too (the Fractal Design Define R4) with bigger slower moving fans for good cooling and less noise. Windows 7, Reaper and all my virtual instruments and VSTs run off an SSD for tip-top performance. My actual projects and other documents run off a Western Digital Blue hard drive - nice and quick for a normal HD and fairly quiet too.

Chuck a few specs up on here that are within your budget and I'm sure we can advise on which bits you could chop and change to spend the right money in the right place.

[PauBass]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1426205253' post='2715776']
It depends a lot on a few factors really. A preference for Mac or PC is one and to be honest, there's no right or wrong answer there, it's the system that works for you. Laptop or tower is another option - sometimes out of your control if space or portability is an issue. If you're PC inclined, then a good place to start is with Scan. They put together the right type of PC components for audio machines. Peruse this lot: [url="http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/daw-digital-audio-workstation-pcs/form-factors."]http://www.scan.co.u...s/form-factors.[/url] If you're Mac inclined then it's a bit simpler. Choose desktop or laptop and get whatever's at the top end of your (presumably considerable) budget. Buy me a $10,000 watch whilst you're at it too hehe

I bought mine as separate components and put them together but I know that not everyone can, or wants to do that. I went for an overclocked i7 4970k - a fairly high-end CPU with multi-threading galore, with 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM and a gaming motherboard (it doubles as a gaming PC). The case is soundproofed too (the Fractal Design Define R4) with bigger slower moving fans for good cooling and less noise. Windows 7, Reaper and all my virtual instruments and VSTs run off an SSD for tip-top performance. My actual projects and other documents run off a Western Digital Blue hard drive - nice and quick for a normal HD and fairly quiet too.

Chuck a few specs up on here that are within your budget and I'm sure we can advise on which bits you could chop and change to spend the right money in the right place.
[/quote]

Thanks Mornats!

It's going to be a tower, I already have a laptop but it's used for work mainly.
As for specs, I have honestly no idea where to start so I haven't looked at anything yet
Budget wise, how much would I need to spend to get a decent one? Not over the top but not too basic either.

Edited March 13, 2015 by PauBass

[Mornats]

It's always hard to say how much to spend! Just over £700 will get you a system that most people should be happy with for audio work. Try this one: http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-mi97-music-pc-system then change it so you have 8GB RAM (I wouldn't recommend any less than that) and choose Windows 8 over 7 if you prefer that. I'd favour Windows 7 as I reckon there'll be fewer driver issues and you can upgrade either of them to Windows 10 for free in the future.

So that one has a decent i5 - the minimum I think you should look at, especially around this budget. That will get you quad-core. Note that the system doesn't have wi-fi - you'll have to add a wi-fi card or plug in via ethernet, or not go online (as some people do - not me though).

You can add an SSD to that system too - it'll make a very big noticeable difference. £80 gets you a 250GB one. I run one of those with WIn 7 on and a whole host of VSTs - Miroslav Philharmonik, Komplete Elements, SampleTank 2.5L, Guitar Rig Pro 5, EZdrummer 2 and around 8 EZX's and more. Plus World of Warcraft I have 74GB free after that so I reckon it should be fine for most uses unless you have Komplete Ultimate or something crazy like that. It'll come with a 1TB drive too so you could pop some stuff on there.

The £38 for the CPU cooler may seem a bit steep but I've been running that type of third party cooler for years and they're worth it. You won't hear the fan on it, and it'll keep it nice and cool.

If £700 is too much then a bit more research may be needed. It's hard to spec a PC from Scan at much less than £600 and after that you're going into budget component territory where one has to tread lightly.

[Old_Ben]

I spent about 550 on my tower and had a mate put it together for me, specs wise not perfect but does the job for the time being; I don't have as fast a processor I would want, will upgrade it to an i5/7 later on this year as I currently have a 3.2 dual core, and possibly add another ssd drive to it, currently have 120gb, but once I'm done upgrading will probably have spent the 700+ that Mornats is quoting. I did however spend a bit on the graphics card, which if PC gaming isn't what you're after you can probably save a bit of change to have something else more audio based, like some extra RAM or a larger ssd drive, or a better audio interface!

[PauBass]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1426276794' post='2716599']
It's always hard to say how much to spend! Just over £700 will get you a system that most people should be happy with for audio work. Try this one: [url="http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/3xs-mi97-music-pc-system"]http://www.scan.co.u...music-pc-system[/url] then change it so you have 8GB RAM (I wouldn't recommend any less than that) and choose Windows 8 over 7 if you prefer that. I'd favour Windows 7 as I reckon there'll be fewer driver issues and you can upgrade either of them to Windows 10 for free in the future.

So that one has a decent i5 - the minimum I think you should look at, especially around this budget. That will get you quad-core. Note that the system doesn't have wi-fi - you'll have to add a wi-fi card or plug in via ethernet, or not go online (as some people do - not me though).

You can add an SSD to that system too - it'll make a very big noticeable difference. £80 gets you a 250GB one. I run one of those with WIn 7 on and a whole host of VSTs - Miroslav Philharmonik, Komplete Elements, SampleTank 2.5L, Guitar Rig Pro 5, EZdrummer 2 and around 8 EZX's and more. Plus World of Warcraft I have 74GB free after that so I reckon it should be fine for most uses unless you have Komplete Ultimate or something crazy like that. It'll come with a 1TB drive too so you could pop some stuff on there.

The £38 for the CPU cooler may seem a bit steep but I've been running that type of third party cooler for years and they're worth it. You won't hear the fan on it, and it'll keep it nice and cool.

If £700 is too much then a bit more research may be needed. It's hard to spec a PC from Scan at much less than £600 and after that you're going into budget component territory where one has to tread lightly.
[/quote]

Many thanks Mornats...I'll definitely look into it.
I will also use it for internet too and would prefer a ssd drive too.

I might look into an iMac too, partner seems OK with it
Any advice on Macs? Not laptops, just iMacs.

[Mornats]

Macs are somewhat simpler to choose from as they only do a small range of specs. In general, buy the best Mac you can afford. Out of the current list of iMacs here: http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/imac the second one along is the best to start with - that's the £1049 one. The 1.4ghz dual core one is a bit underpowered in my opinion.

There's the Mac Mini too but all of those have the dual core i5 which I'd struggle to recommend.

Even though I've had experience with Macs at work (I work for a publisher and used a MacBook Pro for 4 years) I'm stil very much a PC person so I'll hand over any Mac recommendations to anyone with more Mac music production expertise than me.

[lurksalot]

Following the success of the home recording thread , there were a number of posts that were helping to identify what makes a good home recording computer.

As this is a slightly different topic to the art of recording and one which also has the potential to help the recording and production process, I have created this thread to keep this information more visible to be used as a resource for those that might find it useful.

I have brought over the posts that started the topic from the other thread , and put a link in the thread back to here, so many thanks for the great input so far , please keep it coming.

Edited March 23, 2015 by lurksalot