Using an SSD as the main OS and applications drive makes a big difference to the speed of startup and other read/write intensive tasks.īut if you use one, you’ll likely have to settle for less storage on your system volume-SSDs cost more per GB than HDDs. Today’s solid-state drives (SSDs) are considerably faster than conventional hard disks (HDDs). More is better, but the speed matters as well. Storage refers to your computer’s internal space for saving files and applications. Increasing the amount of RAM available in your system will increase its performance-up to a point.ĭespite how important RAM may seem, audio tasks are surprisingly forgiving on your system’s memory.Ĩ GB is plenty for the majority of music production processing.ġ6 or 32 GB can help if you plan to work with the large sample libraries that are needed to emulate acoustic instruments realistically.īut think twice before you pay steep prices to max out your computer’s RAM. It’s common to see RAM configurations of up to 64 GB and beyond in high-end builds. In the early days of computing, RAM was extremely expensive.īut today’s computer parts are much more economical. It’s the extremely fast working memory your computer uses to store information it needs right away. Memory refers to your computer’s RAM specification. The bottom line is that when it comes to your CPU, the best advice is the get the processor with the most cores and the highest clock speed you can afford.Īt minimum you should be looking for a processor with at least two cores and clock speed no lower than 2.2 GHz. More CPU cores allow for better performance in applications that support multi-threading.Īll major DAWs take advantage of multi-threading, but single-threaded performance is still important for audio. Higher clock speed means faster overall pace of the calculations performed by the CPU.īut additional cores are also important. It’s the component where the fundamental operations of your computer take place.ĬPU performance is measured by clock speed and number of cores.
I’ll walk you through each one in detail.
The most important computer specifications for music production are: Those parts have different specifications that result in different performance in your system. Your music computer is only as good as the sum of its parts. To understand this article you’ll need a little background in computer components. In this article I’ll lay out everything you need to know to choose the right computer for your home studio. If you’re buying or building a rig specifically for music there are some important factors to consider to get the best laptop or desktop computer for audio production. In fact, if you’re reading this article on your laptop or desktop, your machine probably has plenty of power to get started with music.īut if you don’t even know where to begin, choosing the right computer is difficult. Good computers for audio production have never been more accessible. A music production computer is your first step toward building your own home studio.