Computer For Music Production

Many recording studios, AKA Digital Audio Workstations (DAW), nowadays have the Computer at the heart of its processing and recording activities.

This comes as no surprise to me considering that computers are becoming more and more powerful and at the same time cheaper.

With some basic hardware, midi keyboard, and a software sequencer, you can create professional tracks using just your computer.

The following paragraphs will tell you what exactly you should look for when buying/upgrading your computer for music production.

This is because most of the audio applications are resource intensive and need powerful machines to work efficiently.

Of course, if you already have a computer then there is no need to go in for a new one; you can definitely upgrade your existing computer.

You could work on a slower machine but then you will not enjoy the experience as you will keep on getting messages related to low memory or the application may suddenly hang resulting in the loss of your unsaved work. This is the reason you need a computer with the best configuration.

This is true only to some extent, though I have not faced any problem as such running other things on the same machine.

The thing is that as you get more serious about your work and as you load more and more samples and software on your machine, you do not want to install other things which could upset your existing applications.

If you are into serious audio work, you will find that the screen size on most laptops is not large enough to give you a good view of all the tracks and windows.

You can go in for a laptop with a bigger screen size but then it definitely costs more.

Even the hard disk is generally slower to access on a laptop than on a desktop. This can be a major hindrance while doing serious audio work but you can bypass this problem by going in for an external firewire hard drive, specifically meant for music purposes.

Till a few years back, most experts would say that Mac is a more stable machine for these kind of work but now even the PC has been accepted as a machine fit for serious recording work.

The recent operating systems on the PC have made it a far more reliable machine.

Even most of the audio software that are being released nowadays have versions for both the Mac as well as the PC.

The only reason probably someone might stick to a PC or a Mac would be because they have been used to its working and do not want to learn a new thing from scratch.

This will help you save a few hundreds of dollars as you build your computer for music production.

To get the best results, upgrade your processor and add more RAM to your machine.

But before you go in for the fastest processor for your machine, it is better to check with the manufacturer if the new processor will be compatible with your existing machine.

A faster processor or an increased RAM will help till a particular point but after that it may not give you the desired results (considering the cost of up-gradation). This is because the performance is also dependent on other factors like bus speeds.

So the best thing is to consult the manufacturer of your machine.

Go back to the Audio Production page
Go back to the Home page from the Computer for Music production page