Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. A Computer for Music - Part 1
If you want to make music on you computer and aren't sure what you need - start here!
In this two-part feature we look at the computing equipment and the music equipment which make up a home music studio.
This was going to be subtitled: 'what you need, what you don't - but mostly what you need'. It wasn't because it's a bit of a long subtitle, but it's accurate because music is probably *the* most demanding computer application of them all and you skimp on requirements at your own peril. Or, at least, at the performance of your software.
Note here, that we're talking primarily about using a computer for digital audio recording, adding digital audio effects, maybe running a soft synth and so on. If you only want to use it for MIDI recording then almost any old computer will do. But bear in mind, most sequencers these days combine MIDI and audio recording and require a certain specification simply to run whether you use audio or not.
The computer
Standard advice here is to buy the biggest, fastest computer you can afford. Digital audio requires lots of everything, particularly CPU power and speed. The more you have, the more audio tracks you'll be able to record, the higher audio quality you'll be able to achieve and the more effects you'll be able to use.
Software developers always have the latest gear and as new software upgrades are released you can see the minimum computer spec creeping eternally upwards.
Operating System
Windows now comes in several flavours. The most popular is probably still Win98 although Windows ME is installed on many machines now by default. Windows 2000 is more robust and stable and used by folks who don't like their machine falling over a lot.
Although Apple's OS X is now available, it's still being developed.
Your choice of OS requires that it supports the software you want to run. Most PC music software will run under all versions of Windows, but not all software will so take special care here. The main problem with different versions of Windows lies in the drivers. There are still many pieces of hardware (and some software) that will not run under Windows 2000, for example, and not all Mac gear yet supports the new OS X.
RAM
Modern operating systems demand increasing amounts of RAM. You may get by with 64Mb these days but it's not worth trying for the cost of another 64Mb. The very minimum you should consider for digital audio is 128Mb and 256Mb is much better. If you intend to run a lot of digital FX and soft synths then more is not too much. (editor's note - 256MB of RAM can be had for £34 currently)
Hard disk
For digital audio, bigger and faster is definitely better. As most hard disks are now at least 20Gb or 30Gb, the size issue isn't as important as it once was. Digital audio uses 10Mb of disk space per minute so do your own sums.
However, that's for CD quality audio - 44.1kHz and 16-bit - and if you want to record at higher levels as many audio cards and software now allow, you'll need to adjust the size accordingly.
Also, remember that higher quality audio means shifting around larger amounts of data so you will need a correspondingly faster machine in all areas.
A good option is to add a second hard drive and dedicate it to storing digital audio recordings.
The monitor
Modern sequencers tend to have several windows showing a lot of detail. Forget a 15" monitor, it'll severely cramp your style. A 17" monitor running at 1024 x 768 is a sensible minimum requirement. Get a bigger monitor if you can afford one. You'll love it! (if you're not sure about how to change your on-screen resolution, click here)
CD-R
If you want to create audio CDs to play in the car, to give to friends/enemies, to sell or to send to A&R peeps, you'll need a CD Recorder. All CD-Rs can create both data and audio CDs so if that's all you need there's not too much to worry about.
However, if you want to create larger-than-normal CDs (using a process known as overburning) the drive needs to be capable of it, as does the software. If the bundled software doesn't do the job, check out Ahead's Nero ( www.ahead.de ).
Many musicians like to copy audio samples from CD directly to their hard disk. This preserves the audio quality because the audio isn't converted to analogue form and then back to digital. The acknowledged leader in this field is Plextor whose drives have special features to maximise the audio quality during the ripping process. Some drives can rip but produce audio which stutters or is poor quality.
In the next part we look at the music hardware and software you need to kit out your home studio.
