HELP :U

[anuj soni]

Hi folks so this summer i am building my workstation for music production & maybe a bit basic video editing i am familiar with ableton & fl studio.
In my gears i have a launchpad pro, old yamaha piano, 2i4 2nd gen audio interface & blue spark mic
I occasionally play cs go or random games no hardcore gaming
Musically speaking i'm not a Pro & have no gigs at the moment i'm on a intermediate level & working as an individual
I am on a decent budget upto 1000 dollars prices vary a lot in my country
So i am confused with plenty of research on specs & mixed up a lot of stuff & can't come to a decision So please help me out thanks in advance & correct me if i'm wrong


What's the trick :- ( laptop vs pc)

As i was a laptop user i really like the features of portability, accessibility, wifi, bluetooth & stuff and going back to desktop will kill my comfort zone but it doesn't matter i want the best i'm looking for future proof system for 5-6 years at least cuz back in time i was slammed by obsolete tech a lot .

For a fact i know DAW's will have the same requirements over years & years it's not like gaming where you have to upgrade time to time so what i think that getting a decent or recommended purpose processor & investing less in it & more in ssd like 500 gb (230 $) & 16gb ram (147 $) will do the trick for me ?? or vice- versa

Which makes me wanna go for a laptop i think laptop processor will serve it's purpose & ssd /ram will overcome in performance ?? but performance wise pc wins ?? i don't want to pay for something extra which i won't use or won't help so please help me out with this one


Me vs Pc CPU - AMD or INTEL- K series/non K series, Overclocking , Hyperthreading (correct me if i'm wrong )

For ableton single core performance matters most & more cores don't matter so i think AMD is not effective & feasible ???
In intel quad or hyperthreading is what i can get (i5 and i7 6th or 7th generation)

I don't get the deal with k and non k like is overclocking important as per my use which is primarily music production cuz honestly i don't know a thing about it & heard that it's good for boost like in gaming which is not my main concern so is it worth it ?? cuz it also adds extra cost for fan & z board & same for hyperthreading like does it help if i go in i7 series

in AMD fx8350 200 dollar & ryzen 1700 385 dollar

In my wishlist i have these processors with price in my region :

I7 7700 - 340 dollar
I5 7600 - 255 dollar
I5 7400 - 194 dollar
I5 7500 - 216 dollar
I5 6600 - 255 dollar

With addition of k few more bucks with few more on other parts

for cpu & mob -

My minimum budget - 310 $
My maximum budget - 460 $

For the hard disk -

My query is can i install ableton in my ssd & windows in hdd will it work good or both os & ableton should be in ssd ???

For the OS -

which will have less/no issues in ableton windows 10/pro, 8/8.1 ???


In the same budget i am going for monitor too :p
That i think dell 221h is fine i am thinking of getting second one maybe used

So is dual monitors are beneficial how ?

[Astralv]

Building computer is very easy, yet, very hard. The hard part is that it is highly risky because you dealing with expansive parts. If you ask me personally, I would tell you that music workstation should be Intel based only, no AMD, but some would disagree, especially with Ryzen release. I would never go AMD road, this is like Macs v/ PC, I am Intel person. Here is article that compares Rizen with Intel i7 in gaming.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd ... ,4977.html

When you finish reading, go to CPU section of the site and read articles. Remember, you will see most Ryzen CPU articles on first 5 pages because Ryzen was recently released- you have to go few pages further to find Intel articles. Kaby Lake i7 was released in January. Usually new processors are released every year to 1.5 year, so we don't expect new processors until next summer.

Definitely Desktop has advantage over lap top. If you need flexibility, have both- desktop to work on at home, lap top to go. Desktop allows to place multiple SSDs and HDDs, fans, graphic cards. laptop- what you see is what you get.

The size of SSD depends on what you want to do. If you planning to ever use Kontakt instruments (Native Instruments Komplete- Kontakt), and you must use it if you want to make good music, you will need a lot of storage space. $1000 is not big budget for something you planning to use for the next 5-6 years.

What kind of musician are you? Do you play guitar or keys? What kind of music? For most kinds of electronic music and cinematic, you will need storage. Are you planning on using hardware synths or software? This is important. For me 500Gb drive filled at about 6 months.

I would recommend Intel i7 Kaby Lake 7770K
Corsair memory, 16 Gb at least.
Air cooling
800W power supply, Gold certified (Bronze is minimum if you willing to take your chances)
Asus motherboard (you can also consider Gigabyte, MSI)
Samsung M2 1 TB SSD 960 Evo
Samsung 1TB SSD for software synths
Seagate 2 TB for recording
Seagate 4TB storage (WD Black supposed to be better but more expansive. Seagate works well).
Graphics card in $250-300 price range.

You should install your OS and Abelson (or any DAW) on C drive, which will be your SSD (M.2 if you can).

[cron]

Just wanted to add that, regarding the K chips, you should absolutely be overclocking - particularly if Ableton is sensitive to single thread performance (although it seems to manage multicore pretty well from my use). It's what the K chips are designed to do. All Intel processors from i3 to i7 have near-identical single thread performance (assuming they're running at the same clock speeds) and overclocking is the only way you can increase that. I'm currently running an Ivy Bridge i5 at 4.5GHz which absolutely smashes the equivalent (stock clock) i7 in single thread and just about draws level with it in (perfectly) multithreaded tasks.

The suggestions above are great, but I'd personally go a bit easier on the SSDs. Having a big SSD is great if you're using enormous Kontakt libraries that need excellent disk streaming performance or whatever, but otherwise you're only really going to be installing Windows and your programs on it. I don't use anything like that and my tracks tend to contain only very light sampling, so my 128 GB SSD is more than large enough to host Windows and all my music software. There's even room left over for a game or three! I have a 1TB HDD for my samples and the like.

edit: apologies, just noted that Astralv says exactly the same thing re SSDs and Kontakt

[Astralv]

I don't install any Kontakt on C. But OS takes a lot of space as well as main DAW and SSDs use space differently than HDD. The space is just disappears. 128 GB is a joke. 256GB is a joke. 500Gb lasted less than a year for me, and I install everything on other drives. No Kontakt libraries, no sample libraries on C. It just that software synths still manage to install their parts to C even when you specify other location for the install and data. If no software synths will be installed, then 500Gb should be ok. I saw 960Gb Sandisk on sale today for $200. Do it right the first time.

[Dominus]

I don't install any Kontakt on C. But OS takes a lot of space as well as main DAW and SSDs use space differently than HDD. The space is just disappears. 128 GB is a joke. 256GB is a joke. 500Gb lasted less than a year for me, and I install everything on other drives. No Kontakt libraries, no sample libraries on C. It just that software synths still manage to install their parts to C even when you specify other location for the install and data. If no software synths will be installed, then 500Gb should be ok. I saw 960Gb Sandisk on sale today for $200. Do it right the first time.

You're doing something wrong.

I ran a 120GB for years, still had 30+GB free when I upgraded to a 500GB. Check your desktop and My Documents folders. Are you recording to your boot drive?

[Astralv]

I appreciate the desire to help. I use Cakewalk Sonar and its download location is on C. It has updates every month. If you not installing software synths, you will be ok. Software synths would ask, "Where do you want to install .dll file?" You be like, "D/Music/VSTPlugins". It says, Ok. Next thing you know- it installed small .dll file on D drive but huge library folder somewhere to C/Users/Astralv/Synth/Samples. You install 2Gb, but C drives gets smaller 4Gb. Some software synths game me such a hard time when I installed them on other drives, that I gave up, uninstalled them and then reinstalled to C as it wanted to be installed. Older synths get very confused when you change location, so often you just leave it on C. Yes, my Documents have software synths tentacles everywhere. Believe me, I try very hard to install on Other drives. I have 6 drives. I avoid C drive much as possible but it still gets filled. My first experience was when I bought first lap top with SSD from Dell. They charged $800 more for jumping from 60GB drive to 120GB drive. So I was sooo proud for getting 120. It came with 40GB already taken buy OS and bloware. Installed Cakewalk and it was already 70GB. Protools- 30GB. Native Instruments....

[Guenon]

I'd like to weigh in with a contrasting anecdote. Reading what Astralv wrote above comes as a surprise to me, as I've never found it particularly troublesome to keep the OS/application/plugin partition (C) lean and compact, and have project/data partitions separate from that.

I've always considered it the best practice, allowing me to keep the actual system partition small and quick to back up, and I can restore (and have restored) it from an image very conveniently. As all actual project/data material is on another partition, restoring a 100% functional system is a non-issue even in relatively trivial "aw, shucks" situations, not just catastrophic scenarios like drive failure. Just go grab a coffee and it's done, and work can continue with a completely pristine system. I've done it 3-4 times in the last 4-5 years (and it has also saved my ass during an actual drive failure), so I've been glad I have it set up this way.

Using Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, there's currently 56 GB used on my C partition. It's a professional system with Live Suite, Studio One Pro and Reaper, full Komplete 10 Ultimate, Omnisphere and Trilian, Waves Sound Design Suite, most u-he and Fabfilter stuff, Korg Legacy Collection, libraries from Spitfire Audio, ProjectSAM, Embertone and so on, to name a few go-tos. All my actual software, including plugins, is installed on the C partition, and their sound libraries are located elsewhere. I haven't seen any anomalous growth of the C partition, and it has been very compact and predictable for years even with these kinds of large product lines installed.

[Zombie Queen]

Using Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, there's currently 56 GB used on my C partition.

Similar over here. W7.64 about 40GB, XP.32 less than 30GB, I've got Sonar, loads of synths, several Kontakt versions and whole Adobe suite (although pretty old one) fit in there. Makes it easy to keep whole disc image backups on external drives. Sample libraries dwell on separate SSD. Games, downloads, desktop folders, tmp and non-essential stuff are on platter drive. You can easily get away with 128GB system SSD for W7, I've been comfortable with 40GB SSD for years with XP. Also you can easily move stuff around different discs with junction links.
W10 doesn't take much more space itself, but it can go rampage with automatic updates, as it can attempt to download and install the whole new system incarnation at random times, while trying to keep old system backed up.

800W power supply

When done picking parts, check on some PSU calculator. Actual power consumption on a DAW will be more like 200W on peak. 500W should be more than enough, just pick a respectable brand.

If multi-thread doesn't matter, see:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
i3-7320 is almost as fast as i7-7700K on single core at half the price, just saying.

[bustedfist]

I'd like to weigh in with a contrasting anecdote. Reading what Astralv wrote above comes as a surprise to me, as I've never found it particularly troublesome to keep the OS/application/plugin partition (C) lean and compact, and have project/data partitions separate from that.

I've always considered it the best practice, allowing me to keep the actual system partition small and quick to back up, and I can restore (and have restored) it from an image very conveniently. As all actual project/data material is on another partition, restoring a 100% functional system is a non-issue even in relatively trivial "aw, shucks" situations, not just catastrophic scenarios like drive failure. Just go grab a coffee and it's done, and work can continue with a completely pristine system. I've done it 3-4 times in the last 4-5 years (and it has also saved my ass during an actual drive failure), so I've been glad I have it set up this way.

Using Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, there's currently 56 GB used on my C partition. It's a professional system with Live Suite, Studio One Pro and Reaper, full Komplete 10 Ultimate, Omnisphere and Trilian, Waves Sound Design Suite, most u-he and Fabfilter stuff, Korg Legacy Collection, libraries from Spitfire Audio, ProjectSAM, Embertone and so on, to name a few go-tos. All my actual software, including plugins, is installed on the C partition, and their sound libraries are located elsewhere. I haven't seen any anomalous growth of the C partition, and it has been very compact and predictable for years even with these kinds of large product lines installed.

Due to reading and writing being impossible at the same time, on the same disk, that's not ideal. A separate drive for anything other than OS is best. A 3rd for streaming samples, etc covers everything.

My primary drive contains nothing but OS's and programs. Data's on another and projects yet another. I have XP -W10 including a couple of Linux installs on the main drive.

[Guenon]

Due to reading and writing being impossible at the same time, on the same disk, that's not ideal. A separate drive for anything other than OS is best. A 3rd for streaming samples, etc covers everything.

My project data and instrument library partitions are on separate physical drives. The rest of the physical hard drive on which the C partition resides is for low usage "inert" storage, not used in an active way when working on realtime projects. So very much like yours, my primary drive is for active use of OS and programs only, including plugin binaries, and the rest of the drives are for the project/data/library stuff.

The main point was, my experience contrasts quite a lot with the observation that it's difficult to keep the C drive from bloating if/when working with this kind of software

[Astralv]

I have to take back my statement about processors release. Looks like we may have new Intels this year.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/2 ... dium=title

I will get back to you regarding the C drive space. I know that my C drive on 2013 computer is about 350 GB now, and my new computer that is hardly in use, still in installation process has more than 60 Gb taken.

[Astralv]

Using Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, there's currently 56 GB used on my C partition.

Similar over here. W7.64 about 40GB, XP.32 less than 30GB, I've got Sonar, loads of synths, several Kontakt versions and whole Adobe suite (although pretty old one) fit in there. Makes it easy to keep whole disc image backups on external drives. Sample libraries dwell on separate SSD. Games, downloads, desktop folders, tmp and non-essential stuff are on platter drive. You can easily get away with 128GB system SSD for W7, I've been comfortable with 40GB SSD for years with XP. Also you can easily move stuff around different discs with junction links.
W10 doesn't take much more space itself, but it can go rampage with automatic updates, as it can attempt to download and install the whole new system incarnation at random times, while trying to keep old system backed up.

800W power supply

When done picking parts, check on some PSU calculator. Actual power consumption on a DAW will be more like 200W on peak. 500W should be more than enough, just pick a respectable brand.

If multi-thread doesn't matter, see:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
i3-7320 is almost as fast as i7-7700K on single core at half the price, just saying.

You know how many times I have been asked how much power I have in the power supply. I would say 600W is ok, but they dont cost so much. There is no need to save penny and then wonder why computer is constantly restarting or USB ports not working correctly. The OP says- he will play some games, which means graphic card. Why not get extra power? Why not get larger SSD? I dont understand the attitude of saving money. I get it- building custom computer used to be cheaper than buying one from manufacturer and we wanted to find least expansive parts to celebrate the advantage. I have seen many people build purposely over kill systems just for fun of having the best system available at a time. Most of us, grown up adults can afford to build good computer once in 5 years. Students, single parents, professional musicians (ha ha- just kidding- someone said being professional means making money only by music and nothing else) are all another story, but power supply is not that expansive to save on it, so as SSD, so as most of the parts. And you recommend Intel I3, seriously? If you save $200, that is $40 saving a year. That is one lunch a year. I would rather go hungry for a day than buy I3.

[bustedfist]

No benefit for an over rated power supply, anything not used produces more heat.

[pekbro]

Unless its a smart power supply that only powers up when needed.

[Astralv]

Heat can be useful in winter.