#204

I have been putting off buying a new machine for a long time, basically working with a string of inherited computers for the last 8 years or so… I’m afraid this option isn’t cutting it anymore and at this point I’m pretty naive about what makes for a good sound desktop set up. Any recommendations as to what is a minimum spec I should look at to ensure it doesn’t get slowed down/outdated in a couple of years? I don’t do any gaming or anything, so mostly just for audio but also other art related things like image editing and possibly some light video at some point. I like the look of these smaller desktops being a bit portable for moving to a location if needed, but I worry a bit about hard drive space as doing editing off of and keep track of piles of external drives is really frustrating. Maybe going for ye olde tower is a bit better for being able to have larger drives with some sort of RAID set-up, or doing a rackmount case.

I prefer the mac OS but I can’t afford to stay in, nor do I really want to stay in, Apple’s increasingly expensive and interconnected ecosystem that doesn’t have ports. I’ll probably see if I can upgrade my old pro a bit with an SSD drive so I also have a laptop and mac option for any software I can’t get on the PC.

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#205

CPU specs are really kind of plateauing, and the push is toward multi-core. If you’re looking at desktops, I think you’ll get more bang for your buck with more cores and an older processor. Buy the one that was $15,000 and top of the line five or six years ago but is a fraction of that price now…

I think the next computer I get will be AMD because of all the horrible security issues with Intel processors but I’m not totally sure. I just upgraded my laptop to a 2015 thinkpad last year and don’t expect to replace it anytime soon. The older models in the AMD “threadripper” series are getting pretty cheap though.

Also: give linux a chance if you weren’t already thinking of it!

If you’re running linux a five year old i-series Intel CPU with 4 threads and 8GB of RAM is tons of horsepower. This is the CPU in my primary computer, an x250 thinkpad: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/85213/intel-core-i5-5300u-processor-3m-cache-up-to-2-90-ghz.html (Which was ~$200 when I bought it about a year ago.)

Windows, I don’t know. You might be fine with something similar?

The NUC is cool too but if the size isn’t very important, you can do much better for much cheaper building a normal sized desktop tower… the difference between my $800 NUC and my $200 thinkpad isn’t so huge. I have the NUC mostly for shows and installations, although it’s nice having a dedicated render box in between!

Edit: also, while you consider it… maybe pick up a raspberry pi 4 & heat sink, overclock it and add an SSD and give that a spin for a while? They are surprisingly capable machines.

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#206

nor do I really want to stay in, Apple’s increasingly expensive and interconnected ecosystem that doesn’t have ports.

I’ve recently found myself in the same boat. My MBP has plenty of processing power for what I do but the disk is almost full and I want to split off sample storage and recording, as well as sample streaming into the DAW, away from the main system disk, e.g. the system drive for my DAW, external for recording, external for reading/streaming audio in. I could probably eek this out with an obscene frankenstein dongle connected to my MBP, or… I could purchase a refurbished Dell i7 with 32GB for ~$350.

#207

I don’t know if there’s a better thread for this Andy Rooneyesque monologue, so it can go here:

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while – considering the recent trend of getting away from the PC and moving toward a dawless world, where does the venerable workstation fit into all of this?

They can do sequencing, complicated patterns and parts, have a very natural human interface via real keyboards, incredible power – basically a DAW in a box. And while I you see countless people posting videos of Elektron and other grooveboxes, I never see someone on Reddit posting: “Check out this jam I made on my Korg Triton #dawless” or “Here’s a new EP I did on my Roland Fantom”.

Workstations are arguably more capable than the grooveboxes / drum machines / samplers people are drawn to, so why don’t they get love? Price? Coolness? Are they the minivans of the dawless world? (I was going to say mom jeans but those are pretty hip right now.)

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#208

LOL, but a great point honestly. They’re more capable synths than most “serious” synths a lot of times too.

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#209

the only person i can think of that really does this is dorian concept – part of me wonders if it’s a side effect of your musical training too as my piano teacher produces with a triton.

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#210

Arca is also well known for using regularly a Korg Kronos, of course that’s not all she uses but that’s a crucial part of her process. I agree overall with the point made by @hermbot and I think I actually mentionned before how little love I saw in this community for workstation when they’re clearly aligned with much of the aspects people claim to seek in synths. Especially when you consider some of them have synthesis and midi engines that are actually just as (and in some cases more) exciting than on more focused synths.

This being said I see the appeal for all the little boxes, each of them with its focused interface and behavior, thus pushing you to explore a specific idea, but yeah there’s definitely an “uncool” factor about workstations which I think is a bit undeserved. I remember when we used to reproach them to be computers inside boxes, but now everything is, and they’ve come a long way to the point they’re probably some of the most powerful, expandable and well thought out computers in boxes there is.

Then the question is, is it really a “dawless” experience or is it just a “daw within a midi controller” experience, and it begs another question : what do we expect from “the dawless experience” that can’t be done with one?

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