Spec me a system for music production

Hunders

Hunders

Hunders

Soldato
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My friend asked me to post this up on here to see what you lot can come up with.

He needs a tower built that will primarily be used for music production with the ability to run some non-intensive games like football manager and web browsing on the side.

He wants to spend £250 but will stretch to £300 if he has to.

Just the tower is needed so don't worry about mice, keyboards and monitors etc etc.

Cheers:cool:
 
doesn't sound like a lot of dollar to spend to me.
what kind of music production?
what type of interface does he use for recording/playback?
what software will he be running?

I would look at the cheapo OCUK prebuilds.

I myself run on an old XP-2500+ which is acceptable...although the amount of newers plugins I can run simultaniously is limited.

HD space is important. but any modern processors should suit the home hobby producer.
 
This might do, the soundcard doesn't have midi in or anything like that but it should be a step up from onboard.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.50GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Asus Vintage V3-M2V890 Barebones System - AMD64 (Socket AM2) £52.99
(£62.26) £52.99
(£62.26)
LiteON DH-20A4P-21C 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (PCI-Express) (30SB082000000) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £20.49
(£24.08) £20.49
(£24.08)
Samsung SpinPoint T 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD321KJ) £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Sub Total : £204.44
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £37.52
Total : £251.91
 
What music apps does he use? Cubase, Reason, Logic?
Is he prepared to overclock? Is silence an issue?

As a rough guide, with that budget I'd personally consider an E2xxx chip overclocked (£50) with a decent cooler (£15), 2 gigs of the OCZ PC2-6400 (£25), a budget P35 mobo (£50), and a budget graphics card (£40). I recommend the Sonata III on a budget because of its included PSU (£70).

That takes you up to about £250. You're gonna need a HD on top of this, so the size of which is largely up to your friend. 500Gb would seem reasonable, so thats gonna cost another £60 or so.

If you want, you could probably save money and skimp on case and PSU if you like, since you arent powering any high graphics cards your power supply needs aren't too demanding.

It's a similar spec to mine. I like a powerful CPU as I know how intensive things can get sometimes with multiple VSTis etc.

Oh and yeah - I forgot a soundcard. Haha. In which case you might have to go for something a little less powerful to fit this in.
 
semi-pro waster said:
This might do, the soundcard doesn't have midi in or anything like that but it should be a step up from onboard.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.50GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Asus Vintage V3-M2V890 Barebones System - AMD64 (Socket AM2) £52.99
(£62.26) £52.99
(£62.26)
LiteON DH-20A4P-21C 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (PCI-Express) (30SB082000000) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £20.49
(£24.08) £20.49
(£24.08)
Samsung SpinPoint T 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD321KJ) £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Sub Total : £204.44
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £37.52
Total : £251.91
Click to expand...

this is good...I would just never use an SB card for audio apps ever again really. but then I have had the hobby for a long time and built up little bits and pieces as and when money permits.

edit:
can't believe the price of the barebones rig....amazing!
 
lozza23_uk said:
this is good...I would just never use an SB card for audio apps ever again really. but then I have had the hobby for a long time and built up little bits and pieces as and when money permits.
Click to expand...

Aye, I'd consider saving for something like the M-Audio Audiophile series. If you cant budget for it just yet, consider a cheap sound card to being with.
 
How much are M-Audio soundcards nowadays? They've always been top notch for music production, and what I've used when building systems for studios.
 
I forgot to add, he is going to use the HDD from his current system so there is no need for one.

To be honest, I can't really answer some of these questions because I am not entirely clued up about all this music production jazz. I know that he has monitor speakers, a microphone and that he uses Fruity Loops.
 
i have an external M-audio box with a couple of preamps (again just home recording stuff). it was about 140 IIRC.

internal M-audio delta cards range from 80quid upwards I believe.
 
If he doesn't need a hard drive then that frees up a bit of the budget to put towards a decent soundcard. He could also drop back to an X2 4400 to save a little bit more cash if needed.
 
Hunders said:
I forgot to add, he is going to use the HDD from his current system so there is no need for one.

To be honest, I can't really answer some of these questions because I am not entirely clued up about all this music production jazz. I know that he has monitor speakers, a microphone and that he uses Fruity Loops.
Click to expand...

he will need a decent interface to provide signal to his monitors, a preamp for his microphone. I would suggest an external interface that can provide unbal/balanced monitor outs, and a preamp for the mic.

Firewire or USB shouldnt matter for only a couple of input channels.
m-audio fasttrack for about 60notes....all in one soundcard issue resolved.
 
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