Dedication

A common misconception is that you must dedicate a computer to DAW use - it's bad to run general programs on your music computer. The theory behind this is that you're going to run into software conflicts, or that general programs could have some memory-resident processes lurking in the background that interfere with your real-time music work. But even when that's true - and it usually isn't a problem with today's powerful machines - starting up from a dedicated system hard drive solves the problem without the expense of a whole other computer. And in fact a dedicated system drive isn't a bad idea, especially for Windows users who share their computers with other people who set their systems up differently.
Another common misconception is that you shouldn't have your music computer connected to the Internet. While you do have to be careful not to download viruses, chances are that you'll need to go online to get software updates with some frequency, and many programs also use copy protection that's activated online.

So you actually want your music computers connected to the Internet - and to each other, as you'll see elsewhere in this issue.

Laptop or tower?


Virtual Instruments like processing power, and streaming software samplers like fast hard disks. Laptop computers are convenient and portable, but they tend to be a little less powerful than desktop models and have slower drives. The reason laptops are often less powerful is that they're designed to emphasize maximum battery life more than muscle. Likewise, most laptop drives spin at 4200 or 5400 RPM vs. 7200 RPM for desktop models. That has an effect on the drive's seek time spec; the faster the seek time, the more voices (simultaneous notes) you can stream and - less importantly - the faster programs load.

The way around this limitation is to add an external 7200 RPM hard drive, most likely a Firewire format one, if you're streaming samples or recording audio on your laptop. Musical activities are very rough on hard drives due to the constant reading and writing, and you probably don't want to subject your system drive to a steady diet of that.

Yet another advantage to desktop computers is that they have room for extra hard drives. They also have slots for PCI expansion cards, which we use primarily for audio interfaces...although there are also "external" audio interfaces that connect to the computer's USB or Firewire ports. None of this means you can't do serious work on a laptop - on the contrary - but you do need to be aware that there's a price to pay for the convenience.

Mac or Windows?

The truth is that you can get a lot of music out of a single Mac or Windows machine; both are capable of running a lot of virtual instruments, samples, and plug-ins simultaneously. As to the major multitrack DAW programs, Apple Logic Audio and MOTU Digital Performer only run on Mac; Cakewalk Sonar only runs on Windows; most other DAW software such as Steinberg Cubase and Nuendo, and Digidesign Pro Tools - as well as programs like Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live, and many virtual instruments and plug-ins - have versions for both platforms. So there's no shortage of great music software for Mac or PC. That's no help if you want to run a specific incompatible program on your machine, but the old line about there being more Windows software is totally irrelevant to us.

At the entry level, Windows machines tend to be more powerful, while Macs have a very nice software bundle that includes GarageBand. At the higher end, C5s can access more memory than Windows machines.

Macs

As of this writing, there are Macs with C4 processors (all the PowerBooks, the eMacs, and the Mac Mini) and Macs with C5 processors (the iMac C5 and PowerMac C5). C4s are good for our purposes, but C5s are better. You will get some music out of an eMac, Mac Mini, or 12" PowerBook, but these models all support 1GB of RAM (random access memory) only, which is acceptable but not ideal. 1GB is fine for GarageBand instruments, for example, but not really enough to run state-of-the-art streaming sample libraries. The 15" and 1 7" PowerBooks use C4 processors, but they hold up to 2GB of RAM, which isn't bad.

The iMac C5s also max out at 2GB of RAM, but they have C5 processors in their favor. However, they don't offer expansion drive bays or PCI slots, so you must use Firewire (preferably) or USB 2 for that. That's not necessarily a problem. If your wallet permits, however, you're best off with a PowerMac C5. These machines hold more RAM, are more powerful, have PCI slots, and have space for an additional internal drive. The current dual 2.7GHz and dual 2.3GHz, previous dual 2.5GHz, and previous dual 2.0GHz C5 models all hold up to 8GB of RAM (the current dual 2GHz machine can hold 4G. Given that a single program—for example your DAW software—can access 4GB of RAM (although you don't see all that), 4.5 or 5GB is a good amount to install.
The OS runs outside that, so anything more than 4GB of RAM will allow you to run other programs. That includes audio programs that get streamed into your DAW using the ReWire protocol (again, see "The World of Sofsynths and Samplers" for an explanation of how ReWire works). You can also do things like checking your email or opening a browser without quitting your DAW program and having to load all your samples again.

Windows

There are more decisions to make with Windows machines, starting with whether you're going to buy an off-the-shelf computer, have one put together for you in a standard computer store, buy one from a DAW specialist, or put one together yourself from components.

What's inside a computer is quite simple from a mechanical point of view. You choose a motherboard, processor, case, memory, hard drives, and probably a CD/DVD drive. The trick is knowing what components to choose. My advice is to choose a motherboard with at least three memory slots, so you can install more than 2GB of RAM (with 1GB sticks) if your software benefits from it. At today's prices, it's simply not worth going with anything less than a 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 2800 processor - the lower-priced Semprons and Celerons are unsuitable for DAWs. Most people recommend a power supply that delivers 350 Watts or more. We'll talk about hard drives shortly. If you buy an off-the-shelf computer from, say, Dell, you don’t always know what’s inside it and can’t always hand-pick the components. That doesn’t make them categorically bad or mean they won’t work, but for our purposes it’s no more expensive and probably better to go to a store that puts computers together from the parts you choose. Or order the parts and put it together yourself if you don’t mind the adventure - it’s not especially complicated.

If you want an easy life, DAW specialists can be worthwhile. You pay more for their services, but specialists who really know what they’re doing are worth every penny if you’re the type who “just wants to make music.” These custom machines tend to use higher quality components than you get in off-the-shelf computers, and they might feature things like quiet fans, rugged rack mount cases, etc.

Specialists usually guarantee a certain level of performance based on their testing (some-times with specific software in mind), and in general you can buy turnkey solutions that you power up and start playing. Some specialists will even show up at your door with a replacement if something goes wrong.
Drives and ports

You’re likely to encounter two different types of hard drives these days: ATA and SATA (Serial ATA). SATA can pipe more data per second down its cable, but with the exception of Western Digital Raptor drives, which spin at 10,000 RPM and have very fast seek times, SATA drives don’t write or deliver data any faster than standard ATA. Higher-end Macs and PCs have SATA built onto their motherboards.

Firewire, Firewire 800, and USB 2 are narrower busses than ATA and SATA, i.e. they deliver less data per second down their cables, but there’s still enough bandwidth for streaming samples. Firewire and USB 2 drives are simply ATA drives in Firewire enclosures. Of the two, most people agree that Firewire performs better in the real world. These protocols are for external hard drives.

If you’re starting from scratch, SATA is probably the best way to go, simply because it’s a more current protocol. You can also get cards and external enclosures for SATA. But standard 7200 RPM ATA drives, either internally mounted or in Firewire enclosures, are absolutely fine for our purposes. The length of the warranty is probably the best indication of a particular drive’s quality.

Overview

It’s worth emphasizing that we’re only making recommendations in this article. Please don’t leave with the impression that your computers are useless if you don’t follow every piece of advice. Computer components are one of the fastest developing technologies in the world. Prices and performance are changing all the time so its impossible to stay on the cutting edge all the time. You can get a lot out of a machine that’s five years old.
And by all means write if you have any questions.