Advice on building a small PC for recording

Jalapeno

Without getting into AMD vs Intel jihads, I think a barebones NUC (just add CPU, Memory and SSD) is the way ahead - 4k onboard graphics seems to be standard these days.

I will be ditching my existing PC for one of these as it can't be upgraded to Win11.

digitalscream

Clecko said:

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. 

That's the thing, isn't it? The way I've looked at it is...the enjoyment of putting it together myself takes a back seat to any practical considerations (eg footprint), because putting a machine together is an hour, or two at an absolute max, while the "living with it" part lasts years.

However, I would only go down that route with a genuine Intel NUC - because those things are tried and tested, and extremely standardised and directly supported by every major operating system out of the box. And, also, ultimate performance isn't really a consideration here; if I was building a studio machine, or a dual-purpose DAW and gaming rig, there's absolutely no way I'd choose a NUC.

Worth bearing in mind, though...most NUCs from 5th (or 6th) gen onwards support M.2 and 2.5" SATA drives, so there's a bit of expansion capacity there. That one I linked apparently has two SATA slots, but I've no idea how that could even fit (it may just refer to SATA ports on the board, with only one being able to physically fit).

Clecko

distressed said:

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.

I was surprised, too, but it does seem to be a common issue. Studio One 5 Artist. The Air starts to get crackly and poppy with 4/5 tracks in a project if all bar one are using the Helix Native plugin. 

menamestom

Clecko said:

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.  

Agreed - scope creep is hard to avoid when specifying PC builds.

I agree about the fun of building them, I built my son a basic gaming PC and it has been great.

I would pick a case that suits footprint wise then build the PC on a compatibility site, to see what works and get an idea of price.  Then perhaps compare to the NUC systems, which do look very attractive.  Once you have a system on paper you can make a direct comparison.  I've only built a tower PC, that was fiddly enough, so if you go DIY you might have to be prepared for a tight squeeze!

Good luck....

distressed

Clecko said:

distressed said:

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.

I was surprised, too, but it does seem to be a common issue. Studio One 5 Artist. The Air starts to get crackly and poppy with 4/5 tracks in a project if all bar one are using the Helix Native plugin. 

I suspect this is an OS problem. Early stages of Big Sur and (now) Monterey had loads of audio-related bugs (besides other bugs). I think your machine arrived with the former, maybe you should update it to the latest iteration (11.6.2).

octatonic

The biggest issue I have with PC builds is fan noise- if recording with microphones then it is a deal breaker.
My PC's sit in the adjacent room in a rack and I run DisplayPort and USB through a hole in the wall.
It is easier to do this in a room built as a recording studio.

If never using microphones then may not matter.

digitalscream

octatonic said:

The biggest issue I have with PC builds is fan noise- if recording with microphones then it is a deal breaker.
My PC's sit in the adjacent room in a rack and I run DisplayPort and USB through a hole in the wall.
It is easier to do this in a room built as a recording studio.

If never using microphones then may not matter.

Yeah, it's an issue I've always had (for different reasons - it's a sensory thing). I find that the best solution is either Noctua or the new maglev fans. They get rid of the mechanical whine completely, and the rushing-air noise is trivial to dampen with physical barriers.

Clecko

distressed said:

I suspect this is an OS problem. Early stages of Big Sur and (now) Monterey had loads of audio-related bugs (besides other bugs). I think your machine arrived with the former, maybe you should update it to the latest iteration (11.6.2).

Hmm. It's on 11.5.2, so I'll try this. Unfortunately I have to get someone fro IT to connect remotely and do it for me as I have no admin rights. 

Clecko

octatonic said:

The biggest issue I have with PC builds is fan noise- if recording with microphones then it is a deal breaker.
My PC's sit in the adjacent room in a rack and I run DisplayPort and USB through a hole in the wall.
It is easier to do this in a room built as a recording studio.

If never using microphones then may not matter.

Yeah, the MacBook sounds like it's taking off. It's not an issue for me as most of the recording I do is guitar/bass direct into a PreSonus interface and I'm using headphones, so I don't hear the fans. Any vocals would be me adding them purely as a guide and I can get a good distance away from the machine.

Sadly since moving from the North West to London my scope for dedicated studio/gym equipment/man cave space has been significantly impeded. It's not a big deal though - I'm just really enjoying the journey of coming up with little ideas for riffs or chord progressions and then being able to quickly and easily record them and learning to edit the tracks, add in layers etc.

I'm really having fun with it but purely as a hobbyist. I don't need the tech to be perfect or even as good as possible - just for it not to get in the way. 

TTBZ

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).

Slight hijack but I'm glad you posted this as I was looking at a Ryzen 7 NUC as a new light family usage (internet and office) and basic recording machine, you may have saved an expensive mistake How come AMD are so bad for recording? And what's a good slightly future proofed Intel processor to go for without dropping an absolute bomb on it - is an i5 with 16GB ram going to be a big enough upgrade from my old i3 (330m I think) with 4GB? I get a bit lost with all the generations to choose from!

I can just about get by with that til I have a few instances of Mercuriall Spark running which then becomes unusable til I freeze the tracks. 

octatonic

Clecko said:

octatonic said:

The biggest issue I have with PC builds is fan noise- if recording with microphones then it is a deal breaker.
My PC's sit in the adjacent room in a rack and I run DisplayPort and USB through a hole in the wall.
It is easier to do this in a room built as a recording studio.

If never using microphones then may not matter.

Yeah, the MacBook sounds like it's taking off. It's not an issue for me as most of the recording I do is guitar/bass direct into a PreSonus interface and I'm using headphones, so I don't hear the fans. Any vocals would be me adding them purely as a guide and I can get a good distance away from the machine.

Sadly since moving from the North West to London my scope for dedicated studio/gym equipment/man cave space has been significantly impeded. It's not a big deal though - I'm just really enjoying the journey of coming up with little ideas for riffs or chord progressions and then being able to quickly and easily record them and learning to edit the tracks, add in layers etc.

I'm really having fun with it but purely as a hobbyist. I don't need the tech to be perfect or even as good as possible - just for it not to get in the way. 

The 14" MBP is silent.
My Mac Pro is pretty quiet too.

Clecko

TTBZ said:
How come AMD are so bad for recording? And what's a good slightly future proofed Intel processor to go for without dropping an absolute bomb on it - is an i5 with 16GB ram going to be a big enough upgrade from my old i3 (330m I think) with 4GB? I get a bit lost with all the generations to choose from!

I can just about get by with that til I have a few instances of Mercuriall Spark running which then becomes unusable til I freeze the tracks. 

I've no idea why the AMD chips don't play so well, but regarding your existing machine, if it's working fine until you start throwing VSTs in, it might be worth the relatively inexpensive experiment of adding some extra RAM. 4GB isn't giving you a lot of overhead over and above the OS, even if you're not running anything else. 

olafgarten

TTBZ 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).

Slight hijack but I'm glad you posted this as I was looking at a Ryzen 7 NUC as a new light family usage (internet and office) and basic recording machine, you may have saved an expensive mistake How come AMD are so bad for recording? And what's a good slightly future proofed Intel processor to go for without dropping an absolute bomb on it - is an i5 with 16GB ram going to be a big enough upgrade from my old i3 (330m I think) with 4GB? I get a bit lost with all the generations to choose from!

I can just about get by with that til I have a few instances of Mercuriall Spark running which then becomes unusable til I freeze the tracks. 

If yours is actually a 330m then that is a first gen Intel Core Part and a modern NUC will be massively faster.

I think an i5 with 16GB should be fine for pretty heavy usage. It depends on how much you want to spend but any NUC from the past few generations will be fine.

The latest is Gen 11 with 12 coming out soon, but you can probably go back to Gen 8 or even 7 and it will be good for the foreseeable future. 

Axe_meister

I've never had a problem with AMD and recording. I've run both Reaper and Studio one on 2700x 3600 and now a 5800X without any issues including Helix Native.
But there are architectural differences especially in the 1000/2000/3000 series chips that mean there is additional L3 cache latency but that is in the micro/nano second range (fixed with the 5000 series).
What interface are you using and what buffer size have you set in the DAW?

Clecko

Axe_meister said:

I've never had a problem with AMD and recording. I've run both Reaper and Studio one on 2700x 3600 and now a 5800X without any issues including Helix Native.
But there are architectural differences especially in the 1000/2000/3000 series chips that mean there is additional L3 cache latency but that is in the micro/nano second range (fixed with the 5000 series).
What interface are you using and what buffer size have you set in the DAW?

Agh, this has put me back in an AMD quandary! Just to be clear, are you saying that audio interface issues with Ryzen CPUs are a thing of the past providing a 5000 series or later chip is used? @digitalscream, do you have a take on this?

I'm using a PreSonus 26c interface (chosen as it was £140, well-reviewed and bundled with Studio One Artist 5. I've experimented pretty extensively with buffer size and it's problematic regardless of the setting. 

digitalscream

Clecko said:

Axe_meister said:

I've never had a problem with AMD and recording. I've run both Reaper and Studio one on 2700x 3600 and now a 5800X without any issues including Helix Native.
But there are architectural differences especially in the 1000/2000/3000 series chips that mean there is additional L3 cache latency but that is in the micro/nano second range (fixed with the 5000 series).
What interface are you using and what buffer size have you set in the DAW?

Agh, this has put me back in an AMD quandary! Just to be clear, are you saying that audio interface issues with Ryzen CPUs are a thing of the past providing a 5000 series or later chip is used? @digitalscream, do you have a take on this?

I'm using a PreSonus 26c interface (chosen as it was £140, well-reviewed and bundled with Studio One Artist 5. I've experimented pretty extensively with buffer size and it's problematic regardless of the setting. 

No, I don't have a position on that - I have a 3600, so my first-hand knowledge is limited to that generation.

Clecko

Cool - thanks

Axe_meister

Clecko said:

Axe_meister said:

I've never had a problem with AMD and recording. I've run both Reaper and Studio one on 2700x 3600 and now a 5800X without any issues including Helix Native.
But there are architectural differences especially in the 1000/2000/3000 series chips that mean there is additional L3 cache latency but that is in the micro/nano second range (fixed with the 5000 series).
What interface are you using and what buffer size have you set in the DAW?

Agh, this has put me back in an AMD quandary! Just to be clear, are you saying that audio interface issues with Ryzen CPUs are a thing of the past providing a 5000 series or later chip is used? @digitalscream, do you have a take on this?

I'm using a PreSonus 26c interface (chosen as it was £140, well-reviewed and bundled with Studio One Artist 5. I've experimented pretty extensively with buffer size and it's problematic regardless of the setting. 

I'm using the the same interface and DAW. It worked perfectly with my 2700x and 3600.

Heartfeltdawn

Clecko said:

Axe_meister said:

I've never had a problem with AMD and recording. I've run both Reaper and Studio one on 2700x 3600 and now a 5800X without any issues including Helix Native.
But there are architectural differences especially in the 1000/2000/3000 series chips that mean there is additional L3 cache latency but that is in the micro/nano second range (fixed with the 5000 series).
What interface are you using and what buffer size have you set in the DAW?

Agh, this has put me back in an AMD quandary! Just to be clear, are you saying that audio interface issues with Ryzen CPUs are a thing of the past providing a 5000 series or later chip is used? @digitalscream, do you have a take on this?

I'm using a PreSonus 26c interface (chosen as it was £140, well-reviewed and bundled with Studio One Artist 5. I've experimented pretty extensively with buffer size and it's problematic regardless of the setting. 

In the last 6 months I've done extensive latency testing with an R7 4700u laptop, the R5 3600, R5 5600G, R7 5700G, and the R5 5600X, with the desktop processors being tested on B450, A520, and B550 motherboards. Audio interfaces tested were NI Komplete Audio 2 and RME Babyface Pro FS and Digiface USB.

I can safely say that my current desktop based on an Asus B550-F Gaming motherboard with a nicely overclocked 5600X processor hooked up to the RME Digiface USB is a wonderful machine and ultra-solid when it comes to latency. Once the usual Latency Mon tests were done, I run different tests in an attempt to break it. This can be things like running Reaper with 20 tracks looped with the volume low whilst playing Assetto Corsa Competizione for a 15 minute race around Paul Ricard. If it passes stupid shit like that, it will pass anything. 

I built my ITX machine when space was tight and have now gone to a mid-sized build as I have space (at fucking last. Thanks, Covid!). I used a Fractal Core 500 case and this is roomy enough to just about get a Noctua NH-U14S fan inside running 800rpm so it's ruddy quiet and a monster GTX970 graphics card in there. Tight squeeze? Hell yes. Near-silent? Yes. The Noctua, no case fan, and a 500watt EVGA power supply does the trick. On the CPU cooler front, you don't necessarily have to spring for Noctua. The Be Quiet coolers are decidedly quiet too and not far off Noctua spec for under 50% of the Noctua pricing. 

Danny1969

I've just sorted myself out a new recording machine. The wife wanted a new TV so I got a 50" 4K one then hung it on the wall and put a motherboard from an M1 Macbook behind the TV where you can't even see it. There's no fan so it's completely silent which is nice. 

One thing to bear in mind when building a PC for recording is, it's not just a case of going and choosing the fastest bits based on Geek bench tests, it's a case of choosing parts that are proven in the field. There's no point at all having a machine that's lighting fast but stutters every 10 minutes or so because there's a translation software driver between a bridge chip and the OS. For this reason I never built any AMD machines, I'm sure they are great but it was just easier to  build machines that used Intel CPU, Gigabyte Intel board etc ... the kind of setup the OS already had built in drivers for. 

Nowadays I don't bother building any machines. With the cost of used Mac's being so low and so powerful for recording there's been little point. I'm still mainly doing rock bands with 30 tracks or so of drums, guitars keys and vox. A 2010 iMac can handle that straight off the internal drive. 
I've never used the Helix plugin, not a fan of modelled guitars so that may well use a lot more power than the VI's I use for keys and stuff.