Hi guys,

I am building new pc for music making and video editing. I am a beginner in all this and my budget is around 1400euros.

I would like to record electric guitar and make basic rock songs and also short videos for Youtube, nothing fancy. Can you please recomend me should I go with Amd or Intel? Gaming is not priority although I will game a little. This is my main concern at the start.

Thanks!

 

far be it from me to steal the profit from a computer manufacturer or reseller, but if you are starting out. I'd buy a much cheaper system, probably used, and see what I like and don't like. What programs I find interesting and useful for the areas you've outlined.

Then once I've spent a bit of my wad on this research pc, I can keep it around for a backup, or dump it on a relative or sell it onward to another seeker of truth, justice and the Computer way. This leaves the remaining pile of hot cash to now be burnt in the endless quest for newer, better faster or at least what you think is all of the above for what you want to do.

So many off lease desktop pc's available on Ebay etc.
To open the door you need an i5 or an i7, with a system that supports at least 16 gb of ram preferably more like 32 gb
an NVME ssd of 512gb to 1tb would be good.

You'll need one of our other esteemed members to point you in the direction of an operating system. I'm going to stay at Windows7 unless God or Country commands otherwise, meaning I ever find a program that doesn't run on Windows 7 that I can't live without, which I find highly doubtful as I've been monkeying with computers since they were 8 bit cpu's and I'm not impressed by much anymore that I haven't already seen. Jaded, I know... such is life.

so a system as listed above would be available used and warranted for under 200$ usd from ebay. So approx 185 Euros if you have as many used computers being abandoned by business on the continent as we have in the wild wild west...

that said, you'll need more than a computer to pursue your interests. You'll need
1. an audio interface
2. a pair of powered (amped) speakers
3 . a comfy chair
4. a pair of 21" to 28" monitors, I think thats about 3-5 grams in metric size (damn you Napoleon)
5. a microphone, a mic stand, about 400 cables, possibly a mixer, a nice desk and a cat,dog or goldfish.
6. a midi keyboard, a guitar, and another mess of cables and maybe some pedals, a nice reverb, buy something just so you can argue with other people on this forum about their choice of reverb. It will make the hours go by while you are waiting for 35 tb of data from Arturia to download so you can use your Midi Keyboard.
7 . a small refrigerator with cheap liquor as you've spent your fortune on gear and will occasionally have small problems that will make it all seem like useless junk and if you have the liquor you can drink and forget about it, instead of throwing your computer gear against the walls..

for video work you may need a camera or you can use your phone with suitable cables until you need some real lenses then your fucked so just buy the damn camera to start with and use the phone to make calls and check out the internet when your on the bus or in the bathroom.
Also you will need tripod and lights and reflectors and a somebody to carry all that shit when you go on site to do a shoot.
Also a video interface or way to upload you data from whatever recording medium you are using, some shoot on ssd, some shoot on sd etc,etc.etc.

on final consideration, if you are still serious about your intentions in this regard, I would say consider stamp collecting,
its easier to put away when your done, most of the stuff you buy will lose value just like music gear, and people will still consider you odd for what you do in your spare time or god forbid you can fool someone into paying you, what you do for a living... so yeah stamp collecting- check it out I think there is Stampsex.pro or maybe philatelist_with.2.much.money.com as good starting points...

Well I've already typed too much, gotta sink my pinkies in some warm champagne to get the chill out of the bones, good luck and let us know which ever path you follow...

 

Wow that's hella lot of some advice man...

 

If you are keen on video editing along with music making then choose at least an eight core processor or above.
Though I prefer AMD myself which is fast in DSP in DAWbench but for video editing and both music Intel will be a better choice...

 

Last edited: Feb 25, 2024

My 2 cents...
i5 14600k.........299$
MSI PRO Z790 A MAX WIFI..... 257$
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE..... 33$
GSkill Trident z5 RG 32GB ....... 118$
Samsung 990 Pro 1 TB.... 110$
Lancool 216 RGB...... 110$
Corsair RM850e....... 120$
GPU 7700xt/4060Ti (8Feb 2024).......360$

 

Keep in mind that if the intent is to run latest versions (2024.x) of Adobe video/audio tools (namely Premiere Pro/After Fx/Audition) or BlackMagic DaVinci 18.x Pro, and the like, that these apps won't even install unless you're running a processor that supports Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2) and/or modern GPU designs with lots of GFX ram onboard.... Older core i5/i7 or even AMD processors do not support this instruction set and older systems lack support for the likes of modern GPU's... so beware... Check the processor, chipset and GFX spec's FIRST if you're going the older equipment route...

 

keep in mind this guys a beginner and wouldn't know an mpeg from an h265 file - he is starting his journey and needs a direction.if you want to learn violin you don't buy a stradivarius right off the get go.. you sort of work up to it..

 

my 2 cents, he needs to figure out what software he likes and which direction he wants to go and he shouldn't blow his whole wad on a system to learn on.

 

Not recommending a computer as such as most fairly modern computers are fine for recording/editing.

However... you need to budget stuff (if you haven't got these) for an audio interface, speakers/headphones (phones are fine to start with) and cables of course. No need to go expensive and fancy with these to start, but you need something to begin.

Also I would recommend a backup of some sort, a free cloud backup is fine at first, but there might be some problems with this (bandwidth, amount of space). Maybe a cheap external hard drive? You do not want to lose work because of hardware failures, trust me. Nothing kills inspiration faster than that.

Don't start with expensive software, a lot of legit stuff is free! You can always invest more if you get more into it.

I agree with @Garamondo Furbish here, don't go apeshit with money initially!

 

yeah, I think the stamp collecting is really the best option, but its difficult to quiet the fires within when the flames burn bright.

he should probably start with the music stuff 1st. forget the video, its hard enough learning a DAW and associated softwares
then in a year or whenever he feels comfortable with his setup. Buy another machine for video editing as he will understand computer resources and how hungry video editing can get.

I'm fat on computers, I often use just 1 machine to run certain software. Like I've got a laptop I only use for Acid samples and songwriting. Another one for Arturia Spark. if something pukes. I can work on another machine until i feel like fixing the bad boy that quit. Redundancy or backups is the only way once you develop a workflow...

 

This post relly made my week, it's great!
Except from pc, I have most other gear to start, a guitar, monitoring speakers, dslr camera, stands, and I'll by an audio interface soon.
I'm a beginner but I worked before on my old laptop in Acoustica Mixcraft and Cakewalk, for video I used free software called Shotcut, but would like to learn Davinci Resolve.

 

Thanks man,
And how about i5 13400F or i5 13600K, I got some recommendations from a local shop, are they ok?

 

Thanks, do i5 13400F and 13600K support those, hm, things you mentioned?

I set my budget this way because I thought if I buy something cheaper I wont be able to do video editing. Afcourse I don't want to overspend.
I considered used systems but since I'm not too familiar with it I'm scared to buy something because I dont now how to check it, if you know what I mean. And if I by new I also get waranties, so I opted for this.

 

yeah Davinci would be great, you'll need windows 10 or 11, it won't install anymore on windows 7.. i tried.
also BlackMagic (davinci developers) make some great video interfacing equipment and have a fantastic audio mixing board but its way too expensive for me at this point.
I started trying to learn DAWs in the early 2000's - i was primarily a guitarist and most daws were more keyboard oriented at least the more feature laden ones. I used CoolEdit Pro for tracking back then and still keep a copy handy for fast editing on audio files.
what worked for me was getting a physical recording device, and I went through a bunch before I settled on the Zoom family, i've got (several) r8's, an r16, and an r24. I'm using the r24 daily as place to put down fast ideas and as an audio interface in my studio. Its a guitarist dream for me. I use a roland gs-10 for fx and amp sims etc, its also another usb interface and is also the speakers for my arturia keylab 25, so i can separate the sound from using my monitors.

The r24 is a 24 track recorder - records to sd cards, also a usb interface. it has mastering profiles so you can mixdown your tracks in the box to get an idea of what you got. I feed it 1 line from the guitar plugged into the gs-10, and I send a separate feed from the gs-10 to short pedal chain then into a roland microcube amp and out to the R24. That gives me 2 sounds to blend, mute or solo, on both rythm and lead. It has a drum machine and sampler as well. I don't use that much, but you might..



I like knobs and faders. mice and keyboards are useless when playing guitar..

 

the flow for me, is to put an idea on the R24 first. its fast, it doesn't need to boot, has virtually no gui and hence no internet or updates or anything but "hey I'm ready to work here, lets go!!!" which is great when an idea is flowing.
once I have an idea I can import it to Ableton and start working on it, etc..

the main thing I've found is your gear must work with you and not get in the way and slow you down, or its useless.
also music is like fishing, you've got to throw your hook in the water everyday. You might not catching anything, but you won't definetly catch anything if you don't try..

 

if i'm playing keyboard, its the computer 1st at least for now...

 

those are some great tips, pointed out by garamondo;
everyone has a different workflow, but if you want the most of yourself i'd say you need to be prepared to make music easily any time the inspiration comes
otherwise until youre done starting your setup, you might have already forgotten the musical idea or lost the vibe

 

I'm rocking a ryzen 7 5700x, with a single tower cooler, idles around 28c , during gaming it goes up to 55c. daw load 30c. gen4 for main nvme, gen 3 for backup, 32gigs 3200mhz cl16 (4x8), rtx3060 just to be sure. smooth sailing.

 

This is what I use my PC for mainly.
Track guitar and video for cover songs.
Although upon Intel 15900k release I will be switching to that.
My current setup is
AMD 3950X-GeForce 2070 Super-x'2 32GB ram-2TB HDD-250 GB SSD-512GB SSD--WIN 11
Line6 Helix-Focusrite Scarlett 18I8 (Ignore the H8) Yamaha HS8s My monitor is weak.
That said I render and track relatively smoothly based on the amount of visual edits i need. It gets a bit sluggish with a lot of editing to the video. Hence why I am updating. I also use Revit for building construction, but that doesn't seem to affect anything. My current setup is ok, but if you wanna get heavy I'd step up.

 

I would recommend not buying a new computer, but learning. i still use Ableton 9, Ozone 7 ))