Of course, you can also build one yourself. You can order in parts and make this Frankenstein beast, all for relatively little money.
If you were to buy all these computers mentioned above and install the same recording program on each, chances are it wouldn’t work on all of them. Heck, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t work well on any of them.
Why? Because recording software is much more demanding than a word processor program. Most PCs are built for office use, running spreadsheets, checking email, NOT streaming tons of audio data back and forth.
Also, the computer (normally) needs to communicate with an external device (audio interface), which can prove to be troublesome. (After all, it’s hard to get your computer to see a printer sometimes, what about an audio interface with all sorts of ins and outs on it?)
This is why PCs have gotten a bad rap in the music industry. If I was a software developer, I would love to develop for Mac only. Why? Because I would only need to develop the software to work with a certain processor, motherboard, etc. I wouldn’t have to make various versions for each motherboard out there on newegg.com.
That being said, I wouldn’t completely write off PCs. As I mentioned earlier, chances are (with a little tweaking) you can get your PC to work well for recording. However, be ready to do some fiddling and handholding to get it working.
If you’re looking to buy a PC, then I would seriously suggest looking at one of Sweetwater’s Creation Stations. These are built from the ground up to work with all the major recording platforms out there. They’re a bit more expensive, but they’re made by folks who know music technology, AND they’re super quiet. I’ve heard of many a person building his own recording PC, only to find out that it sounds like a rocket ship taking off. Yep, that’ll pretty much ruin a recording.
So…which is better?
If you put a Mac and a good, comparable PC (like a Sweetwater Creation Station) side by side, you would not see much difference in performance. Those guys over in Silicon Valley have come up with some ridiculously fast processors, so there’s a lot you can do with computers today that you couldn’t even do five years ago, both on a Mac and a PC.
The Deciding Factor
I could build an entire website around the Mac vs PC debate, but I don’t want to. The biggest deciding factor for you is this – what software are you wanting to use?
It does you no good to research Macs when you want to use Sonar recording software (which is PC only). It’s just as bad to research PCs when you have your sites set on Digital Performer (which is Mac only).
I’ll get into the various recording platforms in the next article, so keep in mind that when thinking about a home recording studio, you need to think in terms of a system. Too much focus on one component could lead you down the wrong path if it doesn’t fit in with your vision for the entire system.
Joe Gilder is a Nashville-based engineer, musician, and producer who also provides training and advice at the Home Studio Corner. Note that Joe also offers highly effective training courses, including Understanding Compression and Understanding EQ.