Building the ULTIMATE DAW PC: Here's How I Did It
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- Опубликовано: 5 июн 2024
- My studio DAW PC was obsolete - I hadn't upgraded it in over ten years, and it was no longer able to physically do the work that I needed it to. It was time for a long-overdue upgrade! In this video I talk about why I needed to replace my PC, show you the products I purchased to build the PC, then I show you how I built it, tested it, and then demonstrate how well the new computer runs my studio!
Components I used to build this PC:
Click here for a full shopping list containing all the components I used: www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls...
ASUS Prime X670E-PRO WiFi Motherboard: amzn.to/3HWShy2
AMD Ryzen™ 9 7950X 16-Core Processor: amzn.to/3HRq9wq
IceGiant ProSiphon Elite CPU Cooler: amzn.to/3OBidmE
CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR5 RAM 64GB 6000 MT: amzn.to/3SXEmOQ
SAMSUNG 990 PRO SSD 4TB PCIe 4.0 M.2: amzn.to/3OFv5IF
MSI MPG A1000G PCIE 5 & ATX 3.0 Power Supply: amzn.to/498XUFf
Phanteks Enthoo Pro Full Tower Chassis: amzn.to/3HVhzwB
ARCTIC MX-6 Thermal Paste: amzn.to/49alBgE
SD Card Reader: amzn.to/3OExRxQ
My keyboard Z stand: amzn.to/3Ix5xuF
Z stand extra tier: amzn.to/3XtVpa6
My keyboard A frames: amzn.to/3YwAPav
My silver keyboard covers: amzn.to/40VySFx
My black keyboard covers: amzn.to/3Gt5oXz
0:00 Intro
1:59 How I Buy Computers
2:32 The Components I Bought
7:51 The Case
10:28 Initial Component Install
11:26 Cabling
12:24 Memory
12:32 Cooling
13:45 Initial Build Overview
15:14 Initial Power-Up
16:21 OS & Software Installation
16:57 Drive & Component Transfer
17:37 Fully Assembled & Burned In
19:34 Setting Up With the Studio
21:31 Final MIDI & Recording Test with Synths!
27:34 The End Results
28:22 Postscript
#DAW #PC #Build 
Видеоклипы
Click here for a full shopping list containing all the components I used: www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3SK21Z1LCZKI1?ref_=wl_share
That Monitor
looks good, what graphics card & Monitor are you using?
@@ChefHenryPrimo NVidia RTX 3060 and it's an LG 43" Ultra HD monitor.
I totally feel you. I’ve been running a Core i7-8700K for the past six years, and I’m trying to map out my upgrade plan.
You'll be happy with that build. I built a gaming PC last year and halfway through the year I jumped into music head first. Needless to say I have an awesome music computer, LOL
Why I stayed for ALL 29min.??.....I don't know....but very Interesting 😊....I had to edit in....Great Channel!!!!❤
I can certainly relate (like most of us can) to the dread of reinstalling everything. That's why as of late I've narrowed things down to just a couple of DAWs and my absolute favorite plugins. I think too many options just makes things harder.
7950X3D!? I thought this was gonna be way more budget friendly 😂 Also, I used to build water cooled PCs for a living so dont worry, leaks dont always kill a PC. The fluids used in coolers are made to not be conductive. Theres also ways to safely clean leaks.
For what you’re using your PC for 64GB of RAM is more than plenty. No matter what components you would have chosen there will always be someone that will disagree. (Just based on some comments already 😂) congrats on your new DAW workhorse.
640K should be enough for anyone!! :)
@@ScottsSynthStuff I remember those days. I remember moving up from a Commodore Vic-20 to a C64. Wow! 38KBs! I'll never use all that!
@@jimhewes7507 I had a 16K RAM pack for my VIC-20!! Luxury!!
@@ScottsSynthStuff I should build one of those, my VIC20 is still unexpanded. It's also in storage and needs one of its VIA chips replaced, but i have a Rockwell replacement chip somewhere.
Good call on the air cooler. You don't want to be worrying about coolant pumps failing. I have a gigantic Noctua cooler keeping my 5900x in check. I'm really pleased you can do more now, because then we get more cool stuff to watch!
I've stress tested this cooler, and it works GREAT!
Great work !
Thinking of building one for studio one .
Great setup!
You have very nice DAW workstation. My DAW workstation is small setup. I mainly compose and product piano music. My computer system use Xeon processer with 32MB of memory and all input devices in recording music.
Hi Scott, impressive setup in your new PC👍 About many USB synth connections into a computer: I use two Swissonic USB Hub 1916 rack for that. They detect very fast, when I change any usb hardware /synth on a port. They are sold online at Thomann in Germany. PS. Great RUclips channel you've got, I drop by frequently, to check up news and tutorials🙂
The problem is not how many physical USB connections you have - it's how many logical endpoints your CPU can handle. Every device uses up one or more (usually more) endpoints. Hubs themselves use up endpoints, as do active USB extension cables. When you exceed the number of endpoints, the PC simply won't recognize any more - and if you reboot the PC with more endpoints connected than the CPU has resources for, some PC's will simply refuse to boot up. That's one of the reasons I moved to AMD, as their CPUs have MANY more USB endpoints than Intel.
I also recently upgraded from a computer that I used for 10 years. The hard drives were dying and the motherboard was too old to support SSDs. So I built a new one. (Yes, ASUS motherboard and Samsung SSD.)
And... I also have a bunch of keyboards and am also a software developer. So some similarities. Except I don't fly planes.
I like how you've got things connected so that you can use any and all keyboards at any time!
Yeah, that was the intention, because nothing kills creativity faster than having to spend 15 minutes re-patching a different keyboard, gain staging it, trying to figure out why the MIDI isn't working, now why is this channel not working...I wanted to be able to just GO and record whichever one without having to do configuration work.
Sick rig!
Very interesting and helpful, Scott. I'm going to have go this process again soon. Not looking forward to it!
cable management on fleek
I was always building my PCs as well (done that for a living at a time actually) but I don't bother anymore. I like smaller sized desktops now so I am waiting for a Dell SFF to arrive next week. I will not use it primarily for DAW work although I will probably install some stuff as it is way too powerful and will be a pity to use it for work only! For Cubase I bought a latest generation Mac mini few months ago and it's amazing for music projects. I use it with Montage, GAIA2, Roland cloud and Korg VSTs. It's a little monster and completely silent as well.
Thanks for doing this video. Not sure this old set of eyes is up to building a computer, though I've done it before. (Really helps to be able to see the motherboard clearly.)
Btw, will this song be available on Spotify?
haha, with any luck that "song" will never be available anywhere!!! :)
-- Fascinating video! 😊👍🖥️
Very nice
I used to build my PCs before, but in last 20 years the size of computer cases and other components of custom built PCs haven't changed much and I don't want those huge and heavy PCs sitting on my desk.
Mac Mini M1 with 16GB of RAM, 256GB internal SSD and 2TB external Samsung SSD + Logic Pro is enough for me.
For $2,000 you can buy Mac Studio with 32GB of RAM. For video editing it could be better than a PC. Mac Studio has 2 hardware accelerated encoders / decoders including ProRes, 4 USB4 / Thunderbolt ports.
The new Macs is pretty effective for music considdered that they are not nearly as powerfull as you can get with a PC or the older Xeon based power Macs. Only con is you cannot in any way update neither the ram or buildin ssd as the ram is integrated in the CPU and the ssd soldered to the mainboard and it does cost a bit if your going for the biggest config. 32gb ram is kinda minimum requirement if you do want to play with larger sample libraries. All depends on peoples use case. If you primary use the daw for recording smaller projects you might not need that much memory and the TB interface is a plus if your going for some of the more pro sound interfaces. There also is several good alternatives to the M series macs today in the AMD or Intel based Mini PC's based on mobile CPU's. Several of them supports up to 64-96Gb ram and some have USB4/TB support too and usually up to 2 internal SSD's. Those are close to the same form factor as the Mac mini's. maybe double height to host replaceable sodims and SSD's. And you get quite a bit more for your money than a 32gb/2tb M3. Again .. depends if your already married with Apple /Logic Pro
Hey! Cool project, albeit daunting, and certainly financially prohibitive for me at this point! I did a major upgrade a few years back and my CPU is already struggling again, which is frustrating. Back then, I migrated my system drive into the new system so I didn't have to set everything up from scratch. That worked surprisingly well! It's obviously not the way to go if you really want a clean slate system, but otherwise (especially if your OS is running smoothly as-is) it can be a neat shortcut.
For those of us not particularly hardware savvy (myself included), perhaps you'd consider making a video about how to find and choose the right hardware for one's audio needs and budget? I wouldn't even know where to start researching all that.
To sidestep around the time consuming nature of software installation and configuration, consider using drive cloning software on your old drive to the new drive next time.
Also useful for creating backups of your OS drive in the event it fails... ask me how I know ;^^
I already use Macrium Reflect for this, I have nightly backups of all my machines that get backed up to my server, and from there to the cloud.
That said, my old DAW PC had 10+ years of digital detritus all over it, from applications being installed and uninstalled. I wanted to start fresh with a fast, new, minimalist PC without all that stuff.
Plus, cloning a drive from a PC using completely different hardware never works well.
@ScottsSynthStuff understandable then, and glad you already have this tool integrated into your setup.
Also thanks for the excellent video on balanced vs unbalanced cables, you made it much easier to understand than a lot of other explanations I was finding!
Cool.
Absolutely beautiful build! I’m thinking of something similar for my next VM/file server. I was wondering if using Proxmox or another hypervisor and then putting Windows in a VM on top of that would work well with a DAW… then when you upgrade your hardware you just move the VM across in one piece, and everything is already installed and authorized. It might be worth a try, maybe on your old computer as a test.
I don't know how well a DAW work work on a virtual PC - ASIO typically wants direct low-level hardware access.
I actually do have servers at home, I have a room with a couple Xeon-based Dell rack servers with large RAID arrays - they run a bunch of VM's and also back up all my other computers before the backups get shipped off to the cloud.
I build my own machines mostly because I'm chea- (*cough*) of Scottish heritage 😛, and as I'm not flogging the latest multiplayer online combat fest I can live quite comfortably on the trailing edge. I work with a bunch of folks who live out on the frontiers and they're always dumping older hardware for cheap or free. My latest iteration going together next weekend is going to be a 12 core Xeon with 48GB RAM and a GTX960 driving 3 1920x1200 monitors. It's got GOBS of USB ports. I'm running Xubuntu with the Ubuntu Studio packages, and Rosegarden and Ardour for DAWs. This build ought to carry me for the foreseeable future, so long as living in the lightning capital of America (north central Florida) doesn't kill it out from under me. 😀
I share your Scottish heritage (seriously). :) I run two $20,000 Dell servers as a NAS, VM host and backup hub. I paid $500 for the pair of them. Servers depreciate faster than pretty much anything else, and they are typically reliable, high-powered machines.
@@ScottsSynthStuff One of my coworkers came into to the office a few weeks ago with this great big tower case on his shoulder and hollered, "Who wants a server?" Needless to say I pounced. Some researchers had put the thing together with leftover grant money 10 years ago or so and they were just gonna heave it into the dumpster since the University's got this massive Top500 level cluster now. It's my new home/media server. Faster hyperthreaded Xeons for it that were $1500 new are goin' for ten clams each on Amazon. Gotta love it.
Make sure you update the firmware on the 990 pro. There has been an issue with drive health recently…
I did it straight away as soon as I loaded the OS.
Scott,
What is your day job??
Amazing channel by the way.. thank you
I was quite curious about that for some time now but too polite to ask about it. Thank you. Not much time left between flying custom planes flying to Sweetwater and riding Honda Goldwings and criticising ppl who use modular synths…
I noticed you have audio ground loop floor noise in cubase at 25min mark. Do you have passive DI boxes with groundlift on everyone of your analog synths? for when idefenders don’t work use also di boxes.
It's not ground loop noise, it's just noise floor. A lot of these older synths have a bit of a noise floor - especially the 80's synths like the Polysix and Juno-106. It's extremely low, and not audible, but you can see it (obviously) on the VU's.
DI boxes are great in live situations, but in the studio I don't like them, as by virtue of their internal transformers, they alter the sound. Almost all of the synths I have utilize balanced outputs. There are a couple synths (JD-800, Polysix) that do not, and I had to use a ground loop isolator on those. I also had to build a custom cable for the SH-101 to swap its output onto the balanced pair.
However, I intentionally run the mixer (which has the audio interface in it) and all of the synths off the same circuit, so they have the exact same ground potential, eliminating ground loops. Interestingly enough, when I rebuilt my studio, because I was able to tie them together this way, I was able to go from using four iDefenders down to one (on the Montage).
Hello, thank you for video.
Scott, Can you help?:
Ryzen7950X, Asus x670e CrosshairHero, 64Gb Kingston, SSD`s nvme2, RME AIO.
All drivers are new.
The problem:
These plugins crushed Cubase on startup daw when Register VST3
Korg, Melda,
Halion7 !
Groove Agent !
HalionSonic3 !
Padshop !
These don`t crush:
Retrologue
Grand
HalionSonicSE
GrooveAgentSE
Hey Scott. Good video. Although my current PC is fine, I have been considering moving to a Mac Studio, but this video has given me pause for thought. I don't recall any other channels I follow discussing moving to Windows 11 if you run Cubase. So, from your video it all seems to work fine? Were there any issues?
There was one issue I had, and that was a problem caused by the large number of cores/threads in this CPU. Cubase would stop recording and show this error: "MMCSS priority cannot be set!" - however that is due to the CPU capability, and apparently will also happen on Windows 10.
There is a help page on it here: helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/13338094735762-Error-message-on-Windows-MMCSS-priority-cannot-be-set
Essentially, the fix involved downloading the tool from that Steinberg page, running it and setting the threads to 64. Problem solved.
Other than that, no issues!
@ScottsSynthStuff Brilliant. Thanks for the speedy reply, it's much appreciated
What do you think about yhise JBL MONITORS? I believe I have the same ones and the bass goes out from the back. Do you prefer that... I havent got fully used to it yet...
I actually really like them. Last year I spent some time at the Sweetwater showroom, where they have a huge listening room set up with three separate DAW workstations, and each one is hooked up to a bunch of different monitors that you can switch between. My intention was to pick a new set of monitors that would exceed the performance of these relatively inexpensive JBL's. After spending probably half an hour auditioning each of the monitors they had, I had it down to about 5 different ones, and in a blind test - the ones I ended up preferring were the exact JBL's that I already own! So I didn't buy anything, and just kept the JBL's. I suppose part of it is that I "know" them well, and can mix from them consistently.
I recently upgraded from a 10 year old PC laptop to a one that is 3 years old as of last month. I didn't need the latest and greatest, but wanted something more recent and with plenty of ram, hard drive space and a half decent CPU but not the latest. As I used it mostly for live VST's in bands, I wanted a durable screen & case too. My older laptop had been upgraded to an SSD, but only had 8 gig ram but still works surprisingly well for most tasks and speedy, but some newer VST's were sluggish. I also upgraded the ram on similar ones of the same age I had to 16gb recently.
Used PC laptops loose value quickly unlike Mac's. That makes them a much better value for the buyer who's willing to go used and prefers a PC anyway.
I got a Dell business machine (I supported these in IT for many years) with a 10th gen i7 with 6 cores, 32 gigs of ram & a 2TB hard drive. I paid well less than the typical M1 Macbook with 8 gigs of ram and a 256gb drive! I also got a used 512gb drive to use as a spare I can pop in in 5 minutes if something crashed. I think the ram will be important for loading a full night's set list in ram instead of separating it to small files as I normally do to save system resources. I also want to be ready to run the Montage M VST when they offer it to everyone.
I'd also like to do some video editing, but I know it doesn't have a video card like an M series Macbook would. I have a GForce MX250 with 2gb video ram. Which video editor are you using, might recommend for a system without a fancy video card, but plenty of ram?
I have two copies of Windows 10 Pro & a copy of Windows 11 Pro setup on multi-boot. This allows me to setup Windows 10 for optimal audio disabling a bunch of things (such as anti-virus), and a copy for regular computing tasks, and Windows 11 for regular tasks.
I do the exact same thing for my laptops: buy used Dells, I know them, I trust them, they are reliable.
A lot of the Dell laptops however do have a built in GPU believe it or not. You might want to double check - it won't use it normally for power savings reasons, but it has the option to use it if the applications requires it. I know mine does.
I use Premiere Pro for all my video editing. It CAN run without a GPU, I did it this way for years - but it's much faster and nicer to use if you do have one.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Same. I used to manage Dell Business accounts buying & setting up computers for companies, and used them myself. I've used the Latitude series for ages. The Precision looks good too.
I considered Premiere Pro. I wasn't sure if a high end GPU was a requirement or not. I have the Nvidia GForce MX & it also has the Intel UHD video too from the Intel i7 10th gen processor.
@@ScottsSynthStuff After a decade of frustrations with Latitudes at the office, I go with either used MacBooks or refurb'ed Thinkpads (just went from a 2011MBP to a T590 w/a touchscreen). Needless to say everything gets linux. 😀
How is the the overall noise of the fans?
Barely noticeable, and definitely MUCH quieter than my old PC.
i own a ice giant unused please let me know how good it is
It seems to work great, I've stress tested it and it kept the processor temperatures in check. CPU has never thermal throttled.
21:01 Is your full-time job different from audio/video work?
Yes - I do enterprise e-commerce systems design, development and integrations.
I am looking at new pc soon. My goal is to use the only motherboard available with *4 m2 pci4 nvme slots and enough pci slots to host separate usb host processors. Usb high bandwidth ports for camlinks and 4k streaming pro cameras require splitting out the usb camlinks into separate usb bus processor chips and often people plug all their devices into same bus gobbling up usb bandwidth and have video drop outs even with an nvidia RTx cuda gpu I have 27 usb devices plugged into my current pc across 3 usb busses. 😂
You may find yourself running out of USB endpoints, regardless of how many USB buses you have, particularly if you're running an Intel CPU. I had this problem with my old DAW PC.
I would have run a SD harddrive mirroring software and then after that on the new computer upgrade to Win 11.
I had tons and tons of software installed and abandoned over ten years of use, I didn't want to move all that across - I wanted a fresh start.
What was your old 10 year old processor?
Intel Core i7-4790K
@@ScottsSynthStuff Good processor back in the day. I still have my 6700k and still works great. For my DAW computer I have a 12600k with also a RTX 3060 and 32 gigs or ram. I also have a Montage M 61 and still have my original white montage. They just came out with firmware update 1.22.1 for the Montage M. I have many keyboards, Jupiter x, Take 5, Virus keyboard Ti2, Cobalt 8x like you and Hydrasynth keyboard. My favorite is the Montage's. Then the Virus and Take 5. For my DAW I use Reaper. Tried Cubase and Studio one 5, but find Reaper to be the best for me. Good build you have their.
I do not need a new build yet, my 12600k has never done me wrong and can handle everything I throw at it. Thanks
@@amberallen2168 I'm running a Xeon X5690 at the moment, which is just a scosche slower than the 4790. I'll be doing a rip-and-replace on the mobo/cpu/ram this coming weekend, moving to a slightly newer Xeon with 12 cores and DDR4 RAM. I'll be shutting off hyperthreading given the surfeit of cores. 🙂
Good build however I would have gone for ECC memory for any workstation computer. STABILITY is my primary objective.
I have ECC memory in my servers (simply because that's all they will run) but I've never bothered in a workstation - and have never had a problem.
I've had an occasional stick of RAM just up and die on me before (lots of lightning here that does dire things to electronics even with whole house surge suppressors), but I've never had the kind of bit errors that ECC would've caught.
Your video is only 5 days old, but already several of the products you linked to are not available, including the cpu, memory, and case. (As of this posting.) Those must be in high demand or something. Curious why you went with AMD for your CPU instead of Intel. Are those better for music production?
Interesting...I can't speak as to why Amazon doesn't have them currently in stock, but if you click on the "See all buying options" it will show you the other sellers on Amazon that do.
I picked AMD for two reasons:
1. Price/performance in terms of cores and threads as well as overall performance exceeds comparably priced Intel chips. In 30+ years of building PCs, this is my first non-Intel build. It (so far) is working perfeclty.
2. I need a LOT of USB endpoints in my studio to handle all the devices and hubs. AMD chipset architecture gives you many more (more than double) the USB endpoints that Intel does. I was constantly running out of USB endpoint resources on my Intel-based DAW. This is now no longer a problem.
Cool, thanks for the detailed response :)
don't be surprised if window 11 doesn't recognize the CD/DVD drive. It seems to be a problem with some users (including me).
Nope! Sees it and works with it just fine.
The like button on this video seems to be missing.
Never mind I found it.
ID be careful, I was a Samsung only guy till my Samsung SSDs started failing.
As I've mentioned, I have used only Samsung SSD's for over a decade now. I have probably 10 or 11 of them at this point in various PCs and servers. I have never had a single one of them fail. The ONLY SSD I have ever had fail was a non-Samsung drive that came with a laptop. I replaced it with a Samsung.
missing a graphics card but this machine is a beast
His Chip has Integrated Graphics, believe or not this is a music machine and not everyone plays videogames.
The graphics card came from the other PC, you can see it installed later on in the video. And I do use it for editing (and RENDERING) RUclips videos, so the graphics card does get used a lot. Don't play games of any sort however.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Yep, and a GPU will help with a music production PC, don't need anything crazy but anything with its own dedicated memory that has a driver that doesn't ruin your DPC latency will suffice. At least with virtual instruments, memory bandwidth and latency is Crucial(pun intended) and the integrated GPU will share this resource with the processor.
@@ScottsSynthStuff I did have a constant problem with overruns on my previous machine owing to the cpu-hogging of nVidia's linux driver with elderly cards. Once I pulled the ancient GT730 in favor of the GTX960 that issue went bye-bye.
I'm a MAC user, so I'll keep quiet.
uh .. I would seriously keep my hands off all "Prime" boards from Asus. It's their absolute garbage mobo's. Beside that, DDR5 is not particulary good at running 4 sticks. So "if" you should ever want more than 64gb you will have to buy new memory. 4 Sticks will likely both limit the speed at wich they will run and is just not good. Ask Buildzoid why. Basically DDR5 boards shouldn't ever had been made with 4 ram slots, because DDR5 just doesn't support it very well. Not that I think you will run out of memory right away with 64gb 😄 unless you run some serious Sample libraries setups. But unless your a serious PC "geek" not many normal users know about this and think they can alway double the memory later by adding another set of same type of sticks.
I did know about this...I figured that 64 GB is more than I will need for the forseeable future, and if I need to upgrade in future, I'll just replace them with a pair of 64 GB sticks.
A desktop computer?Really? Is this 2003 or what🤔
No, a kick computer. One you place under your desk and occasionally kick with your foot when you least intend to, but it doesn't mind too much. But listen this thing doesn't have fan whine and it's got immense power. With a new laptop, you'll struggle to beat even his old PC by all that much, but this thing, it's serious.
Scott,
What is your day job??
Amazing channel by the way.. thank you
I'm a software developer/architect. Thanks for the kind words!
@@ScottsSynthStuff For some reason I thought you were a commercial pilot. I'm a software engineer too. Music is just a hobby.
@@FirstLast-nr6gf I'm a licensed commercial pilot, but that is not my profession. :)