Build for vst music production

peejay123

peejay123

peejay123

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18 Jun 2008
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14
Hi all

I'm trying to work out a build for a home music studio PC, but it'll be my first build and I need a bit of advice making sure it all fits together.

I work mainly with VST instruments which eat up processor power, so the CPU is by far my main priority. I will probably go for an i7.

I will also be recording, so need a good sized, quick hard drive and reasonable amount of memory. Thinking 2TB drive and 8gb-16gb RAM.

The other thing I need is for it to be quiet.

I've got a budget of up to £1000 (£1200 with vat).

I've tried a System Configurator build, see below, that I think is about right, but would really appreciate any suggestions on how I can improve it - thinking of also adding an SSD...

- Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
- Asus P8Z77-V LX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
- Intel Core i7-2700K 3.50GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
- Noctua NH-U12P SE2 Dual Fan Quiet CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1156/LGA1155/LGA775/AM2/AM2+/AM3)
- Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit
- Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001)
- OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
- PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk II 950w '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply
- Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter
- Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649)

Don't need monitor, keyboard or mouse. But I do want to run two monitors - can I do this from the processor without a separate graphics card?

Came in at £864.25 (including graphics card).

Any advice much appreciated. Cheers.
 
Do you have any specific soundcard I/O requirements?

You'll definitely want as much ram as you can afford to stuff in there too, which should be easy since you don't need to spend a lot on a video card.
 
I don't know if you have your soundcard needs sorted out, but here's a build to start with:
I figured you could use the two 2tb HDD's in raid with programs running from the SSD.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £269.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC256B/WW) **BTS £20 CASHBACK** £149.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x Fractal Design Define R4 Midi Tower Case - Titanium Grey £99.98
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
2 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £74.99 (£149.98)
2 x TeamGroup Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED316G1600HC11DC) £64.99 (£129.98)
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £62.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 140 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £39.95
1 x Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter £29.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £1,165.31 (includes shipping : £11.25).

 
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Oh cool. Cheers.
Updated.

If anything, I'd maybe lose a bit of storage and spend the saving on a higher end case with good sound damping. Something like a Fractal R4 would look pretty classy in a home studio.

Edit: updated with the above.
 
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The Antec 300 isn't famed for its quietness. It's worth looking at some of the cases that have been designed to be quiet (Corsair 550D, Fractal R4, etc.).
 
Yaay!

Btw, I'm starting to think this rig is slight overkill perhaps.
I guess it depends on how serious he wants to take it and at what level he's at with his production skills/knowledge.
 
Uncle Petey said:
Not if they live in a zoo or the antarctic...
Click to expand...

Your suggested cart looks more sensible with the slimmed down memory and the smaller drives. OP can easily tweak both anyway.

It's a shame the 'Seasonic X-Series 460w FANLESS' PSUs are so expensive. One would suit this quite well.
 
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Amazing! Thanks for all your very quick responses. I like that build a lot. Just a few things to iron out then...

First off, I have a USB2 Audio interface (M-Audio Fast Track Pro 8R), so that's all sorted.

I am pretty experienced (15-20 yrs) in electronic music production as a hobby and I am taking the build quite seriously for the budget, but with VST instrumentation/CPU-load being my first priority – I've eventually been limited by CPU power on every PC & Mac I've ever had, but not limited by storage or RAM.

I do intend to do more recording so the RAID suggestion is welcome (I assume RAID 0?), but from what I've read, it can be a nightmare when it fails and more speed than I'll ever need as I work with very few samples in my music. I would probably rather plough more into a bigger SSD or more powerful CPU than have a RAID array – what do you think?

That fanless PSU is very tempting. What do you think about putting in the cheapest PSU for now and pre-ordering the Seasonic and swapping them when it's in? Would this be a lot of effort?

Thanks all.
 
What DAW do you use? I produce EM music myself, house music to be precise. I've never been limited by cpu power, it's always the ram that has held me back. This is using Reason.

I would say you could save money by getting an i5 and put the money towards 32gb of ram, the DAW would fly with 32gb of ram and an i5, i could be wrong but i highly doubt an i7 will make any difference to the smoothness of placing vst/effects/instruments in and out of your workspace.

EDIT: Just going to add something here, i know that i've never been restricted by cpu power because i have system monitor programs on my mac, i've just opened reason here, i've got 15 instruments in my workspace, cpu usage is 65%, ram usage is 90%. I've got a 2.0ghz i7 2635qm in my mac and 8gb of ram. I know its a i7 that i have but compared to a desktop i5 ivy, it's child's play in terms of speed and power.
 
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I use Cubase 5. I create experimental/noise music and almost everything is synthesis. I used Reason extensively in the early 2000s, it makes use of sampled sound packs within some of its instruments and that causes the extra RAM requirements. I synthesise 90% of everything I use (only samples for drums and occasional live overdub) pushing VST synths and FX to the limit. The VSTs I use don't use up a lot of memory, but they are CPU hungry.

I could easily be running 5 synths and 10 fx just for one musical track, multiply that by the amount of tracks I use to build up a song (say another 5-10) and you've got a CPU beast. As I say, I've never needed more memory –*it's always the CPU meter that maxes out. I also don't want to bounce anything.

16mb RAM should be enough and if not, it's not too much hassle or cost down the line to improve it (unlike CPU).
 
Ah ok, just goes to show, different DAW's have different usage, i've only been using Reason 6/6.5 for about 4 months, it's the only DAW ive used as well. It's only ever been ram thats been an issue, looking to upgrade to 16gb in the not too distant future.

How do you compare Cubase to Reason? I'm finding it a bit annoying that i cant import VST's into Reason like other Daws can, Propellerheads really need to start listening to their customers about that. Although i quite like it that the sounds i do make are my sounds (to some extent anyway) rather than just importing loads of other peoples creations.

As for builds, Petey's looks good, i would change the OCUK dvd rw though, heard a few people say thats its quite whiney compared to say a Samsung?Sony which is only £1/£2 more.
 
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It's also about what you use the DAW for. I used max out the CPU with Reason as well!

Cubase and Reason are very different. I moved away from Reason for two reasons. First off I had a band at the time and you couldn't record audio into Reason, secondly I found the synths really bland and FX limited – but this was with version 1 and 2.

I understand why Propellerheads don't want to support VSTs in Reason. As soon as they do that, they are no longer in control of the software and pretty soon people will complain about it crashing all the time etc. Reason is designed for creating electronic/dance music, a lot VSTs aren't build for that purpose – square pegs, round holes, blah blah blah...

Cubase (like Logic, Protools etc) is an all-rounder, you can use it for any kind of music/sound production. I would say it's not all that user-friendly for what I do, but it's what I'm used to now. I should have learnt Ableton Live –*I see that as the crossover between Reason and VST-compatible DAWs.

Thanks for the DVD RW tip, well worth the extra pennies!
 
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