What would be a good computer for recording music.

[kyussapple]

Just want it for imternet and recording. Nothing else. Any suggestions?

[OUTLANDAH]

Most people go with Macbook it seems like these days, but I believe protools is available on PC now? Can someone verify this please.

[RacerX]

Just want it for imternet and recording. Nothing else. Any suggestions?

Get one for internet and another for recording.

[Corey Y]

Depends on what DAW you're planning on using. When I went to a digital based home setup I wanted Logic, because its plug-ins are native based, so they don't require extra hardware like PT, which can increase latency (plus native plug-ins cost less), so I got a big widescreen iMac. Whatever you do, get it loaded with as much processing power, RAM and storage space as you can afford. Don't worry too much about graphics cards or audio cards. Especially the latter, because that's the function your interface will be serving anyway.

[OUTLANDAH]

^ With that being said. I'm running an intel I7 with 16gb ram with something like 1.75tb on a laptop pc. (I could dual screen if needed) If I wanted to get a basic protools setup for cheap, what version would be best suited? I know I would have to buy the interface which is probably around $100 I'm guessing?

[jibberish]

outlandah, Danny G mentioned he got a PT interface setup for the rpm challenge.  check out that thread. maybe he has the lowdown on his deal.

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the rest of this is for the OP question more or less more

For music you don't need a powerful pc UNLESS you want many tracks with many plugins /realtime effects.

a lptop with a stereo USB a/d converter and running reaper(DAW with lots of effects too) and audacity(for quicky stuff=invaluable) will work great for up to 2 channel recording. some d/a converters even scavenge off the usb power so no power supply issues, and a laptop can be taken to th etop of a mountain for recording with that little deal.

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this pertains more to recording 4+ tracks simultaneously:

if you want to record 8 tracks at once, get a firewire interface and a beefy desktop. usb is not really the corrct format for transferring realtime audio. you will need beef to process 8+ tracks realtime with plugins
But you can still render in non-realtime with anyt PC and add heinous processed effects. you just cant listen while it is calculating, only the final result. so save a clean original at all times before post processing it in case you fuck it up and have to redo it
storage can be on backup harddrives with usb connections so you don't necessarily have to make a purchase on HD space availability. besides, you wont get much less than a Tbyte anyway.

I was kicking major ass with a 10yr old e machine with 1gig I somehow boned together and a SB Audigy platinum card for my I/O. I easily recorded 8 simultaneous tracks on reaper and sure as hell had to do all non realtime post processing, but wow, I did damage with a shit PC and reaper. reaqlistically 99% of all recording we hacks do is 2 tracks or less.

I will also throw one more vote for a dedicated music processor machine like a harddisk recorder. they never crash. they are portable and everything is there for recording like a giant mixer/tape recorder combo. removable storage and usb and often a cd burner, so 3 ways to save music. you can have reaper on any POS PC for post processing later

BUT I learned long ago with my old roland vs-880ex harddisk recorder that you still have to have a PC for post processing. trying to post process and edit etc on the hd recorder is clunky. that hasn't changed much now with my Tascam DP24, just a little prettier looking but still clunky. I can just fly around in reaper: dupe tracks, move pieces parts rmove/mod/insert , add effects, set up mixing slider movement or automate it once you figure out the timeline vs level curves you want and on and on


SO, through my own trials and errors, I have found that my ideal setup is a capable PC with post processing and stereo d/a for quickie stuff and a portable multitracker for collecting raw tracks.
For example: I failed on rpm challenge, BUT I have talked with my son, who is an awesome drummer and we will take the portable tracker TO the drumset. I will put the main track on one track and he can track drum parts to it until we are finished.

we have 5 nice mics between us and a beater roland condensor for ambience, so we can do 6 track recordings and dumps all day until we like what we have. I then assemble it all later back at the ranch

and finally, I replaced my old XP machine(what a hoss tho, much props to that old piece of shit RIP ..and good riddance heh)
grabbed an asus off the shelf at best buy then added 700w ps+killer game graphics card+8 more gigs of RAM=$700=750 for a wicked PC. games is what really needs PC power. if you can play games you can do music and videos

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[mawso]

what do you mean by 'recording'?  at one end there's doing quick demos with programmed drums and an old copy of guitar rig so you can sketch out a song idea.. at the other there's recording an album that you're going to send to 500 media contacts and take with you on tour.  somewhere in the middle there's preproduction work, where you still have some concern for sound quality but you're gonna go somewhere else to do the final thing.

there's also the whole thing of recording the bed tracks at someone else's studio, then doing vocals and overdubs at home.

for me, i'm solidly in the first category of just doing basic scratch demos at home.  i have a 6 year old XP machine with reaper on it - it was worth sfa even when i bought it.  it does the job fine.

it's great for recording song ideas and so on.  i wouldn't dream of using it for something i'd release.  but i can record something on it really quickly to share with the other guys in the band.  it's also really awesome for getting my parts down.  if you're having trouble with a vocal you can just keep doing takes until your voice starts to wear out.  after 10 goes, you're going to be a little better than when you started.  it also completely removes the whole factor of convincing yourself that something your doing sounds good when it really doesn't.  your drummer might see you're making a huge effort on something, and be polite to you about how it's coming together.. but microphones don't lie.

it's not connected to the internet or to a local network, which means i've been able to switch off all the firewalls, antivirus and antimalware stuff, and that helps it run a lot better.

i could as easily use a cassette 4 track and a metronome to do the same thing.  i grew up with computers so i'm fairly comfortable with this.

if you're going to get further into recording beyond the point of just getting song ideas down, then you're going to have to be one of those guys who cares about different mics and the years they were made in and preamps and channel strips and converters and plugins and outboard compressors and blah blah blah, and then you're gonna have to pay lots of attention when somebody starts doing A/B shootouts and so on.  tedious stuff that totally sends me to sleep - but some dudes (and they're basically ALL dudes) get a massive boner for it.

tl;dr - just about any computer will be good for some sort of recording.  it really depends what you wanna do with it.

[everdrone]

Just want it for imternet and recording. Nothing else. Any suggestions?

just about anything will get you there dude, just keep it at dual core or more

I have an old quad core that still kicks butt. If you are really good at mixing then get alienware dell, or sweetwater computer. if you are a NEWBIE with a budget then dont dump money into that money pit!  gear acquisition syndrome.

If I had a ton of money I would get a sweetwater computer and axefx for quiet library apartment recordingz:

these computers are designed just for mixing, and will obviously do internetz too: http://www.sweetwater.com/creation_station/