Advice on building a small PC for recording

Clecko

Hi all. I'm thinking of building a PC as a dedicated music recording workstation. I'd posted about this in the Studio & Recording section, but that doesn't seem to have amassed many views, so throwing the dice here, too. 

Basically the key thing for me is form factor, as I have very little desk space available. My needs are basic: drum loops, multiple guitar tracks, bass track and 1-2 vox tracks. Guitar and bass tracks will all use the Helix Native plugin though, which is what's stopping me from being able to use my old laptop for this. 

Anyone have any good advice on what spec I might go for? I don't want to over-spec the machine, so something that will meet these needs and likely see me through the next iteration or two of Studio One is the sweet spot.

Clecko

Here's the original post:

Mini-ITX build for dedicated audio workstation

I've recently started getting to grips with recording and have found that my old laptop is having sand thrown in its gears once I use Helix Native VSTs across more than a couple of tracks, so I'm thinking about building a dedicated machine for recording. 

The trouble is that I don't have any real desk space for a new machine, so I'm considering a mini-ITX machine. I've never built one and would love to hear any component recommendations from those who have.

I'd normally be drawn to an AMD chip, but it seems that Ryzen isn't as well-suited to running a DAW as the 17/i9s, plus AMD mITX 'boards seem to very rarely have Thunderbird 4.

Projects will be simple: drum loops, multiple guitar tracks (using plugins), bass, vox. I don't know what the budget is. Essentially I'd like something that will take my requirements in its stride but don't want to pay for component headroom that I won't use.

The alternative is to buy a Mac Mini, which does appeal, but I like buying the bits and putting them together.

What would you guys buy if you were building this from scratch, with the purpose being to record and literally nothing else? 

Strangefan

Have you thought about Laptop if space is limited? with the right investment they're are ideal for Music \

Clecko

Strangefan said:

Haved you though about Laptop if space is limited? with the right investment they're are ideal for Music \

It is a possibility, but I don't really need the portability and a small, capable PC that could sit permanently on the desk would be the neatest solution for me, so at any given budget it feels like it would be better for me to get a higher-spec desktop. 

I thought my work 2020 MacBook Air would be capable enough, but it's annoyingly underpowered and quickly struggles once a few VSTs are thrown in. 

notanon

Clecko said:

Strangefan said:

Haved you though about Laptop if space is limited? with the right investment they're are ideal for Music \

It is a possibility, but I don't really need the portability and a small, capable PC that could sit permanently on the desk would be the neatest solution for me, so at any given budget it feels like it would be better for me to get a higher-spec desktop. 

I thought my work 2020 MacBook Air would be capable enough, but it's annoyingly underpowered and quickly struggles once a few VSTs are thrown in. 

I would have thought a 2020 would easily have handled any DAW with VST, my Mac Mini 2012 is fine fine with 20 tracks, envelopes and VSTs

I am no expert but maybe trouble shoot that system? Can you post basic details about your setup?

Axe_meister

The MacBook air suffers from a very low clock speed and very few cores and not much memory and prone to overheating.
You could easily run a daw with an AMD APU (especially as you can't get GPUs these days) or a desktop class i3/i5 with 4 cores/8 threads.
If you can get a GPU (even a very basic office class GPU) then an AMD 2600X or about with 16GB memory will be capable of running some very large daw projects. It will actually have more processing power than the last generation iMac, as the iMac used laptop class processors.

notanon

Wow I didn't know the MacBook air was so bad! Thanks for the post @Axe_meister.

Clecko

 Axe_meister said:

The MacBook air suffers from a very low clock speed and very few cores and not much memory and prone to overheating.
You could easily run a daw with an AMD APU (especially as you can't get GPUs these days) or a desktop class i3/i5 with 4 cores/8 threads.
If you can get a GPU (even a very basic office class GPU) then an AMD 2600X or about with 16GB memory will be capable of running some very large daw projects. It will actually have more processing power than the last generation iMac, as the iMac used laptop class processors.

Super-useful. Thanks!

Clecko

notanon said:

Wow I didn't know the MacBook air was so bad! Thanks for the post @Axe_meister.

Nor did I! It’s a 1.2ghz quad core that can burst up to a high clock speed, but then it heats up and throttles back. I have an 8+ year old Dell Latitude i5 that’s better (albeit with added ram and an ssd). 

menamestom

That's very surprising on the Macbook Air.  Would the newer M1 version be much better?
I think something else could be at play, could you not use some Apple specific plugins and see if it runs better?

I think that's the thing with some laptops, the thermals, which sometimes severely limit theoretical available power.  That said I fine my I7 7th gen laptop has been great.

What's your budget?  

I would imagine most well cooled desktops with an I5 - I7 from the last 3 generations, 16gb ram would easily handle your requirements.  

digitalscream

@Clecko - why not just get a NUC? Smaller than just about anything (you can even get VESA mounting plates to stick them to the back of your monitor/TV), reasonably powerful, and plenty of scope for RAM/disk upgrades.

I've run everything you're talking about on a second-hand NUC that I spent a total of about £150 on, with a 5th-gen i5, 8GB RAM and a 120GB SATA SSD (albeit with Reaper).

wolsnah

I was going to suggest the same as @digitalscream. They're about 5 inches square, connectivity can be relatively limited but with a hub of some sort you can overcome that if it's an issue. They can be squirrelled away somewhere reducing their relatively low noise level further and keeping your desk free. Definitely worth a look.

Just had a look online, there's a nifty VESA mount plate that allows you to then mount the NUC behind your monitor meaning you would lose next to no space. I'm sure you could mount one under a desk too with a small bracket.

Clecko

menamestom said:

That's very surprising on the Macbook Air.  Would the newer M1 version be much better?
I think something else could be at play, could you not use some Apple specific plugins and see if it runs better?

I think that's the thing with some laptops, the thermals, which sometimes severely limit theoretical available power.  That said I fine my I7 7th gen laptop has been great.

What's your budget?  

I would imagine most well cooled desktops with an I5 - I7 from the last 3 generations, 16gb ram would easily handle your requirements.  

Thanks for this.

The M1 chip would definitely be better. I may see if work will switch my Air for a Pro as a first step, which would save having any extra stuff at all.

Budget is whatever's needed. I don't see the point in overspending just to have components that are simply pieces of depreciating overkill, but it's definitely possible to build a machine that will do what I want for a budget that's not a problem.  

Clecko

digitalscream said:

@Clecko - why not just get a NUC? Smaller than just about anything (you can even get VESA mounting plates to stick them to the back of your monitor/TV), reasonably powerful, and plenty of scope for RAM/disk upgrades.

I've run everything you're talking about on a second-hand NUC that I spent a total of about £150 on, with a 5th-gen i5, 8GB RAM and a 120GB SATA SSD (albeit with Reaper).

Yes, I've been thinking about this (and thanks @wolsnah, too). Honestly? I like the idea of putting a little machine together. I've been weighing up building something in a HTPC case with integrated graphics, but I do think a pre-built NUC or similar could be the most sensible route overall. 

Do you guys have a perspective on these relatively inexpensive units (often brands I don't know from China), bought through Amazon? 

Beelink

Asus

digitalscream

Clecko said:

digitalscream said:

@Clecko - why not just get a NUC? Smaller than just about anything (you can even get VESA mounting plates to stick them to the back of your monitor/TV), reasonably powerful, and plenty of scope for RAM/disk upgrades.

I've run everything you're talking about on a second-hand NUC that I spent a total of about £150 on, with a 5th-gen i5, 8GB RAM and a 120GB SATA SSD (albeit with Reaper).

Yes, I've been thinking about this (and thanks @wolsnah, too). Honestly? I like the idea of putting a little machine together. I've been weighing up building something in a HTPC case with integrated graphics, but I do think a pre-built NUC or similar could be the most sensible route overall. 

Do you guys have a perspective on these relatively inexpensive units (often brands I don't know from China), bought through Amazon? 

Beelink

Asus

Well, I would only go for a name-brand, preferably Intel themselves, for a NUC-alike. I've had a few of them, and the non-Intel ones have been a massive pain in the ass for having non-standard, spottily-supported hardware integrated for things like LAN, wireless etc, even weird USB chipsets.

And...given your concern about AMD latency with something heavy like Helix Native, I'd say you're exactly right - that's been my experience, even with a 3600X and 3600MHz low-latency RAM - the performance with Helix Native was much worse than my i7-6700.

Much as I prefer AMD for just about everything else, Intel's the way forward with DAWs in my opinion, just for the convenience and the fact that I don't need to spend ages optimising it to within an inch of its life just to get it to behave like an Intel machine does out of the box.

Just get a NUC. With your requirements, I'd just go with this:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-nuc-10-performance-kit-bxnuc10i5fnhn-frost-canyon-i5-10210u-ddr4-so-dimm-m2-ssd-slot-wi-fi-6-b

...and stick 16GB RAM and an SSD in it.

wolsnah

I've only got experience of the Intel NUC. I had an issue with it, which turned out to be a faulty Crucial memory stick that I'd fitted, which was replaced under warranty by Crucial but the rest of the unit has been faultless for me and has become my main music/general non-gaming machine.

Mine's a 2019 Intel Core i7 8559U model that's still performing really well. It's amazing really how much power you can get in such a small package these days.

I completely understand the desire to build one yourself, I was planning to build a new gaming rig pre-covid and was just waiting to firm up specs when prices went ballistic. I didn't particularly need a new rig but wanted to put a new one together. Fun as it is, the functional convenience of one of these small form factor machines will give you a good long term fuzzy feeling, just not the immediate tinkering hit.

octatonic

NUC's are fine until you fill up the SSD, then you are having to use external storage.
You will fill up the SSD if you are recording audio, esp with sample libraries.
A Mini ITX system allows for much more internal storage.

This is my Mini ITX system, just after I built it but before I put in the Rednet card.
It is excellent considering what it cost.
Loads of storage- 2x NVME's in there, a pair of 2.5" SSD's and a 6TB platter drive.

digitalscream

octatonic said:

NUC's are fine until you fill up the SSD, than you are having to use external storage.
You will fill up the SSD if you are recording audio, esp with sample libraries.
A Mini ITX system allows for much more internal storage.

This is my Mini ITX system, just after I built it but before I put in the Rednet card.
It is excellent considering what it cost.

He's only looking to use Helix Native and drum loops - I'd be amazed if he could fill up 256GB or 512GB with active files with that kind of usage.

octatonic

digitalscream said:

octatonic said:

NUC's are fine until you fill up the SSD, than you are having to use external storage.
You will fill up the SSD if you are recording audio, esp with sample libraries.
A Mini ITX system allows for much more internal storage.

This is my Mini ITX system, just after I built it but before I put in the Rednet card.
It is excellent considering what it cost.

He's only looking to use Helix Native and drum loops - I'd be amazed if he could fill up 256GB or 512GB with active files with that kind of usage.

Fair enough.

distressed

Which DAW and how many tracks per project? I used to run Logic Pro X on my early 2014 MacBook Air 1,4 GHz for some of my band songs, with up to 30 tracks per project, and it was flawless. With highly optimized Reaper as DAW it would be even better.

Sounds pretty strange your 2020 MBA can't handle this.

Clecko

I'm really glad that I posted here (and also duplicated the post in off topic for eyeballs - though I know that's a bit naughty). This has given me lots of food for thought and much more applicable knowledge from this forum than I'd mustered from several hours of googling. 

I don't think storage will be an issue for me as I don't envisage my requirements changing, but I'm coming round to going the Intel route. The biggest factor for me by far is physical footprint. A standard mini-ITX case would be too big, so I'd have to build something in a HTPC box (and therefore likely with integrated gfx) if I decided to go off the shelf. 

So I reckon it's a toss up between those two, where I see the pros of a NUC being pre-built with guaranteed component compatibility and a super-small footprint vs. being able to have a prettier and larger/higher capacity case, but still manageable footprint, my own choice of components and the enjoyment of sticking it together. 

Thanks to all of you - really appreciate the time and advice.