Are Barebone desktop systems up to par for recording music?

[Maverick87]

Hey all. I cant say I know a lot about computers for audio recording, but I dont have a large budget at all. I was looking at a Dell laptop that was $600 and a few towers around $350-$400, but I was wondering just how cheap I can go and still get by?

I dont need a system thats super powerful and upgraded and capable of running the most complex programs, I just need basically the bare minimum that wont make my recording process terrible. I came across Barebone systems and have seen people here say they use em, I only had my doubts because of how small the units are, but if they are capable I have no problem gettin em.

I should mention I already have a monitor, keyboard, mouse and all that. The computer we were using took a dump and was old anyways. We are spending on acoustic treatment, mic, preamp, monitors, and all that too so its important that I find the bare minimum that will work for now till we can start upgrading equipment peice by peice. Any input would be appreciated.

[EtherealEntity]

Entirely depends what you're doing.

How many inputs at once? How many tracks total? Anticipated amount of plugins? Any virtual instruments?

[Maverick87]

I dont record live instruments, pretty much just vocals and in mono so one mic and thats it. Id like to leave the possibility of MIDI open. I use a pretty hefty amount of VST plugins. So it doesnt need to be able to handle a lot at one time, but I usually end up with about 45 vocal tracks give or take many plug ins working.

Upon more research, IDK if the barebone systems are what Im looking for. Ive found some desktops for about $300-$400 range and hopefully they can do the job.

Im looking at an HP Pavilion desktop with an AMD dual core processor, 5gb of RAM, 500gb hard drive, and 64 bit Windows 7. The only thing that worries me about it is it seems like a really low amount of hard drive space. We ARE gonna be using an external hard drive. Pretty much looking for functional bare minmum, is this the way to go? There are other options closer to $400 with 1TB of hard drive space if its an issue

[Maverick87]

I havent made beats with MIDI yet, but I really want to get into it so I imagine virtual instruments will come into play also.

[EtherealEntity]

Nah..that's not a low harddrive space I've only just filled mine up and I have over 200GB of orchestral samplers installed.

Those specs will be fine - keep the harddrive at 500GB and expand with others. Use the 500GB as your system drive and keep all the project audio on another one, internal or external.

[thenoodle]

Originally Posted by Maverick87

Im looking at an HP Pavilion desktop with an AMD dual core processor, 5gb of RAM, 500gb hard drive, and 64 bit Windows 7. The only thing that worries me about it is it seems like a really low amount of hard drive space.

I use hp pavilions all the time. Probably have 6 of them going around here. Take off the sides, run sata cables off the mobo to external drives and you have all the storage you want.

Reach in and remove the internal drive and replace with another if you want.

I can not believe how many people sink lots of money into computers. Those days were over for me in 1992.

Computers are like toasters. Buy em cheap, throw them out when they die. The HPs around here though, don't seem to die... so I keep using them. Some for daw, some for vsts, some for video, some for midi.... it's all good.

[Maverick87]

Wow I appreciate the input, I was honestly expecting a lot of wtf are you thinking? Ive seen so many threads with people spending pretty much close to $1000 and up on the computer alone, where thats closer to my budget altogether. Feels nice to know it'll work out so thanx everyone