Do you really need the most expensive Mac or PC to handle big track counts and lots of plugins in your home studio?
The short answer is: no. The computer you already have is probably fine.
In fact, as of this writing I’m still rocking a 6 year old Mac Mini in my studio. I did, however, just do some upgrades to it that have helped a lot.
In fact there are some strategic things you can do (or upgrade) to optimize your Mac or PC to be a beast of a DAW machine. Let’s unpack those now.
Max Out Your RAM
In the “old” days of DAWs – how much RAM you had really didn’t’ matter. This was because the operating systems and DAWs weren’t 64 bit, and they could only allot a certain amount of RAM (memory) to any one program at a given time.
Not so anymore. These days, most DAWs can take all the RAM you through at them, giving you more power and quicker response in a dense mix.
Since third party memory is both so cheap and easy to install or swap out, this is the obvious place to start.
Since I’m a Mac guy, I’ll point you to my favorite place to buy RAM for my Macs and that is OWC (Other World Computing). Great products. Great prices. And great tutorials/support.
For example – my Mac Mini came with 4GB of RAM 5 years ago. I immediately doubled it to 8GB. And then just this month I doubled it again to 16GB. Makes a huge difference.
Record To (And Mix From) An External Drive
This one is so simple and so huge. Do not record to or mix from your internal system drive, the same hard drive that has your operating system and DAW installed on it.
Instead, hook up a USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt drive that is used only for recording to.
Why? Because it will free your system drive up to just run the software, plugins, and OS. Much like studios used to have tape machines and consoles each doing their own thing, you should have a separate hard drive feeding your DAW audio and not combine the two. Keep it clean and separate and you’ll get better performance.
Of course, if you (like me) have two internal hard drives in your computer then you don’t need an external drive. The point is to save all your sessions on a separate drive and pull from that when recording and mixing.
Replace Your Hard Drives With Solid State Drives
One of the other more recent upgrades I made was replacing my standard 7200 RPM drives with SSDs (Solid State Drives). These have no moving parts, make no noise, and are ridiculously fast.
Not only will you notice your applications and programs opening with more zip, but your computer will run with more power and speed overall.
For example after swapping out my old spinning drives with SSDs and putting more RAM in my Mac Mini I was able to run a Pro Tools session with 50 audio tracks and 250 reverbs!!
BONUS: Close All Other Applications!
I thought about almost not mentioning this because to me it seems so obvious, but then I changed my mind. I’m sure someone out there reading this needs to hear it. So here goes:
If you want your DAW to have as much power as possible, then for goodness sakes, please close all other programs and applications when recording and mixing!
This is simple math. Your computer has a finite amount of power and resources at its disposal. Why on earth would you share that with another application if you need it all for your DAW?
Just in case it hasn’t sunk in yet, let’s get specific.
When recording or mixing you need to close out of the following:
- Email software
- Web browsers
- Chat software
- iTunes or other music players
- Video games
- Video streaming apps
Just close out of everything that’s not your DAW and you’ll be in good shape!
The 5 Year Rule
One final thought for you my friend. Like anything in life you purchase, your goal should be to get maximum value out of it. It’s the only way to justify spending your hard earned money on something.
So when it comes to computers for your home studio, I use a simple rule of thumb: always keep your studio computer for at least 5 years.
That’s it.
If you are swapping out your computer every 2 or 3 years, you’re losing money. And it probably means you didn’t buy the right computer for the job.
I view computers as an investment so I want to buy the best computer for my money. I prefer Macs over PCs. I never buy them new, I only buy refurbished, and I always use them for 5 years minimum before I replace them. With my current Mac Mini I just dumped a few hundred dollars into it to give it more life rather than replace it, but that still fits within my rule.
Is Your Computer Optimized?
So what about you? Have you optimized your computer for your home studio?
Leave a comment below and answer these two questions:
- What kind of computer are you using? (Specs and all)
- And what is one thing you’ve found that helps optimize it for recording and mixing?
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
HI Graham
thanks for the post!
in fact i’m having some performance issues when working with my macbook that i dont face when working with the iMAC. i think you left out the processor and core characteristics. how does this feature affect? is there any other way to improve it? i have to disable some of the tracks/plugins in order to work properly
imac: 2,7 i5 8g RAM 1 processor 4 nucleos
macbook: 2,5 i5 8gb RAM 1 processor 2 nucleos
Thanks
Gab
If your MacBook is a Core 2 Duo like mine there’s not much you can do depending on what DAW you’re using. But almost every DAW nowadays requires at least a Core i5 or better.
In PT you have the option to commit or render the effects leaving space for your processor to work better.
Cheers
Professor matters a lot for performance, however for most Apple computers, and laptops in general, this is not possible to upgrade. For most PC desktops, processor upgrade IS possible, but because of compatibility with the CPU slot (socket) on the motherboard, you are limited to other processors within the same family and age as the original. For this reason, the possible performance improvement is limited, and usually not worth the cost and effort.
This is not true at all. I have a 2017 iMac 27” and it is absolutely modular and now includes a trap door/Removable panel in the back in which you simply open and easily access the Slots to install your ram (up to 64GB) pull the Ram slots out and access the CPU to upgrade the Processor easily! You can also Upgrade the Storage capacity as well as swap out a fusion or HDD to a straight SSD!
either of your processors should be fine. 2.7G i5 quad or 2.5 i5 dual. see my post lower. i run a 2.7GHz pentium dual core and have only minor issues. Turn off everything not required for your project, including the internet connection. Mix with your sample rate set to max. Latency is not an issue for mixing. For tracking, you may need to turn off plugins and lower your sample rate for latency considerations, but do you really need a great mix for tracking?
definitely sounds like there are other things going that hog your resources.
Thanks Graham for the answer to my MacBook Pro dilemma
Hi Graham
I use a Macbook Pro – Yosemite (2013) with a SSD – my external is a 1T My Passport for Mac.
My DAW is Logic Pro X.
Only issue was once after a Logic upgrade, and I could not hear anything coming in on my interface TASCAM US-1200 – thankfully, was able to revert to previous version making everything work again. Was really spooked and mystified by that experience, so haven’t tried any upgrade since that time.
250 reverbs and audio 50 tracks on a mac mini?!
i have a imac 27 inch i7 4GB processor and 32 gb ram and i load 4 serums synths with 15 plugins in cubase and my cpu make fucking trouble!!
i think i must go back to the apple store if i read your post
Hiya,
I’m using a pc here. Windows 10 (yeah well eventually nothing else is going to work thanks to Microsoft). If you’re gonna use a p.c. with Windows 10 I suggest one bypasses W-10 Home. Don’t even consider it…and use W-10 Pro. A little research will provide all the answers to that one. My former p.c. just wasn’t keeping up with DAW demand (Sonar Pro) so I did lay down a wad of cash for a BRAND NEW system. I strongly disagree with buying refurbished systems for recording these days unless the demand on the system will always be low which I doubt it always will.
I mean, that’s great about 50 tracks and 250 reverbs and there is allot of knowledgeable wealth in that amazing feat of recording engineering but for me, I have heard the “you don’t need that” phrase so many times and it has never lead me to a frustration free (or even a frustration minimum) experience while writing and recording. Quite the opposite actually.
Everything else? Yes, yes, yes…and more yes.
So…Custom build. Yes.
RAM…absolutely. Preferably dual channel DDR4. (it’s not THAT cheap. 32 gigs can be over $500.00. Not cheap.)
SSD…No question. More than one. A spinner back-up drive for storage of 1 TB or more doesn’t hurt though.
Lots of USB 2.0, 3.0,3.1, Firewire 800, Thunderbolt if you can afford the absolutely stupid cost of anything Thunderbolt. (lordy)
Isolate audio from system…on a solid state drive (SSD).
GRAPHICS!!! Don’t try to go HD on ANY graphics. For instance; Avoid NVIDIA HD software like the plague! Nice, clean, digital graphics can be accomplished and even the use of 2 screens if your system is powerful enough but even the best system will suffer latency issues from trying to run eye candy AND record audio at the same time. Can’t say this enough.
Superfluous software…off! Yep!
Same goes for unnecessary hardware…off!
Okay:
Windows 10 Pro. (yes 64 bit. 32 bit is a thing of the past now)
MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Motherboard. (No, I don’t game. It’s just fast)
Intel core i7 6700K 6th generation quad core with hyperthreading = 8 cores processing at 4Ghz. Core i5’s are fine but Microsoft is gonna stop supporting Kaby Lake processors (because they’re Nazis) so i5’s could be an eventual thing of the past sooner than one might think.
Yes…I did say 4Ghz. 3Ghz is becoming the minimum pretty quickly with DAW’s so…there it is.
8 gigs(and climbing to between 40 and 64…depending) of dual channel DDR4.
NVIDIA GT1030 graphics card that DOESN’T run NVIDIA HD drivers with 2 gigs native RAM and runs on simple MoBo (Aorus in this case) native video drivers. 2 screens…no issues.
2 Samsung EVO SSD’s 250 gigs each and one WD Blue 7200 RPM 1 TB for storage.
EVGA 850 Watt, Platinum rated power supply. Way overkill here but I’m willing to pay extra for peace of mind and no weird clicks or buzzes. (Plus I can power my town during a black-out in another grid) Seriously one doesn’t have to go to this extreme but…don’t skimp on the PSU.
Corsair super quiet case with lots of air flow and 120 mil. fans that you can’t even hear running.
20 tracks loaded, 5 Stereo buses, Drum synths, Key synths, All the processing you can shake a duck at (if shaking ducks is your thing) the whole system is air cooled and runs between 28 and 40 Celsius and is using between 5% an 12% of the Core i7.
I think I can push past that whole 50/250 thing and yeah, this should last beyond the 5 year mark. which is not meant as a “one ups a-hole” kind of comment here rather, just illustrating that after spending a bit more, and after chasing allot of refurbished equipment…seemingly endlessly I just went as “all in” as I could (not) afford so I don’t have to keep switching between right brain (creative)…left brain (logical…too much logical) just to make what I hope will be pretty sounds when all is said and done.
Expect to spend between $1000.00 and $1300.00.
I did. And I’m SO not sorry.
Thank you!!!
Hello,
This is probably a bit of dunce question, but how do you run an Nvidia card without using their HD drivers? I’m having loads of GUI issues with my plugins and feel that this might help, but don’t know how to do it.
All the best!
Hmmm . . . so I’m running a similar potato –
i7 6700K, 32Gb DDr4, 1TB Samsung 960 EVO SSD M.2, WD SATA III HD 1TB (x2) and Windows 7 Pro. 64 bit. But . . . . this potato is couch-bound. Just locks up every time a session gets beyond Drums, Bass, Keys – throw another Keys track and a few PSP Plugins and perhaps Altiverb and it’s done for. By that point the session is running at least 35%, uses mostly core 4 and start to record or playback and it pegs at 100% or just freezes up or ya can never open that session again. Since the OS, Pro Tools 11 and all plugins are already installed on the SSD, there it sits – on the couch.
Hey man,
I have a brand new 2017 MacBook Air. I’m working in garageband on a project that’s about 24 tracks so far. Lot’s of plugins and automation. 2 questions for you. Is it better to add additional audio tracks, or consolidate tracks through automation. And do you have any suggestions for me to help upgrade my computer’s operating power? I haven’t gone the external drive route yet, but thinking of doing so. Also wondering if I should have just gotten a pro instead of an air.
Any feedback would be so much appreciated.
Ian
great info! I use iMac 24″ 8Gb 640Gb by 2009 El Capitan.
Logic X opens slower and slower. Looks like a new HD is the option.
I would add there are great stuf around. For example, 5 years old RME have the same 24 bit AD/DA as todays gear and 50% price.
Mixing to external Flash HD is a the discussed idea.
I use an internal SSD 256Gb as my primary disk and a USB 3 2Tb as my external drive. Never had a problem.
Cheers
Thanks! Today will try with USB2.0.
Replace the internal drive for a ssd and use the firewire 800 port for a external drive. Usb 2 is too slow even with a 7.200rpm drive or a ssd.
Another option is downgrade the system to Mavericks. It run better than ElCapitan taking less resources and still keep the compatibility with the last plugins.
That’s all true, but no all. You can also disable all fancy stuff from your OS. I’m on Yosemite, and things like the genie effect, animate windows, transparency, bluetooth and wifi, startup itens, screen saver, energy saver settings, background processes and using disk utility to repair permissions are just a few to really optimize your Mac.
Thanks Graham
Hey Graham,
I use a 2012 13″ MacBook Pro i7 2.9GHz 8gb RAM running macOS Sierra and Logic Pro X 10.3 with 120gb SSD (for system and apps) and 750gb HDD (for data and audio and recording use). It’s 5 years old but still running like a champ! SSD’s make a HUGE difference!
Keep up the great work!
Elliot, I use a Dell PC. It’s an i7 64-bit 2.3ghz.
Do you believe a non-tech person (me) could swap out these parts? It would be sharp to have 32 gb to work with.
Regards,
John
I just purchased a Dell OptiPlex 7010 I7 used. upgraded the graphics card installed 32 GIG Ram (only DDR-3 but its great),upgraded the power supply to 400 watts installed s SSD 250 gig. Running Acoustica Mixcraft and Harrison Mixbus, I know these aren’t the “cool” DAWs to have but ive produced some great stuff with these and with the new system its gonna be better, ( also my graphics is 4K throughout looks fantastic and runs flawless
I recently switched my computer.
I used to mix on a mid 2011 imac i5 quad 2.5ghz with 16gb ram to an external 7200 rpm firewire hdd. Now I’m using a mid 2014 imac 1.4ghz dual i5 8gb ram to external drive I can notice the lack of power but it’s manageable…. until k get a new imac or Mac mink which are supposed to be announced on Apple spring event.
I use a iMac, i5 processor, 8GB Ram, 1 TB internal HD and have a 1TB USB3 external drive. How many tracks i would record using my external drive?
Can i mix with this files on a external USB 3.0 drive?
Running Pro Tools 12 on a Dell/Alienware 17″ laptop. Windows 10, 8G Ram. Like you said: shutdown email, web browsers etc. one thing that has helped a lot is to adjust the sample rate depending on what I’m doing. Generally I set it to 128 or lower for tracking and 512 for mixing.
You mean the bit-rate
I think he means the buffer size in the audio driver settings.
Thanks for the article.
I use a PC, i7 Core and 16GB RAM.
Actually, I’m on the verge of doing exactly this update: double the RAM, SSD’s and deleted a lot of free plugins I never used…
Hope to improve the performance with that.
Using Windows 7 and Cubase 6.5… And not gonna change it 🙂
I did a custom build to be optimized for PT12
16gb Ram
Xeon E3 1620 (4 core, hyper thread)
512gb SSD Boot Drive
128gb SSD “Current Project” drive
1 TB HDD (Raid1) Project Drive
I used PC Part Picker .com to work up the build, which made it really easy. Here’s my original build link (though, I switched out for a better motherboard, as it had thunderbolt 3, and it doesn’t have all of my hard drives, or windows 10).
https://pcpartpicker.com/b/qbbj4D
I know the point of this is to fix up an existing computer, but for the adventurous Mac user, I would consider a Hackintosh. I just built my first one a while back to use in my studio, and it has been amazing. I replaced an old dual 2.0ghz Mac Pro, which was doing ok, but struggling on some sessions with larger numbers of tracks and plugins. The new computer runs on a liquid cooled 4.0ghz i7, 16gb RAM (will be going to 32 soon), internal SSD, several other “spinning” internal drives. The whole system cost me about $900, and I ended up essential with the equivalent of a new Mac Pro.
Ted, I’m very interested in this approach. Where did you inform yourself on how to do it?
Thanks
!
I actually work exclusively out of a laptop, but it’s a beast. Lenovo W540 with 32 gigs of RAM and an Intel i7 processor. I use an external drive for the bulk of my audio files even though the laptop drive is pretty big (1TB). I should consider getting SSDs. I couldn’t get them at the time and I know they’re blazing fast. I’ll definitely put them in my desktop when I build it.
Thanks Graham. Always good stuff.
One thing I always do is disable network adapters.. Can make a huge difference with latency/jitter. Second Ssd for storage works as well.
Great tips Graham!
But, working directly in external drive actually can shorten its life. As every ext-drive always has read-write limit on its disk. I think it is about 100,000 times.
So, I prefer to work on local drive for faster write-read and prevent the limit of ext-drive. When it is done I move all project files to external drive. So, it saves space in local drive.
I’m running Logic Pro X on a 27″ iMac from late 2012. Processor is Core i7 3770 (4 core with HT), 32 GB of RAM from crucial, 1TB Fusion Drive for OS and programs, 4 and 5 TB USB external hard drives from Seagate for session files. This thing RIPS! Not bad for four years old.
Great tips, Graham! I totally agree to buy the best computer you can afford, then use it as long as possible. To Amir’s comment, I do not think there is any issue with using external drives or any kind of use limit. Been working in IT for 12 years, and also doing production on the side for most of that, and never heard of that being an issue. SSDs do have limited write lifespans, and these can vary widely based on the particular model of drive, however for audio mixing purposes, we usually write the audio files only once (during recording, or when we receive the tracks from the recording engineer) then after that (during the mix phase) we are only reading them. Therefore the audio mixing workflow does not really push against the limited write lifespan of SSDs.
I use a homemade Windows PC with a 120GB SSD as my OS drive and a 500GB hard drive for data (Reaper lives on there too). Never have any issues although I may be better served moving Reaper to the SSD.
I don’t change computers every 5 years but upgrade as necessary on my own.
Hey Graham,
Great article, for one. These same concepts can be applied to basically any other workstation-oriented task, such as virtualization, simulation, etc.
My rig, which is a multi-purpose “do all the things” machine, is as follows:
ASUS P8Z77-V LGA1155 ATX mobo
Intel Core i5-3330 (stock)
Stock CPU cooler
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2×8) 1600
Samsung 850 EVO 120GB SSD
Western Digital Scorpio Blue 750GB 5400RPM
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM
Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB
Thermaltake Level 10 GT (black)
Seasonic G-750 (to be replace with EVGA 750 G2)
Windows 7 Ultimate (upgrading to 10 Pro eventually)
Encore ENEWI-2XN42 b/g/n
Peripherals:
Thermaltake Poseidon w/ Cherry MX-Blues
Thermaltake Theron
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
KRK RP5G2 Pair
Shire SM57
V-Moda Crossfade LP2
Gaming peripherals (new!)
Thrustmaster T300RS Servo
Thrustmaster T3PA Pedals
Thrustmaster Ferrari Alcantara 599XX EVO Rim
GameStop Xbox360 Gamepad
I’ve had to rebuild this a bit once before due to power surges (actually, we got hit by lightning). So, the parts I’ve replaced from that ordeal was the motherboard and power supply. Since then, I’ve had it on a UPS, which if you only take away one thing from this post–use a UPS on all electronics you really care about. Your PCs, consoles, whatever. A UPS not only has a battery pack to let your devices for a while during an outrage (giving you time to save, and shut down safely); but also cleans up your signal coming from the power company. Ideally they would send a perfect sine wave of AC power–but this isn’t the case; there’s huge peaks and noise that can damage electronics, especially things as delicate as modern computers or audio equipment.
Also, the SeaSonic PSU is to be replaced with an EVGA Supernova G2 750; somehow my burst capacitors have begun to fail, such that if my computer turns off it must be unplugged from AC power for roughly 3 hours before it can be booted again. Not 100% sure how that happened, but it is what it is.
————————————————
Some tips I’ve found to optimize computers in general, at least on the PC side, are pretty straight forward in my opinion, but non-computer folks may not be aware:
+Install updates. It’s annoying, and takes away from productivity, but security and stability are huge in computing–it’s better to be stuck waiting for the machine to update for an hour than getting hit with a stability error and having to rebuild your OS.
+If you’re worried about comparability of your software and updates, schedule your update service to check for updates, but wait for you to choose which to install. It’s certainly more tedious than the automatic setting, but this will give you more control. It should be noted on Windows 8, 8.1 and 10, only users with the “Pro” version of the OS will be able to set this option.
+Use Anti-Malware, my preferred combo on Win7 at the moment is Defender, Spybot Seach&Destroy and Malwarebytes 3.0. Each perform a separate task, and function well together. For MacOS and Linux users, no matter what the developers say, no OS is impervious to malware or attack–use something, check reviews and the like for the best for your OS.
+Clean up your file system. This goes along with Graham’s comment about using a secondary drive for all your audio files, to help bolster your system’s efficiency of running your software. Your temporary files, pagefile, old updates, etc can all bog down your system over time–clean them up! Same goes for your registry. On Windows, my preferred tools for such tasks are CCleaner (you can automate the file cleaner), which provides both a file cleaner and a registry fixer (amongst other handy tools); as well as Glary Utilities 5. Glary is a “Swiss-army knife” tool which has its ups and downs (one of those downs being the memory optimizer–turn that off), which includes both functions of CCleaner with some different algorithms for cleaning the files, as well as a duplicate file finder/remover utility and other really useful stuff.
+Turn of visual elements to boost performance on integrated graphics. If you’re like me, using a discrete graphics card to power all of the visuals, this is less of an issue. However, on integrated graphics solutions, you may think about turning down or off some visual elements to save processing power for your DAW. Things like Windows Aero, minimizing/maximizing animations, etc. On newer hardware this will be a small benefit, but on older hardware (and software) this can make a huge difference in both your CPU and RAM usage. For Linux users, you may think about replacing (or adding a secondary) your GUI packages with something more lightweight. I know Ubuntu’s default UI is pretty comparable in usage to Win7+’s UI.
+One thing solely related to optimization during production–if you’re running low on resources and bogging your system down, try bouncing your tracks down to audio files (assuming freezing isn’t enough), then using those in your mix rather than all the plugins. Every plugin is another application, and all of them require CPU and RAM to function. Audio files also require your CPU and RAM to be utilized, but nothing has to be calculated, only read by your DAW; this decrease in calculation will let you keep going longer.
+Get the right computer for the job from the get-go. While most modern computers will handle DAWs and basic production, the further into it you get the more power you’ll need. If you don’t know how to build a computer, a store-bought machine will be fine. However, focus on things like upgrade ability, quality of parts, and how old the parts are. Like with Graham’s Mac Mini–over time he’s upgraded it to make up for some lacking power (compared to the latest and greatest tech), but not all store-bought computers allow for that. Like Ultrabooks, MacBook Pros, Macbook (recent) and the MacBook Air–these models generally contain SSDs and RAM that is soldered directly to the motherboard, making upgrading physically impossible without explicit knowledge of electrical engineering and computer engineering. Along these lines, you may want to look at building your own computer, or contracting someone to do so (shameless self-plug). Sourcing your own parts means you get 100% control of what hardware you do/don’t get, and what you’re able to do to the machine in the future. The one downside is whether or not you need MacOS (which a work-around exists, if you’re into Hackintosh). Believe me, the right machine for the job goes a very long way.
I will be honest, I’ve had little to no hands-on experience with the ins and outs of MacOS. At one point I had a VM running Leopard on my laptop, but even then it wasn’t really running optimally to get all the bits and bobs working. Likewise, while I’m far more familiar with Linux (Debian and Red Hat) than MacOS, I’m still not really versed enough to give the greatest opinion on optimization. Thusly, most of these tips are tailored to Windows users, as that is what I was taught with, and what I have trained on.
If you read this far, congrats–I’m honestly surprised. Hope these tips and tricks can be of some use, and if you have any questions shoot me a message on FB (Alex Paarfus).
Alex
Read it all. Didn’t compute. Extreme novice here. Don’t even know how to assign and retrieve data to a single purpose external hard drive to function as the go to storage option or even to turn on or off the multitude of competing programs for cpu resources. Old and Overwhelmed
Sound advice. I’m pushing the limit of my 2008 Mac Pro 3.3 GHz 8-core (bought used) but with the occasional RAM upgrade (24 GB) and SSDs, it can still handle dozens of MIDI tracks at 256 buffer and three dozen audio tracks and 100+ plugins at 1024 buffer at mixdown.
Hi Douglas, I have a similar model, 2009 Nehelem, Snow Leopard and Logic 9 worked great, but Yosemite and Logic X a bit slower. Preview is almost unusable, but I only have 8gb RAM. I was considering going back to Snow Leopard, but do you think just upgrading the RAM would make a big difference
One key addition to the Close All Programs rule is to check for things running in the background – backup software has plagued me the most often. It’s 100% necessary, but not at particular times when I need every ounce of CPU/RAM/hard drive attention. Fortunately, the good ones have a ‘pause’ feature (Pause for 4 hours, etc)
Great post Graham! As always 🙂
1. Computer specs: Mac Pro (Mid 2012), 3.46 GHz 6-Core, 48 GB ram, main HDD SSD 1 TB (and 2 drives 7200 rpm 500 GB each)
2. And what is one thing you’ve found that helps optimize it for recording and mixing? The best thing was to upgrade to an SSD hard drive. That made a huge difference for me.
I would add a note to the 5 year rule. Don’t buy too expensive Macs (especially the last models available), they are so well built, that they will last too long, and something in the way may become not compatible. For example: My previous Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) was still performing great after 10 years, but I was obliged to sell it, as its hardware was a 32 bit machine and the OSs released after Lion only supported 64 bit hardware.
In other words, the hardware was great, but the software made it old.
And one more thing… I know your post is more about hardware, but switching from Pro Tools (which I still find great) to Logic Pro X, made another huge improvement in my productivity as a song writer. So maybe choosing also the right DAW for your needs may help your overall performance.
Great advice and I agree with your upgrade suggestions, however they mostly apply to PCs these days. nNwer offerings from Apple is getting harder to upgrade and you need some technical know-how to do it if it is possible at all.
If you buy one of the new MacBook Pros released in 2016 everything is soldered on the logic board. Even the SSD is soldered on now. So make sure you are 100% aware of what you are buying if you are going to get something from Apple now in 2017!
Anyways, thank your for these articles / videos, they really help. 🙂
This is exactly why I built a Hackintosh. I get an upgradable computer, that runs OSX (I’m running El Capitan) for less than $1k, and it pretty much blows aways any of the stock systems apple is pushing right now.
Hackingtosh is great if you have time on your side. After every system update things can break so make sure you have a backup.
I went that route myself but didn’t find it reliable enough. Although it worked pretty good with the right hardware.
I am sure it can work for others though. 🙂
I’m using a Carillon 64 bit i7 16GB ram running Cubase 7.5. It’s pretty cool!
However, I just bought for £30, a 32bit 3Ghz, 80 gig hard drive PC and have loaded up Cubase 1.1 so I can use all those wonderful sounds from 10 years ago that I just love and will not load or just crash my big machine. I can get 4 gig of memory into it so I can fire up my old cubase song files… and finish them! Ha! Ha!
Optimize your computer for recording and mixing… By using (or learn) another DAW.
It can also optimize your creativity, by stop fearing about those crashes, dropouts, etc. Or trying things you couldn’t even imagine while working with your current DAW.
IME YMMV
SSD for Operating system and a HHD for recording on to. The SSD is not good for adding and deleting items on it all the time.
Hi Graham,
I am using a MBP early 2011 15″
OS-10.8.6, Pro Tools 10 (upgrade from 9)
16GB Ram, 500GB SSB and
external 500GB SSD for tracking/Mixing
Plugins Slate, Waves and others including Pro Tools built in plugins
Have tried 48 tracks but when it is loaded with Slate and Waves plugins my CPU is overloaded. Well, i tried to put everything on it (including the Mastering phase/plugins) but when i take off those Mastering plugins – no hassle.
I always i wanted to hear the final effects (impatient here) so instead of Editing/Mixing phase – i am in a hurry to insert those heavy plugins. I do learn a lot from and ecen tried to bounce say Drum Sections with EQ, comp and some effects to let go of some plugins and free my cpu from overloading.
I am heading your advise for at least one song a month and it is still mid-Jan and i am almost done with my ist song. Oh, i did all instrumentations myself – i haven’t tried to do collaboration which how i wish i could. My type/genre of music is not what my friends playing. And it is frustrating sometimes being a songwriter, others want to record cover-hit-song which i don’t find creative.
Lastly bit not the least – hey Graham continue your good works. God bless you!
There is one thing which helped the most for me and that is ASIO4ALL driver. The original driver of my ZOOM R16 was slow, and had some issues. A guide about asio drivers would be great ,i still dont fully understand what it does.
Have a nice day!
I couldn’t agree more! My Zoom16 driver was so buggy and slow. ASIO4ALL fixed a lot of my latency issues, but I’m still getting them. I’m running REPEAR on my laptop with Windows 7 and 8GB Ram (just last week upgraded from 6GB). I’m looking into my next performance improvement and was going to save up for a SSD. But I have an external drive that’s 9months old kicking around, so will try moving my project files to that first – as it’s ‘free’!
I work in the Product Supports department for a well known DAW and one thing I have noticed is that many users wants the best and most professional sound. So they set their sample rate to 98kHz, which totally runs their computers down. 44.1 or at least 48kHz are well enough for professional Audio handling.
I’ve got a 2012 Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM. I just replaced the internal HDD with an SSD (500 GB Samsung 850). I’ve always used an external drive (7200RPM) for projects.
Got the same thing. How do you like the SSD? How much faster is it? I’m probably going to get a usb3 SSD and use it only for my music.
What’s this? A “gear” related post from Graham?
MUST BE IMPORTANT!
I use an iPad 4 and Auria to record and mix. It’s awesome. I’m still learning.
A couple of things I do to optimize is 1) adjust the buffer when recording vs playing back, and 2) freeze tracks to save on processing power.
I’m still using a Late 2008 15″ MacBook Pro. Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz, max 8GB RAM, USB 2.0 / Firewire 800, 512 GB Internal SSD. When the internal HD crashed I replaced it with the Samsung 830 SSD, and this made a big difference in system performance. Unfortunately, this system is a dinosaur for rendering video, but works great for Pro Tools and Logic Pro sessions with plugins, etc.
What is the scoop on using external SSD drives as the main production recording drive? Which is better for recording – SSD or Hard Disk?
– Thanks
Wow, what a great post, Graham!
To be honest, I don’t know much about computers, but I’m seriously considering making some (if not all) of those upgrades.
I’ve got a MacBook Pro 13 inch from mid 2012 with 4 GB of RAM, but that’s about all I can tell you cause I don’t understand much of the rest, haha. I’ll have to do some research since I’m getting to that 5 year mark!
I’m still running a 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 at home which I bought new. For raw CPU power it’s a 2.66 ghz x 8 core machine, so it’s hard to tap it out especially in audio applications. I have all the internal drive bays maxed out, and I tend to store music related projects on one internal drive and other projects on another. I have external backups for all of my project drives. Right now I have the ram at 20 GB, good for pro tools and any other demanding software. One thing I ran into though with newer versions of pro tools (11+) was that my stock video card just couldn’t handle the updated beefier graphic demands. I got a new NVIDIA GPU card with much better specs and pro tools started behaving better right away – Pro Tools can actually make use of GPU processing power, which is great. Also just even normal finder operations improved. So that could be a good tip for people with older Macs that have the option to upgrade a video card. Another tip is that with apollo interfaces/plugins one can take some of that processing load off one’s machine. I just got an apollo silverface and I’m loving the sound and the plugins so far.
On the other hand I just started a new full time engineer/sound design position and they set me up with a 2015 i7 macbook pro to mix and edit on – this thing is killin’ it so far! no complaints except that I have to use it with a firewire adapter for an interface and a USB hub to be able to handle multiple iloks, drives etc.
Hi Graham,
I use an old 2011 iMac (i7) that came with 4GB Ram. I immediately maxed it to 16GB and saw significant performance gains. I’ve since replaced the superdrive with an SSD and it is very quick for a near 7 year old machine.
However, the one trick I use to give me super low latency for audio i/o is using RAM disks. I create a 2GB RAM disk on boot and all my audio data is recorded there. The read/write speeds are astonishingly quick and it can handle an insane number of simultaneous audio tracks without drop out. I run a script in the background that copies the audio periodically to disk via rsync in case of a crash but it’s an insurance policy I’ve never needed. The same script tracks the process id of my DAW (Logic) and once it knows the application has been closed it rsyncs my project data to my NAS.
Overall, a few hardware upgrades plus employing RAM disk for audio leave me with a system I think I could likely get another few years use of and I have no desire or plans to replace.
Interesting thought on the RAM disk. I think PRO Tools 12.x allows you to do that right from Pro Tools.
Yeh i’ve been using a 6gb ram disk(primo ram disk pro) and running reaper on it and most of my vst’s bar addictive drums and reverberate 2(would need 32gb might do it ) and its very fast it automatically writes to an ssd as it is used and then automatically writes to ram when you boot the computer. totally bomb proof and stable for the last few years.
Very cool!
I mixed “Sing Along” from Dueling Mixes a couple months ago on my dinosaur rig. Lots of plugins, lots of tracks. Great mix, no crashes. I think the session, when I finished messing with it, had around 35 tracks. I used Studio One 3 Pro, the Console Shaper, several instances of there Channel Strip Collection… All resource hogs (though Console Shaper has been updated since to be a lighter load). I also used Open Air IR reverb (another hog). I have also tracked guitars and vocal overdubs into sessions with similar track counts at much lower sample rates . Just disabled any mixing plugins not NEEDED for tracking purposes, turning them back on after tracking. Here’s the rig:
Dell Inspiron 545 PC circa 2009
Pentium Dual Core e5400 2.7GHz
6GB RAM
Windows 7 Home 64 Bit
Dedicated internal drive for audio – Kingston 250Gb SSD
Presonus 22VSL interface running Virtual Studio Live (not Universal Control)
Nektar LX25 midi controller (off when not in use)
Dual monitors – 1 24″ 1080p, 1 19″ old square LCD screen from Gateway.
Running Studio One Remote from an iPad 3 when tracking
I run the mixer view on the Gateway, everything else on the big screen.
The only Windows tweak I’ve done is to allocate resources to background operations first. Microsoft seems to think audio is a background operation.
I turn off EVERYTHING that is not Studio One. I also turn off my internet connection so nothing can attempt to auto-update. I turn off my anti-virus AFTER I turn off the connection. I scan regularly and always scan any physical media before downloading anything. I disabled all the Dell bloatware on the machine. For mixing, I set the sample rate at max – 2048. To date, at that rate, I get no pops or dropouts, even when running virtual instruments.
A Hal 9000 computer is most definitely not required for recording if this rig will fly!
All that said, I do plan to upgrade the computer this year to a quad core “i” processor system. Mainly because the most of the USB connections on the current machine are slower than 2.0, and that has been an issue in some situations.
I just bought dell inspiron 15 7567 l though best configuration for fl studio 12 but got 50 percent lag any suggestions guys please
I installed a 480GB SSD in my 2011 13″ MacBook Pro (8GB RAM) and Pro Tools 12.7.
I turned on Pro Tools Disk Cache function, and the sessions just flies, even running from my internal SSD, since all audio files are loaded into RAM (cached). Running low CPU plugins (Slate, older Waves plugins, and the amazing Plugin-Alliance bx_console) helps too!
Hi Graham, cheers from Argentina.
I used to work based on PC and the moved to MAC. All more stable. From functionallity until the virus (MAC has not virus at all).
A year ago I bought a MAC mini late 2012 wiht 16GB ram and a 256GB SSD. Bullseye.
I am nearly working mixing sessions with around 40 tracks with all kind of stuff around (Delays, compressors, reverbss, aux sends, paralell processing, and of course, plugins).
I have always made sure to use software thats both Mac and PC compatible. I know both OS well enough to not let that factor into my computer purchase.
I have a Macbook pro 13″ Late 2013, 8GB RAM, Dual Core i5 and 256GB SSD. That I use for mobile recording.
My mixing computer is a HP PC that I bought like 6 years ago. Thr beauty about desktop PCs is that EVERYTHING can be replaced. I recently had a motherboard failure. Replacinf the motherboard is almost equivalent of getting a new machine but it’s way cheaper. I was able to buy a new MB, RAM and processor and put it together with my old parts. I feel like I have a new computer and it saved me a lot of money 🙂
Hey Graham,
You must be a little psychic, because I was thinking about asking about this very thing. I usually have to render (print) each track after some initial processing and the tracks back into Reaper, remove the effects that are on the channels, and go for my second round of processing. I try to get the most intensive processing done before the first render – compression, eq automation and any effects that are CPU hogs.
I have Windows 7 running on an Asus motherboard with an Asus sound card, 3.2 GHz i3 Pentium processor, 32 MB RAM (max I can have).
I done all the things you’ve recommended except for the following: I do have an internal SSD drive, but have been using my system drive for processing, so I’m going to re-configure things to have that done on my SSD.
As always, thanks for the advice 🙂
Pete
Hi Graham,
I am running a 2009 PC, double quad core XEON processors. (16 virtual) original was 16Gb ram, 2x500Gb (15000 rpm SCSI) drive and Quattro video cards 4 monitors.
Rocorging with Presonus Studio One
Upgraded mid 2016 to 24 Gb Ram and 2 x 500Sb SSD drive. been using 4×23 then 3×23 inches monitors since almost the very beginning. much better experience going with 1 or 3 monitors, that way you don’t have the split screen in the middle. 🙂
and you can have a complete view of your tracks when recording and mixing.
I honestly don’t see the end of this beast.
One thing also that makes a big difference while tracking full band live in the studio with 20 or more tracks is the performance of your video card.
You will end up with lots of lagging in the display with all the VUs going up and down and the waves being displayed at the same time in each track. Can even bring the DAW to crash with the swapping between video memory and RAM and the even going to swap file on disk.
Hey Graham,
Curious, I have a MacBook Pro and Mini both 5 and 6 years of age. What version of OS are you using on your Mac today?
Thanks – Sean
1. What kind of computer are you using? (Specs and all)
I am using a MacBook Pro 15″ (mid 2012) running OS X El Capitan
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz
Memory: 16 GB
As you advised, I have kept my music projects on a separate drive. I mostly did this to save drive space on the MBP. I do keep the project I am actively working on stored on my Mac for convenience so it’s always available to work on in case I get some inspiration when I am away from home.
2. And what is one thing you’ve found that helps optimize it for recording and mixing?
Closing all other apps like you mentioned. In addition, I turn off WiFi and disable any background apps like Dropbox. I periodically run Disc Utility. I also replaced the stock HDD with a 1TB WD drive. If the solid state drive had been available at the time I would have opted for that.
I recommend for PC users to have two OS available in your hard drive (better if you have them on separate drives). Use one of them only to mix and record. You can disable all services that are not needed, no antivirus, no internet connection, nothing.
Your PC will have all of the resources available just for procesing audio. It makes a huge difference and there is a plus: No internet -> No distracctions.
That´s the way a PRO should handle it. IMHO.
Im running Reaper in a 6 year old laptop. i5 procesor and 4 Gb of RAM. Never had an issue.
If you are on a budget you are sometimes better off buying top of the line from a few years back. I just moved from a 2008 3,1 mac prop to a 2011 12core machine w 32 gb of Ram. Paid 1800 Canadian and its a screamer. Also I don’t know if it was mentioned, but put sample libraries on a third disk drive. Also, even on fast machines, render instrument track to audio files. It seems to tighten up timing and frees up power for hungry plugs like isotope ozone.
Great piece Graham. Keep up the great work.
I think I’m about your age Graham and have been into audio the same amount of time. My first Mac was in the year 2000, and I’ve done what I’m about to explain…about 16 times. Whoa. Getting old.
Macs tend to hold their value. Every year, I sell whatever model I have and replace it with the new version of that model. I spend between $100-400 every year, but I always have the latest hardware. There are bumps in the road (like with the latest MacBook Pro upgrade cycle), but it’s generally worked out pretty well. Instead of spending $3000-4000 every five years, I pay $500-2000 over that time.
You have to be somewhat of a computer guy, definitely know how to back up everything you need and the general goings on of your computer, but it doesn’t take any specialized knowledge. I used Pro Tools for my first decade in audio, but their limitations on hardware and the amount of time it took for them to ‘approve’ operating systems pushed me to Logic. I’ve been toying with Pro Tools again now that they’ve change a lot of their ways (it’s so nice knowing every quick key and short cut…stupid ‘industry standard.’)
Anyway. Just wanted to share my story and experience. It’s not for everyone. Really it seems only for me. I’ve told audio friends before, but they never convert to my technique. There have been bumps in the road, but I feel it’s helped me save money and headache over the years…or just given me different headaches. If you switch platforms, like going from an iMac to a MacBook Pro, it can save you money or make you spend a LOT more, but if you stick to the same model and similar hierarchy, it works out great. Ok. Enough typing.
My system is a custom PC, based around Win7 x64 Ultimate, an old Core2Quad 3.2Ghz with 8gb Memory, a 1tb 7200 OS / Software Drive, 2 x 2tb 7200 Audio Drives, 8tb External USB drives in 2 enclosures,a 1gb nVidia Graphic card, 2 x 27″ monitors. Audio is an old Delta66 with the OMNI box.
This system took 3 years to build, piece by piece, but it was worth it. Waiting for the deals made it very cost effective.
I can not update the memory because 8gb is all the MB will handle, so I am looking for another socket775 board so I can increase that.
The best thing I did was to make this system ONLY for Audio, nothing else. No video, photography, or net at all on this system. Doing this makes this system rock solid & fast. 😉
I think In todays environment, Computers (especially macs) have become like iPhones and every other smartphone in the fact that we are beyond what you need anymore and are now catering to stuff that is irrelevant to the very purpose the device was created for. Ie; I was in the apple store just yesterday and a college student was asking which computer would work for her and the apple store guru was trying to talk her in to a quad core i7 with 16 gigs of ram!!! And for what !! her only goal was to write papers and check Facebook. He should have directed her to a refurbished or used market from 2004! I am not interested if my computer can talk to me (SIRI) i just want to mix multiple tracks without a rendering error or drop in audio quality. In other words I don’t need a back hoe to install a mailbox in the ground! That being said I have a 2012 MacBook pro that I bought in 2015 because it is the last model that is user serviceable I have upgraded the ram to 8 gigs and that is more then enough, I very rarely use more then 4 gigs during my session. That being said I also have a 2007 iMac core 2 duo still going strong which I have mixed in Logic with no problems. Very few of us in the prosumer audio world need these high end computers ….we simply WANT them and that is fine. I say just make sure the ends justifies the means. This is a great example of why I love the recording revolution , it is the Dave Ramsey approach to making quality recordings. Thanks Graham ! We need this!
Hi Graham, I was lucky enough to find an early 2011 MacBook Pro. These MacBook they claim are one of the best made and can upgrade very nicely, first off I upgraded the ram for 4 to 16, yes this little guy can go up to 16gb. Then I replaced the optical drive, for a 1 TB Sata drive, which I will replace with SSD drive soon. I replaced the main hard drive with a 480g SSD drive and installed El Capitain OS, this runs the DAW Studio One, and store my recorded files on the 2nd Sata drive. This machine has the icore5 with 2.33 ghz. I only use this for music, email, and internet. It’s lightning fast and will get quicker when I replace the Sata with a SSD, I also upgraded the battery to the latest model out. All said and done I spent close too $700, I’m very happy with this so far with no issues.
Tom
I’m a HUGE fan of Carillon Audio PC’s, specifically built for the job… http://www.carillonac1.com
I’ve had two in the last 10 years and like you, upgraded to SSD and more RAM. I’m also running W10 with Cakewalk Sonar… all great here.
Thanks
In prep for getting my first audio interface at christmas, I bought a 14″ HP probook on ebay for £100 – i5 with 8 Gb RAM and a fresh install of Windows pro 64bit.
Another 8Gb RAM is on my list, but at the moment that would cost almost as much as the laptop!
I now have a Presonus interface, and their website has an article about optimising your machine for audio that I followed.
This machine is just for my DAW & interface so has no internet access, no anti-virus, no other programs load at startup, all the visual effects are turned off and various settings have been optimised for audio.
I have been recording to external drives too, so far this 2nd hand £100 laptop works like a dream 🙂 I’m amazed at what you can do with a cheap machine, a pretty cheap interface (£140 for a Presonus Studio bundle including a mic and headphones and a bundled DAW).
RAM and SSD are on my list, as are some monitors (the monitors I’ve picked out, and recommended pretty much everywhere cost more than the rest of my setup together, so I’m in no rush to get them)
Dear Graham,
First of all, I really have to say THANK YOU. Not only your YouTube videos and tutorials pave the way for music production for beginners like myself brilliantly (you’re a great teacher, by the way), your no-time-wasted philosophy, Parkinson’s Law and all, is inspiring without being dense, concealing both pragmatism and artistic inspiration. Because of it, I felt encouraged to finally write, record, produce and release the first album of my solo project this year, seven years after my band split up. I started 2017 by setting the goal of realeasing an eight-song album – most of them still being written, let alone recorded – by July 28th, a friday; since I’m still learning the basics about music production, chances are the final result will be a mid-fi, or maybe even lo-fi record. But I don’t mind: what’s important is it’ll exist, it’ll be out, and I’ll have opened the door to a artistic path I’ve always wanted to follow. Plus, I love lo-fi music, but I digress.
The computer I’m using is, actually, not a “computer”…I guess: I’m recording my album, and will mix and master it, in my iPad 4, which I got in 2013 and never used until a year and a half ago. I’m still trying to figure out ways to optimize my workflow, specially because the iPad 4 is slowly starting to get outdated, which means newer, heavier apps demand too much RAM sometimes. On the other hand, though, there are lots of amazing apps that work great in it; that, and the fact that iOS music production technology seems to have improved at a considerably fast pace in the past few years, makes me insist on working with it instead of recording in a computer in the traditional sense (the apps and plugins are considerably cheaper, too). Do you have any suggestions on how I could use it in a smarter way? And would you have any interest in making videos and posts regarding iOS music making?
Thanks once again and have a great 2017!
Rodrigo Fróes
I run a custom build PC assembled by myself with i7 6700k, 32 GB ram, 512 SSD fo OS Win 10, an other 512 SSD for audio files and 1TB HD for virtual instrument libraries and a 3 TB for my sound FX and music library. Quite new so I choose TB support on the mainboard, USB 3.1 and the normal standard USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports. The processor has a graphic chip so I don not need a graphic card.
There is a firewire card in the PC connecting some of my firewire interfaces and a UAD DSP.
There is plenty of headroom of performance and I almost never run into a limit. And best of all, it`s build to be low noise so it can sit under the desk and you will not hear anything from it.
There is no need for special optimization. Does handle browser and email without problem in parallel to the DAW. While this is not always the best idea. To much distraction……. (;
I choose PC cause a similar MAC is not available. I would have needed to go for a power mac which is at least 4 x the cost of the PC.
Sorry for such a huge comment!
Fantastic! as always and thanks. Its quite reassuring to hear pros like you discussing these kind of issues. If I may add, I have found that reducing the graphic ‘activity’ on the machine also helps. Animations and that kind of stuff.
This article was so informative!! I didn’t know that you can record/mix to an external drive! I will start doing that thanks for all the tips! I’ve been having computer problems, and it just got fixed so I was looking for a way to optimize my “fresh start” computer! Thank you!
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac14,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 3,4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 24 GB
Boot ROM Version: IM142.0118.B14
SMC Version (system): 2.15f7
Serial Number (system): C02M45MPF8J5
Hardware UUID: B90EAB9C-8E14-5CB1-ACA7-4BE17319AADB
Logic Pro X
Im an old computer freak, and you absolutely right, keep your computer clean and optimised.
This might have been mentioned already… But make sure you using the latest upgrade of your software… If you can. I’ve been using GarageBand for years in my MacBook Pro, quad core i7 – 16gb ram…. But…. The version of GarageBand I was using was 32 bit… I’m always very hesitant to move to new versions of software since stuff changes etc… But the latest version of GarageBand is 64bit and now it can take advantage of all that ran and processing power. No more hot laptop or fans running on full!!!
Graham,
Great post! Changing computers is a huge undertaking and maximizing your time on a piece of hardware makes perfect sense! My first studio PC was a Dell Inspiron and after 5 years I found the need to replace that machine with my current machine (about 2 years old now). I have a no name tower, but specced it with a descent motherboard, the CPU is an Intel Core i5-4670K at 3.5 GHz with 8GB of RAM. I installed 2 – 1TB hard drives, one for the OS and programs, one for the audio. I also have a 5TB external USB drive as a backup to the audio drive. I’m using Windows 7, 64 bit as my OS and running Cubase 8.5 Professional.
Having a separate drive for the audio is a definite plus over my previous machine! Also having installed a separate PCI Firewire card in order to hook up my Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 was a real plus over using the internal Firewire connection. I sometimes use outboard gear in final mixdown and the PCI card keeps the latency very low and Cubase allows for that roundtrip.
Thanks again for all you do for the recording community!
God Bless you and your family!
Randy
1). I built this computer just last summer and it really seems to handle everything I have thrown at it. Not long after building it, I did a project with about 96 stems, don’t remember all the final track count, buss, reverb, etc. but it was just slowing down a little near the end of the project. I was very happy with this build. Until my DAW, Adobe Audition CC, sometime in the future upgrades need a lot more power, I think I would not have to upgrade this computer for a long time.
Intel Core i7-5820K 6 core, 12 Hyper-thread @ 3.30 GHs. Over-Clocked to 4.30 GHs.
16 GB System memory, 1x 256 Gb SSD internal drive for OS and Programs, 1x 500 Gb SSD internal drive for recording and projects files I also have a 7200 RPM type hard drive removable slot with several 3T drives for back up and to save and then remove older projects. That way my SSDs never get to full.
2). I found that in the last few years, the biggest performance boost that one can do for any computer is to upgrade to SSD hard drives. A few years back I went from 8 To 16 Gbs system memory and only could see a little improvement, but when I finally replaced my 7200 HD with a SSD, I really saw an improvement. Then when I added the second SSD (using the first one only for OS and Programs, then using the second one for all other files) I was still able to see even more boost!
But remember, especially if you can only afford the smaller SSDs, you’ll can still move files ( anything you’re not working on at the time) off the SSDs to the cheaper 7200 HDs to keep the SSDs from getting to full, which will slow down any HD. Always remember to keep at least 10 to 15% on any HD free.
Also, just because an SSD cost more, it doesn’t make it better! Do your research. They all run at different speed, so buy the fastest one you can find and afford. I found many time a fast one is sometime cost lest that a slower one, depending on where you buy it, so beware.
Mid-2011 iMac 27 4 Cores 2.5GHz 16GB RAM 1TB OSX 12.2.2 Sierra internal hard drive and external USB’s for recording and mixing. Best tip from me is follow the DAW/OS Optimization Guides at Sweetwater’s website. Search Sweetwater’s Tech Support for the PC/Mac optimization guides. Just Google it. Here’s a link if it’s allowed here: https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/mac-pc-optimization
Eric
Yea that is a great article.
Great review. Some truth has to be told!
I work on an everyday basis with two iMac 27″, 2010 and 2013. 16GB and 24GB. I run PT 12 on the old onboard HD and record on an ssd 500GB USB3. Don’t use any hub, it will slow down and mess with the ssd. I plan to update the two iMac with an ssd inside, mostly to gain time at restart and at app launch. I agree with the fact that PT don’t like to share power with other app (iTunes and Word are the usual suspects). Classic Keyboards and mouse are better supported than the wireless one . Otherwise, I try to do maintenance as often as possible with Onyx and CleanMyMac. Don’t forget to leave at least 15% of free space on your system drive and restart the all thing once a day. Et voilà ! I don’t forget that my last Motorola Power Mac was still mint when I had to take the giant step to the Intel based one. Those Mac are so reliable…
Inexpensive DAW for mainly voice?
Fill your system with RAM (I use 32GB) and install a RAMdisk of 16GB. (you still have 16 GB to run stuff, and 16GB of RAM as SUPER fast (about 10 times as fast as SSD !!!) “hard drive) Tell your DAW to record on this RAMdisk. Also make your DAW use it to store temp files etc.
Make sure that your RAMdisk program saves the files on the RAMdisk automatically before shutting down your computer and automatically put ’em back when you reboot. (Best is to tell the prog to save the RAMdisk contents to an SSD. Copying 16GB from or to a “mechanical drive may take up quite some time…)
I bet that you’ll be AMAZED about the speed things go.
But no … 16GB is NOT enough to record a 24 hour song with 64 filled tracks …
About 20MB per minute per track … so 16 GB is good working with for about 800 tracks of 1 minute, 1 track of 800 minutes, 16 (filled !!!) tracks of 50 minutes …
Nevertheless : making a backup now and then to a mechanical disk or CD/DVD/BR is never wasted time !
😉
RAM disk sounds like a very interesting idea. Which RAM Disk do you use and/or recommend?
Hi I use ram disk pro . Have used it for the last 4-5 years and it is bomb proof never failed.it automatically backs itself up on the fly to my ssd and then reloads itself when you boot the com.ram disk is 6gb in size out of a totl 16gb I have reaper installed and most of my vst’s except the big ones. Addictive 2,reverberate 2 etc.
I have a RAM disk installed and have a few questions. Do you recommend “automatically starting” your DAW with Ram disk? Actually that’s just one question.
http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-ramdisk/download.html
I use primo ramdisk pro ultimate ($69.95 now). With this version the disk can be up to 1 terrabyte in size and you can use it on 2 computers.
I have this for a couple of years and thankfully it has never failed. When you set it up it and reboot it always just appears as a hard drive for you to put files onto and like myself also i installed reaper on it and most of my vst’s are put in reaper/ plugins/fx as well. I have some vst’s ie . reverberste 2 (20 gb)Addictive drums/keys 2 (10Gb) that are too big for the ramdisk and have to be installed on another ssd disk(samsung evo 250Gb) which is also where I put my projects .I have 16 Gb of Ram and the ramdisk is set to 6Gb. any changes you make to the ramdisk is automatically backed up on the fly to a ramdisk file on my ssd. When you reboot, this is then used to write the ramdisk. (put this file on a ssd so it will write quickly to Ram). My computer boots in around 30 to 40 seconds with the 6Gb ramdisk.Probably one of the most reliable programs i have used to date.
Have to confess that I have major dilemmas – I have a Tascam DM-3200 with the old firewire optional card with 2 firewire ports and a computer with no firewire connections – only USB 2.0. I have an HP Pavilion dv7 laptop running at 2.4 GHz with 6GB RAM. I originally downloaded Sonar Cakewalk but never really used it since I didn’t have connection with my mixer. I see that Musician’s Friend is now offering a package with a Mac Mini loaded with ProTools First and Garage Band along with other equipment like the Focusrite audio interface, microphone and a few other goodies for around $900. A big problem with the DM-3200 looks to be for me so complicated to get everything set up so that it will function. I’m about to call Tascam to see what they can tell me but I’d love any thoughts from you about what you might suggest. I’m a real limping ship at the moment.
Hi Graham! Thank you for all the advice, training and more! As for the question…
After some years on PCs for (quite) general use, I ended up using an internet free, no-wifi, no-games, no-office, nothing but audio PC/Windows Xp for 10 whole years and it ran as smoothly as a PC can run! And then the mistake of upgrading walked through the door… No good. BUT, the good thing that came out of it, was that I entered the Mac world. As for now, I am on a 15″ (no-retina) Yosemite, mid-2012 MacBook Pro, with 2.3 i7 GHz Intel i7 processor and 8Gb of RAM, 256 SSD for internal drive and a usb 3 external drive for recording audio; running Logic Pro 9 (mainly). I use the thunderbolt port for connection to a bigger monitor and voilà! I just released my record, recorded / engineered / mixed / mastered on it (via Saffire pro 40). 😉 Cheers and keep up the amazing work that you do!
Mac Pro early 2009, 8-core 2.26 GHz with 24GB of RAM, Mac OS 10.11 (El Capitan), 3 internal harddisks (2TB and 2 x 1TB), external backup (triple: dedicated TimeCapsule for TimeMachine, manually every week or so on external harddisks and in the cloud through Backblaze), latest version of Logic Pro X. One harddisk contains the OS & Logic sessions, 2nd hd is for sample libraries, 3rd hd for misc stuff.
Still runs flawlessly although the machine does feel slower than a couple of years back. Considering the SSD route for the system drive, but waiting to see if a new (and decent) Mac Pro is somewhere on the horizon. I refuse to buy the 3 year old “new” MacPro — hate the form factor (form over function), and not paying that amount for old technology.
I use an Alienware R2 laptop with i7 proc and 8GB of RAM. It has a 500GB hybrid (solid state and spindle) drive. Running Windows 10.
I did some optimizing but not extensive. I turned off Windows Sounds, shut down as many programs that run in the background as made sense. I’ve had no issues with the daw or latency issues with the audio. I run a Presonus iTwo USB3 audio interface as well as my Fender Mustang II amp which checks in as an audio interface.
Any recommendations on what external hard drives to use? I want to start doing what u mentioned that I can record/mix on an external hard drive, just wondering what u might recommend for me! I use a Mac Mini
My DAW is a Dell Precision 690 WorkStation, two Xeon 5160 dual core processors (3.0GHz), 8GB RAM, Samsung 840 EVO 256GB SSD, Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. I have about 600GB of local SAS drives and 7TB of NAS storage. I bought this machine new in 2007 and have upgraded it over the years to the specs above. So I definitely exceed the “5-Year Rule.” I have never had any performance issues with this setup.
Nobody mentioned this above, but don’t forget to get yourself a great sound card. I use the ASUS Xonar Essence STX audio device with Presonus Eris E5 monitors. I mean, it’s all about the sound, right?
I record on an Alesis HD24, 24-track hard disk recorder and then dump the trax as .WAV files to my DAW using HD24Tools software.
Some thoughts using USB thumb drives for recording… I have used USB thumb drives for recording and had no problems with it yet. It hasn’t been for more than about 20 tracks, but it has worked pretty good so far. Any thoughts on what the pitfalls might be in continuing with this route? Currently I am running Reaper (I quit running ProTools at version 6.4 because of picky computer requirements) an older (2009) Dell Precision 3400 with quad core (2.6 Ghz) and 8G Ram. it uses USB 2 for now. So far, it’s holding up just fine. I do back up everything onto other external HDs, but I like the idea of having a project wallet of separate thumb drives which keeps my main drives from filling up and my projects separated. Anyone else use thumb drives for tracking?
By the way, I do have a second internal 7200rpm hard drive for tracking, too! I just like the portability of the thumb drives. The speed of the thumb drives may be fine for raw tracking, but too slow for huge massive mixing.
Hey Graham and Followers,
Just a warning from my recent experience.
I too have been using an old Mac mini for years and eventually decided to upgrade to the new mini recently figuring I would get the lower spec’d model and upgrade my ram like I did before.
After I bought the ram and opened her up I realised that the newer apple models don’t allow to you self upgrade anything.
So I am no stuck with a shiny new machine that has very similar specs to my old self upgraded machine.
Learn from my mistake and do your research 🙂
Firstly I use 2 seperate computers. One is for audio and that is an i7 3.30 4 core with 16 GB ram and (2) 1TB HD’s plus a 200GB SD card I use for active projects. There is also a PCi ex audio card with 2 gb ram and a quadro K620 video card with 4 gb ram for running imported video to sync with (frees up a lot of ram for audio)
The video computer is a xeon 6 core 3.45 with 32 Gb Ram and a geForce 980 with 4 gb ram. 1TB HD and another 200Gb SD card. The audio card is a simple Creative labs PCi card with 1Gb of onboard ram. Like the audio computer the audio card is used to free up more ram for imported audio that is sync’d
I went for a PC because I couldn’t justify the cost, hardware and limitations that come with a Mac. A few years ago I got an ASUS AiO P1801 with the following specs:
CPU – i5 3350P Quad Core 3.1GHz
RAM – 8GB Stock (Upgraded to 16GB @ 1600MHz)
OS – Windows 8.1 Stock (Upgraded to Windows 10)
HDD – 1TB Stock (Upgraded to 2TB) Also have a USB 3.0 external for backup
Sound Card – I use a USB Sound Card adapter that came with my Gaming headphones (SteelSeries Siberia V2, which honestly are great for mixing and were $100CAD). The driver for the sound card has 32bit audio and virtual surround sound.
I have only had issues when I had 8GB of RAM as I would sometimes run out of RAM for plugins. Never had issues with CPU power, not even close. I also find the speed of your RAM as well as the size makes a difference. The max speed use can use will be determined by the motherboard and CPU. I tend to keep other programs closed, but will have a web browser open for when I need to look up things. Even with email, web browser and sometimes rewire open I haven’t had issues yet and I don’t bounce my MIDI tracks into audio (which I have read many times can save your CPU/RAM) until I am ready to mix. Of coarse when I am only using audio that doesn’t matter.
I also have a gaming computer with a much better 3.5-4GHz 8 core processor, with is completely unnecessary for gaming, but is also not needed for audio production either and provided minimal noticeable performance increase. I like to keep my audio PC for audio only.
The ASUS PC I got about 3 years ago, with a could minor upgrades (might upgrade the CPU which there is only one option to do) I really don’t think I will be replacing it, even in the next few years. I am very happy with the software I have, Samplitude Pro X3, Live 9.7, Sound Forge Pro 11, Melodyne 4 and few other LE versions of things like CuBase, Wave Lab, FL Studio, and Pro Tools but I stick to what I like to use which is the first 3. They run great, even having Live open in Samplitude with a bunch of plugins.
I am running on a tight budget and need my investments to last. Something I heard Graham mention right away when I first discovered this site, you don’t need to get a bunch of gear. So, I just got what I need, one computer, one keyboard, one mic, one guitar, one bass and two pairs of speakers and two headphones (for referencing) all acquired over the past few years, and all of which cost me that same as an iMac. When I bought the PC, the Mac’s were no where near the same for hardware unless you got the Mac Pro for an extra $1000. I probably sound like I dislike Apple, but I don’t necessarily. I am not a brand person and base my purchases on cost/performance/function. My point is simply, at the time I purchased the computer, there were no Mac’s with comparable hardware for less than double the price. Only now, 3 years later, are there similar specs, and it is still hundreds of dollars more. If you can afford it and want a Mac then go for it. My preferred DAW for editing is Samplitude which is Windows only so I will be sticking with that, although sometimes I use Live for creativity. That is also something to concider. Many DAWs have a Mac and PC version, but if you put in a few hundred dollars in to OS specific software you probably want to stick with that system. Something to consider before you buy anything.
I have 2011 mackbook pro, and the one mistake I did
When upgrading was upgrading to 16gb of ram insted. Of SSD
SSD speeds up the performance 5x times while ram is giving you
Giving you more processing space with the smell speed ‘
So 1st – SSD
2nd – ram
3rd separate drives
I’m running a 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display; 16GB RAM; 500GB SSD
The tips in your post are spot on and I’ve been using them for years to maximize my system performance. A few more tips that have worked for me:
– For Logic Pro 9 users, make sure you’re opening the DAW in 64-bit mode. This may require you to update your plug-ins.
– Make sure you’re accessing your external drives using the fastest connection available. Some drives come with more than one port (say, USB 3 and Firewire 800 for example).
– This last tip won’t be for everybody, but if you’re in the market for a new interface, you may want to check out a Universal Audio UAD-powered one. They sound great and give you extra DSP in the recording and mix-down stage to take some of the weight off your computer.
I know this pain!!!!
As I am still using a 2007 20″ iMac dual core 2.4G processor 5G RAM and use Logic Pro X. 🙂 a 10 year old IMac and I still record up to 70+ tracks of toontrack drum plug ins/midi/audio yet these days with orchestral software it’s showing its limit so I need to do more tricks to help.
I have moved everything over to my external FireWire drive.
Ram heavy tracks or ‘group’ of tracks turn off (not mute or hide but turn off) temporarily if needed while recording in very low latency, then back on when mixing in higher latency.
Delete all unnecessary plug ins for new midi tracks as they often by default open with a bunch of taxing compressors/verbs when you may be already using on the track stack(s).
Check the core usage in audio settings, change to auto or to 2 core or 4 or more if you have so that the daw shares eaqually across instead of dumping all on 1 core.
Refurbished dell optrix 990 desk top,
PC Windows 7 pro
i7 Quad core 3.4 GHz 8gb ram 64bit
Found the processor runs at 20-40% with 24 tracks and 2-6 plugins per track. Taken the transparent Windows etc off to save resources.
Way better than my i7 laptop,
Thanks so much for your insights and tips.
I’m running Sonar Platinum on an Acer Aspire desktop (PC) with Windows 7, Intel I7 processor and 8 gig DDR 3 memory. I keep my wireless receiver completely shut off and have no wired connection to the internet. I don’t want the internet anywhere near my computer unless absolutely necessary. If I have to download something from Cakewalk or another provider, I run an Ethernet wire from another machine nearby and keep the internet active only as long as necessary to complete the download. I almost never have a problem running my DAW. I do have the luxury of dedicating this computer solely to recording.
Hey, I use a Sweetwater creation station. I think I bought it in 2011 and it’s still on Windows 7. I recently upgraded to reason 9 and still have no lag or anything. Very solid workstation and I recommend them to anyone who doest want a laptop. They rack mount with all your other gear, super quiet, and for the same price as a machinest book you get a real work horse. Plus dual screen compatible from the get go 🙂
Thanks for this Graham,
I would like to be able to record through plugins go a mixed song, because I dont get high if everything is death dry and raw to get inspired for tracking vocals. But this means I need to upgrade to a quad core, as my current Macboon Pro i5 dual core gives me warnings, even with 16gb of ram and a 1TB SSD.
Don’t you think an external hardrive for stori g the files is not necessary with a SSD? Or is the CPU still a problem here?
Thanks, Lorenz
Great Post Graham, I run Protools 12 on Mavericks OS on a 2008 Mac Pro3..1 – 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon w 16gigs of ram, it’s old but runs great I bought it used a few years ago I think this will last me longer than 5 years, I still use a digi 002 console too…my one tip is if your computer and software are working don’t change it, if you have spare cash maybe improve something physical, for instance the last thing I bought was a set of monitors because I seriously needed an up-grade. If it’s for something fun I’ll buy another mic because sooner or later I’ll use it. Happy 2017 everybody.
Graham your posts and videos are amazing I’ve learned so much from watching them thank you.
I heard that it’s a fatal move to defrag an SSD, is this true ?
Two things to keep in mind about SSD drive.
1) They are so fast, that defragging one just doesn’t show any real performance gain! I mean one can’t really tell when a drive runs like a millo second faster, right? So why make your computer do all that work?
2) The type of memory in SSD drive can only be written and deleted X number of times! Before the memory goes out . So every time you defrag, that really uses that number up a lot quicker! So with no real performance gain, why shorten the life of the drive? Of course, that number is so high that a SSD should last the average computer for several years, without defrag!
Hi Graham. I use an IMac, 27inch Retina, 3.5 GHz, Intel Core i5, 28 GB Ram. I also use a 4 TB external 7200 RPM for my sound libraries (with a Thunderbolt) & another 2 TB 7200 rpm external hard drive,(via USB 3) to store all of my songs/recordings. All of this is backed up on an external My Cloud drive (7200 RPM),
I used to use a PC, and stored all of my material on it. When one of the hard drives crashed, the local repair shop deleted 2 years worth of recordings that I had made. Lesson learned the hard way.
Intel Core i5 3.4 GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3
Nvidia Geforce GT740 1GB
320GB HDD
Apple macOS Sierra 10.12.2
Cockos Reaper 5
Intel Core i5 3.4 GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3
Nvidia Geforce GT740 1GB
320GB HDD
Apple macOS Sierra 10.12.2
Cockos Reaper 5
Focusrite Scarlett Solo 2nd Gen
Didn’t do any optimization but it runs pretty well.
I need some advice on my computer? I have a 2010 iMac, 3.06 GHz dual core i3, 4 GB ram, 1333 MHz DDR3.
I want to purchase the Slate VMS but they have some minimum requirements and some recommended system requirements. I don’t meet either of them!
The minimum system requirements, quad core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM. The recommended requirements, quad core i7 processor 8 GB RAM.
Is my computer worth updating or is it just time to upgrade? I like your idea of purchasing refurbished computers. I know I will need to upgrade to a new computer soon and have been looking around but just wanted to get some input.
Thanks,
Brian
Question for anyone, and I apologize in advance, because it may be a dumb one.
I agree with Graham, but obviously you come to a point where replacement is inevitable. For instance, I just swapped my 2009 MacBook Pro for a used iMac. I had previously made every conceivable performance upgrade that was possible with that particular computer. I was spending as much of my studio time taking steps to improve performance and maximize CPU within each session as I was being creative.
My new iMac is plenty powerful: quad-core i7 with 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM. Question is, should I still record and mix from an external hard drive? If so, here’s my main concern; my external hard drive is a 2TB USB3, but I’m fairly certain it only contains a 5400 RPM hard drive. Isn’t that a step backwards?
The best way to use an external drive is to buy an external drive case and install an SSD in it. Remember all SSD drive run at different speeds, so do your research . Get the fastest one that you can afford.
1. Using HP pavilion 1000 with 2GB RAM & AMD processor.
2. I started freezing my recorded tracks once completed, this way i optimise my laptop and create space to use big plugins for other takes.
Unfortunately, I use a PC… but it ain’t bad.
I use “Cubase Artist 8” and “FL Studio 11 Producer Edition” and a tone of quality plugins.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A few things I will definitely consider when purchasing my next computer:
1. Higher processor speed…
I am running 2.00 GHz, but too many VST Plugins chew up the PCU load.
The CPU (Central Processing Unit), makes many, many calculations per second.
If there is too much information going into the processor, it will cause lag because it cannot read the information fast enough. I won’t settle for less than 3.80 GHz next time.
Here is an excellent video to watch to fully understand Daw and computer performance:
CPU Performance vs. Real-Time Performance in Digital Audio Workstations (DAW)
https://youtu.be/GUsLLEkswzE
2. Better hard drive…
Currently I use a HDD, my next computer will have a SSD. A Solid State Drive has no moving parts, is quieter and much faster.
3. Better Graphics card…
The card I have now uses shared RAM. This uses up a bit of the RAM from what the computer has. For example, my computer uses an odd 10 GB RAM; but some of that is required to operate the graphics card which leaves only 9.43 GB usable.
On my next computer, the graphics card will have its own independent RAM built in.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For now, a couple things I do to free up VST performance is to shut down all non-required programs, and use the “Freeze Track” button. This unfortunately makes it difficult to make changes to any track because I have to “Unfreeze” the “Re-freeze” to make any changes.
It works at reducing VST performance quite a bit, but it’s a nuisance.
I do however find that I try using less plugins, and try to capture my sound as best as I can right off the top. This is probably for the best anyhow.
Here is an excellent video to watch to fully understand Daw and computer performance:
CPU Performance vs. Real-Time Performance in Digital Audio Workstations (DAW)
https://youtu.be/GUsLLEkswzE
Hi there,
I’m using an Asus X52JT, 5 year old laptop. 1rst generation Core I7 proc. I doubled straight the Ram to its max (8Gb). Last year, I throwed away the crashed original HDD 750GB/7200rpm with tons of sounddesign hours on Vst synths captured inside…for a 500Gb SSD Samsung Evo baught new for 130€ on eBay. I reinstalled only strictly what I need as 3rd party plugins in my DAW. When I have eyes on a new Synth (I love ’em so !) I first test the demo version inside a project to calibrate its CPU demands. If too CPU gready…simply bye bye !
I plugged an external USB2.0/3.0 1To Touro HDD baught new for 70€ also on eBay. So that, I can now save more surely my work “outside” the machine.
Well, for 200€ I gave a second life to my computer, not that a beast, but it WORKS !!! I can easely use 16 VstI tracks and a lot of audio ones +EQs & Comps for my EDM projects.
So Graham, am I a good student ? Humblely, I think so …
Much love.
All I need to do is to get the new hard drive (no moving parts)
I have a Mac Pro , 8 processors 64 GB of Ram , I’m using Mavericks, my IO is Symphony 64 , my monitors are KS digital made in Germany, I use pro tools 12.4 , have all kinds of plugins, waves, Superior drummer, Slate, Kerog, Klinhelm, native instrument, etc, and a lot more too much to mention., I store my projects on an external drive.
I use an iMac from mid 2010 with an I3, 3.06 GHz processor and 16 GB 1333 RAM.
Invest in RAM, that’s a quick win.
I just bought an iMac and it was pretty good on its own but adding RAM could never hurt.
The specs are:
2015
i5, 3.9 gHz (top speed)
8 GB RAM (i’ll get more)
and a 2TB hard drive
Great blog and job Graham. You always give great advice and exiting topics. I’ve been recording and mixing in protools for almost 20 years now. My tips is to keep it simple. Use a computer that is dedicated for music. Keep the computer clean and only the apps you need to work. Max out memory and have a cpu you think works best for your budget/application. Always have separate harddrives for reading and writing. Try use firewire or fast connections that works best for the harddrive of choise. Also keep them clean and defraged. Store finished projects else where.
I try to use the os that is best fitted for that maschine. Read tech reviews. Ask others. Buy used computers and hardware, there is no need to buy expensive stuff fullprize when so many sell there stuff because of … be smart and you will save alot, ALOT! Try before you buy and stay in that setup that works for YOU! Aslong as you can. I use macmini maxed with memory. Macos 10… protools 10… Digi 002 and Lacie firewire harddrives. All my stuff is old but works magic! And are cheap to buy today.
Thanks for all your great comments people,
http://kiml.bandcamp.com
Hi Graham,
First off it was a pleasure meeting you and chatting at NAMM. Thank you for taking the time to do so.
I think you hit a home run on this topic. I myself finally pulled the trigger and just updated my system. I was running a 2007 MacBook with 2GB of RAM and snow leopard OS.
Now the screen is since cracked and I can no longer upgrade to a higher OS to handle today’s 64Bit applications.
I made sure to do my research and upgraded to a computer that can last me at least the 5 years.
Great meeting you as well Marc!
PC – AMD 8350 (OC), 16GB 2133 RAM, Samsung SSD, 6TB HDD. This system is Offline – no Internet Access. All possible Networking turned off, using Administrative Tools/Services (HUGE system tweak!). No Antivirus or Firewall running (BIG system tweak!). Administrative Tools/Task Manager shows what is scheduled to Run; you can disable things like Defrag from running whenever it feels like it. Also tweaking the OS by turning off silly “visual effects” involving windows (System/Advanced System Properties/Advanced/Performance).
Every Process that can be turned off/disabled speeds up your CPU & frees up your Drives. Defeat Networking and related Processes and you’ll swear to God you’re on a different system. Faster and more responsive, you can see the difference. Pay your dues and Google. Your Task Manager/Performance Window should be reading around 1% when the System is idle. Look for “pumping” processes that spike the CPU repeatedly, you really don’t want those when doing ANYTHING Audio. Make sure you have System Restore Points created before you get crazy experimenting. And a backup of the C drive is essential. Be brave and take control of your System!
Hi all
Im running a W10 pro on a i7 cpu.
In order to save some bucks Iv made it dualboot.
So one SSD for daily stuff and one SSD for my DAW. Also some large SATA discs for storage etc.
The DAW installation is optimized as much as possible for Audio only. Everything not needed is removed. Also I clean up the drives etc. often.
Im running some large Kontakt libraries and Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 which takes a load of the disks, so Im considering buying a PCI SSD disk for the future.
Iv never got into Mac, im sure they are great. But when I started out into music production they were very expendsive. So I turned to Atari and later PC.
Thanks to Graham for eliciting responses from everyone on this topic, regarding system specs, and helpful hints for optimizing systems for recording. I’ve followed Grahams endeavors and though I lurk and listen (to learn), I don’t usually comment. In this instance if my two cents worth helps anyone save time, money or a computer, then it’s a good thing. I worked on and used Macs and PCs for many years, but being 150 miles from the nearest Apple service center made quick service lengthy and hugely expensive. I spent years in the IT fields and have always built my PCs. Hackintoshes are fun, but I never attempted to run a studio on one. My latest main PC was about $6-650 when finished, not counting redundant drives for archives. I’ve never found a similarly powerful, refurbished Mac for the price I paid for this build. I built it on a Asus 990FX motherboard, adding a Corsair 280mm H115i for the AMD 8350FX, with 16GB DDR3, an EVGA GTX780 graphics card, and single 500GB SanDisk Ultra II SSD for my Windows 7Ultimate x64 OS, built into a Fractal R5 case. I usually get recertified/refurbished parts directly from the manufacturers when possible, or when they supply overstock to Newegg. The Fractal cases are usually on sale a couple of times a year, only from Newegg. They’re very heavy and silent for all practical purposes; for the price (on sale) it’s an extraordinary case. The watercooler is massive but controls the CPU temps and radiator fans at low speed, so there’s no need for an isolation case. The FX8350 is an extremely capable CPU when water-cooled; the system boots up at 4.1 GHz and runs well at 29C. There hasn’t been a time when I’ve had to push the CPU, and I’ve never run out of tracks. As Graham and others have advocated at times, I’ve recorded in mono for many years, adding all the effects and dubs after the main tracks are laid in to taste. I tweaked the bios on the MB for music production but retained Ethernet to allow comms between systems over the router, also an Asus. I haven’t had any noticeable latency, processing delay or overhead that has affected the system. I’ve also never allowing, and have never advocated let an internet connection into a production computer; not since I abandoned my MCI 16 track to studio mascot status. It’s wonderful, to not be concerned about hackers, drive encryption, viruses, malware, MS updates or other problems and distractions. Any software that must be dongled/factory activated via the web is a serious risk and can’t be taken lightly. For the very few programs that can’t be activated using a SN from an email, or via sneaker net, I perform a one-time, extremely firewalled activation over an encrypted VPN. For years I resisted (banned might be a better term) web-activated software. If I learn it has to be allowed to keep phoning home after I’ve paid for and activated it, I don’t buy it. I almost went with Linux as the OS this time around for the main PC. It’s come of age, takes care of itself, and is extremely stable if you build it for long term use, where it doesn’t require the web. There are several good recording programs available for recording with Linux, but I stayed with Win7, since its second nature to me, and compatible with almost everything. I tried Windows 10 after the release last July, but MS built version 8, 8.1 and 10, so they could wrest control of it from the users, via the web; some will feel differently. If the recording engineer can’t retain control over the computer OS, it’s not usable but, MS couldn’t care less. Apple is a somewhat different reality. When the day comes that Windows 7 is no longer reliable for me I’ll migrate to Linux. I hardened this OS for my use few years ago, and re-worked it specifically for the studio; it’s been very rewarding. I’d like to have 32 GB of Ram, but haven’t found the need, as I’m not doing massive, simultaneous overdubs. Just because you can do a thing, doesn’t mean you will actually need it. I used 4 GBs of Ram for years, so 16 GBs is still comfortable. I’ve used various RAID/NAS builds and there’s a speed and reliability advantage to it for working studios, since SATA is cheap and has come of age, if you stick with the better platter drives. If you can afford multiple larger SSDs, then go for it, but platter drives aren’t going away anytime soon, and are still good performers. I added a WD Black platter-drive to the box for active projects, quick-dirty saves, with several USB3 drives in docks for daily/weekly/monthly rotating archives/backups. The PCs and any other studio gear that has a chip inside, lives on dedicated UPS-battery-backup PSUs. I’ve never lost a system or work in progress due to power problems. That said, last year, without warning, the OS SSD with only 6 months on it, failed on startup; despite common myths, even the NSA can’t pull data off a failed SSD. Since HDDs became affordable on the consumer market in the 90’s, I’ve preached to whoever would listen about keeping a spare (imaged) OS drive on the shelf, and was glad I’d reimaged that one the previous month. Performing a daily incremental system backup is second nature to me, and part of daily regimen that will make your setup reliable. It would’ve been a disaster without that spare drive waiting in the wings. I still have and use a Windows XP box in combination with the main system to be able to use older MOTU and ADAT interfaces. I was fond of Cakewalk, Sonar, Pro Tools, then finally migrated to Reaper a few years ago. Since I’m semi-retired, I no longer have to meet various client demands for their preference of software packages. I like to mix down using a set of DM-24s running into the PC and for scratch work/ideas outside of the studio, I use an updated Behringer iS202, with iPads (Air, Air 2 and Pro) that interact quite well with the PCs. The approach I’ve stuck with that helps keep my system optimized, is to remain disciplined with maintaining backups, and keeping the workplace clean and smoke free. I use a filtered air compressor to clean all my gear inside and out at regular intervals. My Fractal case uses positive pressure air flow which keeps the dust to a bare minimum. The filtration works so well I only go into them every 6 months. I can’t stress enough the need to have an ample and clean PSU. I’ve had great luck with the platinum EVGA series, to keep good power applied to the systems. Summing up, stick with a computer OS you like and learn it well; build a system with quality components so you don’t have to rebuild it yearly; power it with a heavy-duty PSU, plugged into a battery backup unit; don’t let the internet have its way with your main system, and always keep your studio and gear clean (don’t defrag those SSDs:). If you apply all of that at least well as you play, you’ll have a lot more fun and have much more time to make great music.
Hello, my DAW is Sonar 6, an AMD 8320e Fx , Akai Eie pro , AsRock 970 Extreme3 R2.o –
8 Gigs of memory, two spin drives – my Pc is custom make. There are some good advice to
tweaking you machine on YouTube; ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhQVkv3NM3k ) – very helpful advice. I’ll get my SSD later.
Hi Graham,
I start my day every day reading your posts.
I have been following your advice from day one!
Keep up the great interactions.
I have a PC with 32 gigs of awesome RAM. I am using Cubase 7.5 and started with Cubase 5.
I don’t have any issues at this point. I am using 7200 Enterprise RPM hard drives
Check out my tunes at Youtube and please subscribe.
God Bless.
Happy New Year!
Rock On!
The Canadian Unknown Singer
To build DAW for myself and others, I have sought out “old” used Intel Xeon PCs of mid-tier build or high end graphic workstations. For one thing, companies spent $5,000 or more on these just a few years ago- so there is definitely some great and highly tested hardware in there. Finding larger and extra ram for these gets cheaper as the new ones come out. Much of the money that goes into these powerful machines is not only for speed. Most have immense deep resources for multi threaded processing and can handle multiple tasks ( like reading and writing DAW tracks while running many plugins ). Error correcting buffered RAM also helps stability. The manner with which these machines do this has always impressed people that have used them. Clock speeds and latest chipset/ gaming hardware do not determine a “fast, stable” PC. Lastly, the great value in using SSD hard drives in DAW PCs cannot be overstated. I also recommend using one SSD for your OS drive, and another as a recording drive, whether it be internal or external.
Hey Graham, everybody,
Thought I’d chime in that if you want to save money on power, buy a used Mac Pro/Mac Mini. Typically refreshed with modern hardware and components for a fraction of the price you’d be paying Apple for a new machine. In fact, OWC offers fully refurbished Apple systems – a quad-core i5 Mac Mini can be had for under $400!
Graham,
What awesome advice. Spot on. You are a legend in my own lifetime. Thanks for being so pragmatic in an industry where bulls*** abounds especially when it comes to gear.
I use all the above suggestions and a few others like disabling certain services under Mac not needed for producing my music, I also disable Time Machine. If I need those services in any way I’ll use my 2nd backup studio PC/Mac for those things.
DAW OS: Hackintosh PC running Mac Yosemite perfectly!
My main Pro Tools, Reaper, Etc., computer has the following hardware:
Intel i7-2700K @ 4.5Ghz Liquid Cooled.
16Gig 2133 DDR-3 Low latency Gaming RAM.
512Gig SSD Sata3 Boot and Recording drive (I record here, 3x much less CPU overhead than 4TB array)
2x 2TB 7200 RPM Drives in Mac Raid 0 with 4TB for Backup and Storage.
2x Nvidia 250’s video cards to drive 3 monitors, 1 Mix window, 1 Edit window, 1 for studio/performance area showing guitar tuner plugins. (performer convenience, nice!)
3x Tascam US-1800’s with 30 Pre amps and 18 line level in’s as well as all the MIDI’s
3x Behringer MDX 4600 Compressors – Drums, Bass, Electric, Etc.
1x Behringer MDX 2100 Compressor – Lead and Backup Vocals
3x Head Phone Amps, 1x at mix station and 2x out in Studio to give performers control over headphone volume levels and 2 different playback mixes.
Korg NanoControl2 – 8 slider transport controller.
Mac Keyboard with Pro Tools short cuts and PC 3 button mouse.
3 MIDI keyboards, 1 at the DAW workstation and two in the performance area.
All front ended with a Behringer SX3242FX Analog Desk.
I have my studio Pro Tools Mix Desktop template’d with 114 total Audio record and AUX Mix Tracks. I normally see around 60-65% utilization with my heaviest mixes utilizing 19-23 recorded tracks.
Tweaking:
The biggest thing that robs computer power on my PC’s/Mac’s is Time Machine, turn it off and Manually run it when needed! I also backup after each session to the internal 4TB Raid 0 volume, and this is the same volume Time Machine backs up to. I tested recording to both the SSD and the Raid 0 volume and the SSD provide 3x less CPU overhead, which is why I record to the OS system/boot SSD and I religiously backup afterwards.
Backups:
I also have a 2nd i7-870 Liquid Cooled Hackintosh @ 4.0Ghz that I use as a server for non- DAW related apps for a 2nd set of backups done daily and as a complete backup to the main recording and mixing DAW workstation. (Just in case, I can use this if the main DAW hardware suddenly fails) These 2 PC’s have Gigabit networking and transfers files between them as fast as a regular hard drive. Two times these backups have saved my butt and my audio files about a year ago while I was still running all Windows setups using Reaper! This 2nd PC also dual boots Windows 7 for Audio Apps, like FL Studio when needed from time to time and to record/broadcast video rof the band “From The Edge” and other performers.
BTW, I also have 40 years IT experience in hardware and programming. I design and build both Windows PC’s & Hackintosh’s for DAW’s, Video Editing, Business, Gaming and Servers. I’ve sent these custom PC’s/Hackintosh’s all over the world and the one thing they all have in common is they are all stupid fast for the budget provided! If you or someone else you know needs or would like one let me know. I love designing and building super fast PC’s and I really like to help anyone out. This is just great networking among peers! I build them at cost to you from Newegg.com and I only ask $150 for the 2-4 days it takes to assemble, install and “Tweak” the OS or OS’s for performance and then I hard test them for at least 24 hours for wide spectrum compatibility and reliability. I have build from quad cores up to 8 core 16 thread units, none have ever come back or had any issues from overclocking!
I have no website as of yet, but I do have a private, soon to be public, facebook page for the studio. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1691553517826996/
In the last two plus years I’ve closed down my 25 year old business Opera Data Systems, http://www.operdata.com and I’ve started up a new Audio Studio, Rockville Recording Studios, Inc.
If you have any suggestions on what I have here please feel free to comment!
Thanks,
Vaughn Meck – CEO, Audio Engineer, Rockville Recording Studios, Inc.
Opera Data Systems corrected URL: http://www.operadata.com. I missed an “A” while typing it in, sorry! I conceived, designed, built and programmed this entire site!
Great article. If you look around you can find things that make you studio possible, I got a free Fujitsu Siemens with a dual core, Found out that I could upgrade to Dual Core Quad with a frimware upgrade, 4 extra Gb memory (now 8 gb) — no problems. two monitors, one a 43 inch TV HD, cheaper than a monitor and works very fine for me, boy do I love my home studio.
Good article-Thanks Graham!
Did not no about the SSD drives will change from my 7200 HD. I use a iMac that I purchased in 2009 with 8GB Ram. Use a Mackie ONXY 16740i for my interface and mixer. Still using Pro Tools 10/11 and continue to have good success.
Hi Graham. I am using a HP Pavilion computer, 8 gigs of DDS 33 MHz ram, AMD A6 2.4 MHz processor and 1 T hard drive. I know the processor is not the best but I got a good deal on the computer almost 5 years ago so went with it. Soon I will be installing a second HDD and 8 more gigs of memory. It’s not as fast as most of your subscribers but works great for me. I mostly do only mixes for others using a Focusrite 2i2 usb audio interface into Reaper. I used Sonar LE X3 for a while but just wasn’t satisfied so switched to Reaper and found it is a pretty powerful little DAW that does everything I need. BTW, thanks for the great post.
Hi, Graham. Thanks for detailing what really matters. One point I would raise may be obvious to most, but possibly not for some: If using USB for your external drives, be sure your USB interface is at least USB 2.0, and ideally 3.0 (or whatever is the latest). Very significant throughput (speed) differences, especially from 1.0 to 2.0.
I am using a Mid 2012 Macbook Pro, 2.5 GHz Intel core i5, 16 gb 1600 Mhz DDR3 ram, Mac HD Disk.
I plan to upgrade to a 2 or 3 tb SSD within 3 months. Any suggestions?
You said run my systems on an external HD. I Have a 2 tb External HD WD My Passport.
Should I load my Studio One and Protool to this? I keep all my files here. I have 1.82 TB free.
If so how would I transfer?
Thanks in advance
Mike
Your studio one and pro tools SESSIONS or FILES would be saved and recorded on the external. The actually program/application would be on your main system drive.
Greetings to friends and colleagues from Lithuania.
It’s always good to have a powerful PC, at my home studio i still use an old tower:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.5 Ghz, and just recently upgraded DDR2 RAM to 8 GB (it is hard to find cheap and good bigger DDR2 memory cards).
From software i use Reaper and FL Studio, both works fine but if i’m loading more than 30 tracks, then it gets slower, so there is a room for my improvement. 🙂 In any case, better than nothing, on a tight budget.
Greatings from Hungary,
I would have a question regarding to speed up my MAC:
I have a MACBook Pro 13 – Intel Core i7 with 8GB RAM
available ports on my mac: 2pcs USB; 1pcs Thunderbolt; 1pcs Firewire
I am using Logic Pro 9
The question: Unfortunately the both USB ports are reserved, thus I can use only Thunderbolt or Firewire connection for an external SSD to run my Logic projects onto an external drive, but the thunderbolt connection type SSDs are too expensive for me
Does it make sense if I would use an SSD with Firewire 800 connection? Would this investment speed up my Mac during mixing? If yes, can you suggest me some good quality external drives with firewire 800 connection option?
Thank you for your help in advance.
Hmm. I would take a look at http://www.MacSales.com – they have great resources on all this!
Hey Graham!
Since You’ve Been A Mac User For So Long, I Thought Maybe You Could Help!
So I Feel Like I Should Replace The HDD In My Mac Mini (Late 2014) With An SSD, And Am Wondering The Best Way To Go About Doing That. And Note I’ve Never Changed Out The HDD On A PC Either. And I Know That You Have To Get The Operating System Onto The New HDD Or SSD. Where Should I Start With All This?
Easy answer. Go to http://www.MacSales.com – you can buy your SSDs there and they have amazing tutorials. I literally followed their videos step by step and had no problem. And it was my first time swapping out a hard drive ever in my life.
Hi All!
I bought an HP Z400 with a Xeon hexcore 2.93 ghz processor, 12 gigs of ram, separate hd for recording and a dedicated Nvidia graphic card (at the time it was an Avid approved PC for running pro tools 11. ) it worked flawlessly until I upgraded to pro tools 12.6. Now almost every session I try to mix crashes unexpectedly. There is no error code and I am stumped! Anyone have any insight as to potential fixes for this problem? Btw…. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled version 12.7.1, updated all of my peripheral drivers and still keeps crashing. Anyone?!?!?!
I use a nearly 3 year old core i7 4930k with 16GB of RAM
Admittedly it is a beast and should easily keep to the 5 year rule… BUT I optimise in the following ways
1. SSD for OS (240GB)
2. SSD for projects (128GB)
3. Use linux – My DAW of choice is Harrison Mixbus and it runs magically on Linux and has built in EQ and compression in the channel strips. (as a Linux geek I have a highly optimised version of Gentoo.. but I would recommend AVLinux to any linux novice.. it has all the software you need already installed and it’s free!!!)
I would argue one new point though.. With the new PCIE m.2. SSD drives.. runnin gseparate drives should no longer be neccessary.. That is unless your projects have 1000’s of channels..
Hi Graham, great points made.. I realize your Mac user but I was hoping you might be able shed some light on the topic of using a 7200rpm external drive for streaming record/playback audio..
I’m preparing to launch my first DAW some time this coming Fall.. I’m going to be using Reaper on an HP-2000 Notebook with AMD E2-3000 1.65GHz Processor, 8GB of RAM & 500GB/5400rpm HHD.. My question is, what level of stress relief will my laptop be afforded if I were to stream all my session audio to/from a 1TB x 7200rpm External Hard Drive??..
So far, all of the online “Forum Guru’s” are telling me to “save your money, it’s not that big of a difference” & “Your HP-2000 should be fine with just Reaper & an Audio Interface”..
I just can’t feature that there would be no noticeable, or worthwhile, improvements by shifting all the record/playback duties away from my laptop’s 5400rpm Internal Drive!?..
Hopefully you can clear this up for me because I’m beginning to think none of the people I’ve ran this by so far have ever actually tried it leaving them with no first-hand testimony to offer.. It just seems that I’m being told a very extreme opposite in comparison to all of the “go-for-it” articles I’ve been finding..
Thx & Cheers!!.. 😉
Hi Tim – I’ve certainly recorded tracks on internal 5400 RPM drives of laptops before, but I have had better luck with 7200 RPM drives (internal or external) and even better luck with Solid State Drives as of late.
I have a mini Mac 6 I have recorded music but I’m lost on how to master mix my songs using the mac Mac mini. I was shown how to record through Reaper but I can’t post songs or do videos and add my music because it says file is not supported can you give any advice on what to do. Thank you
I currently use a dell xps l702x laptop with i7 2.0Ghz, 16gb ram, and usb3.0 ext hard drive for projects under S1pro(v3).
One thing to note here, out of the 2 available usb3.0 sockets, you must make sure that you only use, usb3 peripherals in both sockets!
If you have a superfast usb3 drive plugged in, and a usb2 thing in the other socket, it will make your usb3 drive work at sloppy slow usb2 speed. Not good.
This may not apply to many systems, but get your nerd on when installing new stuff, and test it. For HDD, you should be testing read/write speeds. When good, it’s very good.
Why Logic Pro X does not use all CPU cores when there is bounce? For example Izotope RX6 when cleaning the noise from a large (2,2 Gb wav) of the file uses my CPU at full! Final Cut also uses at full.
The screenshots attached: https://yadi.sk/d/MPuLI5dM3KtgAf
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit,Intel Core i7 4770K @ 3.50GHz 31 °C idle to 60 c full(can be overclocked to 4.4ghz, 16gb dual channel ram @666mhz.Motherboard:MSI Z87 MPOWER,2048MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series.Os:119GB Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series, Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB and various tb drives as well ,primo ram disk ultimate ed.(i run REAPER and most vst’s from a 6Gb ram disk with exception of reverberate 2 and addictive drums as these are very large Gb files ( would need 64Gb ram ). sound card is roland super ua and focusrite 18i6. This has been a very good system and takes a lot of vst. my current template has about 40 or 50 vst’s with no problem running 96khz (128) when mixing and can run quite a few vst’s when recording,I use reaper as my monitor and work on my own mostly buiding up layer by layer. I can even run with 192khz but would have to render to stems each time. but quite possible. I would love to upgrade but don’t need to really as the nvme/ optane drives are or will be coming soon and memory needs to get cheaper as my next system will have 64/128 Gb of ram . the processors out now are not much better than what i have. they would only increase the amount of tracks i could use and would not decrease latency much maybe the 7700k at 4 to 5 ghz would help. maybe the ryzen processors might get better/more stable and faster with time. I’l get another 2-3 years out of my system no problem. Have to start saving ….yuk
Hi Graham….please correct me if I’m wrong, but upgrading your hard drive to an SSD won’t give you more processing power, it will give you more storage space. My problem is CPU. I’m working in Reason 9.5, which now allows VST plugins, and I can’t get a song finished because my CPU is off the charts with the plugins engaged. I have a MacBook Pro (13″ mid-2012) with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and it just can’t handle the load. I found your article here and almost bought a 1T SSD, thinking that would solve my problem. I did more research and it appears I’ll need to by new computer with a faster processor. Any recommendations? Thanks!
You’re right in that a faster processor would be the biggest help. But SSDs do make your software run better because the DAW can get audio and information off the drive much quicker than on a normal HD.
I guess I am not understanding one part.
Record To (And Mix From) An External Drive.
I have a Macbook pro, 1TB SSD, 16 g Ram.
I use a 1TB External drive for storing all my files, Music, Video and recording info. Am I already doing what you describe? My Pro Tools and Studio One are on my SSD drive as are all my plug ins and such.
For some reason I cannot wrap my head around this part of the conversation.
Thanks
Mike
Yes! Just save your DAW sessions on the external hard drive.
I built a custom PC, so that way I can upgrade as needed, and keep it future proof’d. I have a Gigabyte GA-X99P-SLI motherboard (comes with thunderbolt 3), so it is fairly futureproof.
– 16gbs of DDR4 Ram
– 512gb SSD boot drive
– 1TB raid HDD project drive (long term storage)
– 128gb ssd project drive
– Intel Xeon E5-1620 V3 3.5ghz quad core dual thread processor
– EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB(GDDR5, 1.17 ghz) Video Card
– LG WH14NS40 Bluray/DVD/CD writer/reader
Runs great, and when I put my interface (2nd gen scarlett 18i20) and protools over to 96k, I can record with a few effects in real time
I loved my first Macbook before it died. I had it for 6 years. Then I got another in 2013 with 4GB RAM thinking I could upgrade it later (like my previous Mac). Nope, I couldn’t. It’s welded onto the logic board! Now that it’s crapping out on me, 4 years later, I started looking into buying a new laptop and I’m really not impressed with Apple anymore. The laptops with the lowest specs cost an arm and a leg. If you want a beast laptop you gotta sacrifice your your first-born child to Apple. Also, Apple just has USB-C ports and I’m not a fan of having all these adapters dangling from by laptop. I just ordered a Dell laptop i7 quad-core with 8GB RAM (upgradable to 32GB, this time I checked).
I was using Pro Tools and Logic on my macs and recently made the switch to Ableton Live 9.
I’m on my second iMac, 16gb. Beast!
Equipped with Fusion drive or SSD?
Currently running on an 2014 Macbook pro with 16 GB ram and 512 SSD and it runs fine! Although I tend to leave the beautiful retina screen and switch to scaled 1920×1600 when running DAW since I need the screen space. Would really like to upgrade to a 5K iMac retina screen (a do photography also) but I also would like an SSD for better performance and that takes a BIG chunk of money… Maybe it would be possible to use your external disk approach and stay on a fusion drive? Anyone with experience regarding iMac with SSD vs Fusion drive performance for any DAW? Currently running Cubase myself…
Macbook pro 15” 2015. Great stuff! Got it almost half the price from Thailand. 2,2 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 (I feel like this made the whole difference). intel iris pro 1536 MB graphics. Initially got it cause I’m a professional designer/illustrator and also a student, but it has proven formidable for my next grand hobby. Even though I’m still new to production, I’ve tried stacking in so many vsts and serums into one project to test out this crazy machine. I’ve never had bigg issues, just some audio dropout or lagging a few times, I keep latency usually to 512-1024 samples, 256 or less for live recording. With some verb, delay and an optional vst for live fx addition, no issues with recording. Only had to re-take once.
Hi Graham i’m facing a system overload with my DAW (logic pro X) and the computar fans start making a lot of noise as well.Do you hav any advises that may help me out
Here are my specs:
-MBP 2012
-dual core i5
-128GB SSD + 500 HDD (i’ve swapd the optical drive)
-12GB of ram
All the mixing sessions are located on the secondary drive (500HDD) and I make sure that no other applications is running at the same time.
Hmm – sounds like your only options are to run your sessions off of the SSD (would be faster) and then backup to the HDD. Other than that, eventually upgrading to a Quad Core mac would make a big difference.
If you have to use an external drive, I would assume you would be using a laptop. An external drive(although thunderbird/usb 3/ (external sata if your motheboard supports it) will always be slower and not as reliable or as fast as an internal device.
I don’t understand this advise as putting in an internal drive is very easy to do 5 to 10 minutes and usually no software or drivers to install.
my system: i7/4770k/ 8lanes @4.2ghz 16 gb ram, drives sam pro 128gb/win 10 pro , sam evo ssd 250gb for songs configs etc (stored on 1 Tb one drive for instant back up to the cloud).2x 2tb drives as well
reaper is my DAW and is run from a 6Gb (via primo ram disk)ram disk(as is most of my plugins except reverb and addictive drums). sound card Roland super ua. I work at 96khz/88khz. I can run most of my plugins no problem at these levels but when i start to get clicks etc i render some tracks to free up resources and this works well. some of my plugs can be resource heavy such as liquid sonics, fusion reverb, addictive, klanghelm compressoretc. the clicks i am referring to are mostly when recording as i need low latency to play guitar synths etc.everything’s ok mixing .(turn the latency right down).
The only upgrade that would improve this system is more ram so i could fit addictive and the liquid sonics rev 2 on the ram disk therefore running it from system memory (approx 24Gb)…
Do you recommend using a PC protection program (like System Mechanic Professional) for optimizing for music production?
Never used one
Here ‘s what I found so far as regards optimizing my computer and the REAPER DAW and some of these very recently as regards latency. I work on my own all the time and build up intruments as i record usually bass /lead/ accoustic , guitar( all through a laney pulse preamp), synth m audio venom , I also use addictive drums.
1.
Addictive Drums I use this as a basic beat when composing / recording ideas . I had always record armed this so as to start it playing automatically when i hit record/PLAY, big mistake it uses 10 /15% RTC so impacts the resources too much and affecting latency big time. Solution switch off rec/arm install a light plugin eg.mine is Klanghelm vumt meter into the addictive folder and have it displayed on the daw as part of your template . addictive will always play automatically when you hit play or record from now on using very little resources Iie.2-3%. record arming tracks uses a lot of ‘real time computing power’ which is the most important with keeping your latency as low as possible and hence keeping clicks at bay etc.
2.
FX processing/Anticipative fx (under buffering in preferences), at best i was recording at 96khz /128samples when i switched this off i was able to record at 64 samples where as before would not play or record at all. so big difference . In real world terms I only need to record at 128 samples the latency is low enough but by doing this my latency headroom just got bigger which is great. Just remember it depends on your souncard as well, this worked with mine so it might work with yours.
3. use ssd drives or if youre upgrading and can afford it use the new nvme drives which are starting to get close to ram speeds. Would be great if you had this as your boot drive.
4. I use a 1Terrabyte one drive by ms and it backs up all my songs automatically to the cloud. great idea and cheap so far you get office as well for 70€ per year.
5. switch off all apps, internet, adobe,one drive, game apps etc.as i have plenty of computing power I don’t find these too taxing on the system.
6. I suppose unpluging any peripherals such as scanners printers etc. (usb devices). will help, I haven’t had any issues with leaving them connected.
7.FANS: use a graphics card with no fan.(less noise and cheap) I don’t use my onboard graphics which comes with the chip. Didn’t like the quality of the graphics.
use the largest fans you can fit in the computer. i have 2x 140mm 5x 120 noctua fans (3 on the heatsink) expensive but they will last you a lifetime 5 years and counting. I have a carbide series corsair case the unusual big square one and it is very quiet and capacious and it sits on an 1/4 inch thick rubber mat on the ground under my worktop well away from my microphone’s etc. I can barely hear this when the room is quiet and more importantly the sound of the fans does not interfere too much.
8. Get a mmo mouse mine is a naga mouse which a has
14 buttons on it and these are mapped to functions in my DAW. using these buttons in conjuntion with the ctrl alt and shift buttons on the keyboard i get 114 actions in my DAW just on my mouse which is nearly all you need and then some. you can play, pause, rec, split ,mark, make regions, nudge ,mute ,color,rec arm, solo etc all on the mouse but make sure to make a good big map of it all and put it on the wall in front of you. I know this is probably outside the scope of this post but this is a game changer in workflow.
9. Install as little apps /programs as possible and disable as much stuff as possible in windows, you need to google this and be careful as you can damage your operating system. Probably more for the com nerds than the average user and to be honest not a huge amount to be gained. I use ccleaner to clean my caches etc .
10. I use a 6Gb ram disk(primo ram disk) for my DAW and most of my plugins bar the rverbs and addictive (too big). This speeds up loading.
SORRY FOR THE LONG POST ………………………
MAY THE ‘REAPER’ BE WITH YOU SOON
Gear etc: MSI Z87 mpower motherboard win10 p, i7 4770k,4/8 quad core boost switched off, Oc’d to 4.2ghz, 16gb ram, DAW Reaper, main drives Samsung pro 840 128gb, samsung evo 250gb (Daw projects stored here on a 1tb capacity onedrive (cheapest cloud drive) , 2x2tb drives.
Sound card Roland super Ua (2in/2out)
Laney pulse preamp. monitors Tannoy Reveal 502,very old wharfedale modus five hifi speakers, logitech suround system 5.1.
Hey man,
I have a brand new 2017 MacBook Air. I’m working in garageband on a project that’s about 24 tracks so far. Lot’s of plugins and automation. 2 questions for you. Is it better to add additional audio tracks, or consolidate tracks through automation. And do you have any suggestions for me to help upgrade my computer’s operating power? I haven’t gone the external drive route yet, but thinking of doing so. Also wondering if I should have just gotten a pro instead of an air.
Any feedback would be so much appreciated.
Ian
The biggest contributor to your computer’s power when mixing is the processor. Multicores is best. Also get as much as RAM as you can fit in the machine.
Hey, I’m running a bit of a Frankenstein at this point and looking to upgrade. I have an AMD quad core 3.4ghz. Can’t remember the name. 8GB ram, 1TB hard drive.
I use Sonar 8.5 (probably need to upgrade that soon too but it works for me) and POD Farm for most of my instruments.
I found that ghz made a big difference when I first upgraded this computer, it had a quad core but was like 1.8ghz and sucked… so, now I’m looking to upgrade.
Any advice for the new Intel Optane stuff? I’ve been reading up on it and it sounds like if I bought a new/refurbished desktop with a 7th gen I-5 processor, 12GB ram, and even the 16GB Optane processor then I’d be set with a regular hard drive, rather than getting a unit with a HDD and SSD and moving files around.
Any thoughts on the Optane stuff? Think having an SSD for my OS and projects saving to there would be better than the Optane just speeding up my read and write speeds?
Thanks,
Is it a good idea to use an SSD mainly for DAW’s while using an external drive for recording and mixing?
Are you still working from this same computer after upgrading your ram/ hd? How’s it running? My laptop is 4 y/o and am trying to determine if it still as a lot of life in it and would be worth adding 8gb of ram.
Would it be worth maxing the ram on my Four year old PC laptop? Are you still using the Mac mini server?
I would if I were you. I actually JUST replaced my Mac Mini after 7 years.
Thanks for the information, I’m going to try it now, Thanks.
Gday guys,I have an iMac i3 dual core 3.2ghz cpu 4gb ram running Hi Sierra and thinking of upping the ram to 16gb and putting in an ssd, at the moment I’m using Garageband and it seems to run ok but lags a little (Im new to all this stuff).
So am I waisting my money, should I buy a better computer. it has a decent size cpu but only a dual core, is that a major problem. ill mainly be recording one instrument at a time maybe 2 or 3 occasionally. thanks
Hey there, I have a Del Inspiron M531R-5535 that is being short for me now, it has 12 GB of RAM and an AMD-A8 processor, this laptop have with me since 2014, so I think was worth, but it’s time for an upgrade don’t you said? I was thinking of buying a refurbished one, can you recommend me where to look? thank you