We’ve all been there at some point while working on a track - the CPU meter spikes and panic sets in. Is it time for a new computer?
Well, if you’re considering going down the route of building your own PC specifically for audio, we’ve got you covered as Nate aka Protoculture is doing exactly that in this new 14 part course.
Obviously, there is a multitude of options when it comes to building your own PC, but in this detailed course, Nate explains what to look out for when choosing your components along with best practices when building your machine. We also look at running system checks, how to install the operating system itself and then optimising this for audio production before running some benchmark tests and getting some useful apps that’ll help streamline your workflow.
He even wades into the age-old debate of Mac vs PC…brave man!
A smooth-running computer that won’t hinder your creativity is vital if you’re serious about making music. So if yours is struggling and you’re thinking about upgrading, you need to watch this course!
Some great advice for people here Nate. I have the same 5900x in use for music production and it handles it with ease!
And thanks for the recommendation with bulk rename utility I was using the powerrename tool in Microsoft’s powertoys but it lacks some of the features in BRU so I’m looking forward to using this new tool.
this course was extremely helpful as I have been thinking about building a new computer. I hope that sonic academy will continue to make more course focusing on tech like this one. thanks for the knowledge.
This course came around at exactly the right time for me. I am looking for a new pc this month. The specifications you give are really useful, but I would rather have a professional to put it together for me. I don’t trust myself with the electrics.
what an awesome tutorial on tec and what’s needed for buiding an audio machine , I had no idea that this was possible on windows machines , as I switched to Mac years ago but its been pricey and annoying as the Mac products don’t last , but now im thinking of going windows again , as I’ve just built myself a new pc for gaming .
protoculture really knows his stuff, thank u
Hi. Just one remark from my side regarding the graphics card. I’ve built a similar setup one year ago and I ran into a lot of issues with the graphics card Nvidia GT1030. I was using Ableton and I could not get very low latencies working due to this graphics card. Only when I’ve changed the graphics card to one with active cooling and more graphics power the system latencies dropped down to an acceptable amount. So be warned in case you choose this silent Nvidia graphics card on Windows, that you might run into the same issue. I spend over 20 hours to figure out that the graphics card was the issue.
Hi there. I’ve performed the benchmarks with almost the same PC configuration like you have and with the Cubase Benchmark I’m only able to get to roughly 70 tracks instead of 100 tracks. What would also be good to know is, which buffer-size you set for you audio card and which audio card you are using. I’m using a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 amd I set the buffer-size to 128.
@Protoculture Can you please add those additional infos here in the comments?
What is also strange. I’m using a Samsung Pro 1TB M2 drive, but when I’m performing the test with crystalDiskMark, I only get 3300 MB/s instead of 4xxx like it’s shown in your video. The Pro version should also be more than 4xxx MB/s.
My buffer is 128 for recording but I switch it up to 512 when I don’t need the reduction in latency. I’m also not using a Samsung Drive. I’ve got a Sabrent.
