I'm building my own music production PC [Music] I'll show you everything I put into this custom PC
and how well it performs in a music studio setup and maybe I'll do a little gaming on it as well
now this video is not meant to be a build it like me type of video but I will share all
the components I use so if you want to build your own and I'll share my real world tests of how it
performed with music production my DAW plugins and even gaming now I'm building this PC for several
reasons I feature a lot of software and plugins on my channel and I've never had a PC to test them on
every now and then I get a comment from one of you asking about PC performance or compatibility
and now I'll have a PC to test it on I also want to test something else audio plugins that run on
the graphics card GPU Audio is a company building audio plugins that run on a graphics card inside
a computer instead of the CPU this should allow us to run many more plugins or much more advanced
plugins without running out of CPU power we're going to test that later in this video if you
want to try out the free GPU Audio plugins I'll put a link to them in the description below oh
this case that you saw me unbox is the Thermaltake View 200 case Thermaltake cases are pretty
standard easy to find reasonably priced and I really like this white color so I'm going to
try to make the other things on the desktop white as well this is the ASUS ProArt B550 motherboard
it's actually a generation old but it's a proven Workhorse good for photo editing video editing
so it should be good for a music production too Thunderbolt is incorporated into this motherboard
which will make running Thunderbolt devices more stable the processor I got is a Ryzen
5950 it's a 16 core processor this is the entry level to the Ryzen 9. you can go for a seven and
save about 250 dollars and still be fine the number of cores impacts the number of plug-ins
you can run at once of course we're going to try to run GPU Audio plugins on the graphics
card later as well we'll see how that goes for Ram I'm using the g-skill Trident Neo Series this is 6
24 gigabytes of RAM G scale offers a good value too fast timing lower latency AMD processors are
better with lower latency RAM for the SSD I've chosen a Samsung 990 Pro Series this is a Gen 4
and does 2 gigabytes per lane and connects by four so eight gigabytes theoretical max throughput it's
got a high read write speed and this should make loading sample virtual instruments pretty fast
now I wanted to keep this PC build at a reasonable price but still good enough for gaming so if this
is neither the most budget PC nor the most tricked out PC you could build but with the
components I've chosen I'm hoping this will be excellent for music production and good enough
for gaming this is the Noctua NH U12A CPU Cooler it's massive I don't think it's even gonna fit
in here this is one of the quietest performing coolers on the market and that's going to be
really important for studio recording right I've heard that it performs as well as an all-in-one
water cooled setup the noise level is 22.6 decibels hey I turned this into a claw machine
here you go so you know the first PC I ever purchased for music production
was actually from Circuit City if anyone remembers Circuit City [Music]
push it click it press it click it tune it in turn it on this is what you watch it on
any way you work it integrate your circuit at the City Circuit City Hey listen IBM and I was
running Logic back when it was with Emagine if you remember logic back when it was with Emagic
hit the like button next up is the power supply this is the thermaltake 850 watt power supply
it's probably more than this computer needs but it kind of leaves room for upgrading later now
here's what's even crazier when I first got started with music production that was on a
four track tape recorder which my band rented it just had four tracks on it so we could only
record four tracks we'd have to bounce to do more than that let's talk about the video card the main
processor doesn't have an integrated GPU so GPU audio sent me the Nvidia 3080. you can actually
buy any GPU for music production even older ones may be fine Nvidia is the king of graphics cards
so we should have excellent graphics on this hey if you're enjoying this video hit the Subscribe
button and you can support my work here by getting one of my virtual instruments or sample packs that
could Inspire your next song a link to my shop and free downloads is below all right we're just
gonna power on this thing and hopefully it works everything is set hey here it is the final build
I want to share some tests I did with this PC with my Daw plugins GPU Audio and even gaming
but before I do let's build a little Studio I've put together a small setup using some white gear
to match the white case I chose for this PC the keyboard and mouse are by LogiTech this
is the LogiTech MX Keys Mini the same keyboard I use every day at my usual studio desk I've
paired it with the LogiTech lift Mouse which I've always wanted to try and I have to say feels more
comfortable because of its vertical orientation the monitor is by Samsung and it's probably the
first thing I'm going to upgrade given the gaming performance which we'll look at in a second I
could really go with a much more premium monitor but this was very inexpensive and still looks
Pleasant for The Studio Gear I chose the Arturia MiniFuse for the interface and the mini lab for
my keyboard both great devices for Home music production but more importantly they come in white
the speakers are by Kali Audio these are the IN-5 studio monitors by Kali and they're an excellent
bang for your buck for your studio definitely loud enough for this setup and very nice for mixing the
headphones are by Audio Technica these are the M20X headphones which have great sound for the
price the white is the Bluetooth version the desk itself is a 55 inch folding desk by need it's 150
and I've used it time and time again for many videos definitely got my money's worth with it
but I'd recommend getting the 62 inch version to add a bit more space for your setup alright so
how does the PC perform the startup is very fast thanks to the SSD I loaded up Ableton Live and
it was really hard to push it to its limits I'm running Ableton Live version 11 Suite I loaded
Native Instruments Ashlight in Kontact Omnisphere some Arturia instrument and it performed with zero
lag I mean the CPU usage is very low next just to test it out I added 60 Kontact instruments
and played them together and I was able to stay below the overload threshold in Ableton Live
pretty good this PC is doing really well let's try some more effects from GPU audio and we'll
monitor the GPU usage remember these are special plugins that use your graphics card instead of
your CPU so you can use many more plugins or more complex plugins without running out of CPU power I
even added GPU audio plugins to the project that has 60 contact instruments and GP audio plugins
kept going and going and the graphics card handled all the processing no added strain on the CPU GPU
audio plugins will work with most DAWs and their plug-in Suite is coming to Apple very soon you
can download their beta Suite of plugins for free right now they've got some effects plugins now and
they're coming out with a GPU-powered synth later this year GPU Audio is also partnering with Vienna
Symphonic Library for a new plugin to be released Mir Pro 3D will feature GPU acceleration and it's
going to be the first of many to adopt this type of technology when you download their FREE plugins
you'll get 50 impulse responses FREE as well you can find all their FREE stuff on their downloads
page I'll add a link below so how about gaming I ran the Benchmark setup on Forza Horizon 5. the
setup identified my best settings as extreme so yeah this can handle some pretty intense gaming
but I think again my weakest link in this setup is the monitor a 4k monitor capable of 120 frames
per second would be ideal so how about fan noise there are several fans in this build including
the front ones the CPU fan the graphics card fan and there's one of the power supply as well
running Ableton Live the fans were pretty low in volume I used the decibel X app on my iPhone and
measured an increase of about 10 decibels of fan noise compared to silence when running Ableton
Live with a moderately sized project and a bunch of effects with this setup I can also control the
fan speed if I need real silence keep in mind placement of your PC will also impact notes
I'm very happy with the noise level and extremely happy with the performance in fact when it comes
to Performance this PC gets close to my MacBook M1 Max computer while my Mac was faster with several
tests I ran overall I'm very happy with the new PC I built so how much did this custom PC build
cost at the time of this posting the total price is one thousand four hundred dollars without the
Nvidia 3080 graphics card with it the price would currently be around 2130 but of course you can
spend a lot less on a graphics card and still have an excellent music production PC now the price of
these components change frequently so check the links below low for the current prices what would
I recommend you don't need the Nvidia 3080 in your setup you can use the GPU Audio plugins
with other graphics cards in fact you can download their FREE plugins and try them with your current
setup as well so there you go that's my PC build I'll be using this in more videos so you'll see
it in action a lot more on my channel I've linked all the parts I used for this build in the video
description below now that we have a PC how do you build a music studio at home watch my most
popular video next on how to build a studio at home everything you need to start making music
thanks to GPU Audio for providing the video card and those FREE plugins I'll see you soon
for another video on Home music production until then Make The Music YOU Love bye