Dedicated music computers..... something that is near and dear to my heart.

I've had 2. The first was an off the shelf Dell Laptop. The second one I built from the ground up to specs that I wanted the computer to have.

First, there's nothing really wrong with using a store bought computer as a dedicated DAW. The biggest problem is all the crapware they load on those machines at the factory. That said, yes, you can clean them up and use them just fine.

You will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS want to purchase a music specific interface for the computer. Do not think the factory card will be sufficient because it will not. If you're investing the money to build a dedicated machine, get a dedicated sound card/interface.

My custom built machine was spec'd from a website which builds and sells custom DAWs. I bought the parts, ordered the OS... XP Pro/32 and put the machine together. The goal was a fast and efficient DAW that did nothing but music and was not encumbered with the typical crapware, AV, Wifi, or internet of the other machines. The DAW stays off line except to register a new music software program.

Since it's off line, it never updates anything ever. As a result, the old XP machine runs as fast as it did the first day I started it up. Since it's XP, the available memory is limited but in all the time I have used it to record projects of varying size...small to really large, it has NEVER choked due to memory issues. It rarely chokes for any reason.

My Dell lappy, has now become a general purpose machine, being used to go on line to a few websites such as here. It remains a viable back up DAW.

However, the real studio workhorse is the custom machine with it's i5 chip and XP.... that baby is rock solid. I run a Focusrite Saffire wirefire interface on it. If the interface ever dies, I will buy another one with a USB connection since USB is now pretty much the standard. At the time, FW was faster. Now, that's not necessarily the case.

Hope this helps

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 01/17/16 05:31 AM.
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