I got some great responses last time i posted here looking for help finding a PC for my home. Now I’ve got a friend that’s come to me looking for help selecting and setting up a PC for music recording with the app Reaper. I’d be installing Linux Mint and the machine would be used primarily for music recording, no other major applications. It doesn’t sound like it would require a real powerhouse, so we’re hoping to keep the costs down if possible. Form factor doesn’t really matter in this case, we really just want something simple and reliable.
Last time i inquired here, the consensus was that I’ll probably be best taking my specs/needs to the nearest Microcenter and see what they recommend. Does it sound like i should do the same in this case?
Thanks for reading! I appreciate any help you all can provide!
There’s a great forum for your friend!
http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=27775My understanding is that the Focusrite USB-C cards works as expected in Linux but you want a third party GUI such as:
http://github.com/geoffreybennett/alsa-scarlett-guiCase: I’d go for a case with sound dampening and dust filter, a cheap mATX one would be Chieftec Pro Mini
PSU: I always want a modular PSU and I always aim at one with at least 80+ Gold. A quiet one would be the Seasonic Core GX V2 650W ATX 3.1. Can’t go wrong with Seasonic.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600 is low TDP, cheap, latest gen AM5 and should be enough for Reaper without problem.
Motherboard: I went for a cheap B850 board but verified that the PCI Express slot had PCIe 5.0. An example would be ASUS Prime B850M-K.
Drive: An M.2 NVMe Gen 4 2TB should be enough to store both sounds/instruments and the reaper projects.
RAM: I went for 2x16GB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 with AMD EXPO. If your friend knows he uses abnormally large sample libraries it doesn’t cost all that much to increase it to 2x32GB but should be unnecessary.My total cost ended up ~€840 with that.
This is awesome, thank you for the suggestions–and thanks for the site recommendation! Looks like we have a lot of reading ahead, but this is exactly the stuff we need to get started. I appreciate your help and consideration 🙂
Definitely doable, but my suggestion would be to not underestimate the demands of audio processing. It’s heavily CPU bound. Recording, mixing, playback, etc. Also, give it plenty of RAM so the DAWs can breathe and run more easily. It starts with recording but plugins, virtual instruments, digital synthesizers, effects, EQs, compressors, over dozens or hundreds of audio tracks; eventually it all taxes the system as much as graphics editing would do minus the graphics card. You still need a decent machine to avoid lag and hang ups. I used to compose and mix on an old cheap ASUS laptop, it did it, but I wouldn’t say the experience was anywhere decent. It was slow, it was frustrating and it was riddled with delays and problems. Don’t skimp on those two areas, CPU and RAM. Everything else can be cheap, maybe you can do with an integrated graphics CPU, like a modern mid-range Ryzen (anything above the Ryzen5 7500 should do) or something equivalent.
That said, Linux still struggles with some aspects of music production. I did it as a hobby about 5 years ago, but it was very technically involved. Almost no common distribution’s kernel is properly optimized for low-latency audio, so custom kernels are the norm. The compatibility of software and plugins is appalling and the compatibility layers like WINE to run Windows only plugins or software require some gnarly hacks to get it to work. You should get familiar with the technical intimacies of pulseaudio, pipewire, alsa and jack as soon as possible, they are the backbone of audio on Linux and so they are the biggest hurdles as well. Perhaps prefer to use some distro like AVLinux or Fedora Jam instead to deal with these problems out of the gate. So, be transparent about limitations, adjust expectations, do something creative with them, the obstacle is the way when we talk about creativity.
Thank you so much for taking the time and consideration to share this info! I think this is a bit bigger of a project than i may have considered initially. I’ll keep your suggestions in mind moving forward, and I’ll make sure to temper expectations for my buddy as well. I was under the impression that Linux works nicely with Reaper but i don’t have any experience playing with (or even attempting to configure) any of that stuff yet… I’ve definitely got some more research to do! Thanks again for the informative response.
Reaper works really well. Ardour is just as good. It all depends on what external equipment you want to hook up, and which plugins you want to use with it. Newer DACs are better with driver support, and there are Linux specific plugins. Like I said, if you know what you can get out of it and don’t expect to get windows only software and equipment to work on it, you’ll be fine.
I appreciate the boost of confidence! I’m very excited to see what we can do. Thanks again for taking the time to respond.