Before we get into this section, a note: you can never really discuss audio production without starting a fight about PC vs Mac. Now, there are two reasons that our article will be entirely focused on PC. First, of course, Logical Increments is a research and information site about building PCs, and that is what all of our resources are about. But second, and more importantly for our present context, a PC has so many more customization options when it comes to additional audio-centric components through PCIe cards and USB right now that a PC would be more suited for the majority of audio-focused users. The only factor that significantly shifts the debate in the other direction is portability, as then the 15” Macbook Pro models that come with i7 CPUs are viable options.

Now, on to the topic at hand:

When looking at building a PC for audio production, a lot of your build will be determined by what exactly you are looking to produce. For smaller scale productions (solo podcasts, student projects, etc.) you really don’t need some supercomputer with the power of a thousand suns to get the job done—yet you still might want some of the peripherals detailed further below in section three, so your total budget could include them in order to give you a good all-around starting setup. For professional independent and studio setups, however, the sky really is the limit.

Note: If you put together an example build with an AMD CPU, that usually means not having thunderbolt ports.

Starter Audio Workstation Build ($500)

Home Professional Audio Workstation Build ($1500)

Productivity Monster Audio Workstation Build ($2500)

CPU

The CPU is the foundation of an audio production PC. The processor’s core count and speed will determine how quickly you can accomplish various editing tasks. If your PC doesn’t have a powerful processor, it’s going to be slow, regardless of anything else. Modern editing software will take advantage of many CPU cores and hyperthreading, so investing in a good CPU is crucial when building a PC for audio production.

Generally speaking, the CPU is where you should invest the largest part of your budget. Serious builders should be considering a 6-core CPU at a minimum or a 4-core/8-thread CPU as a viable alternative.

In some situations, having more CPU cores may give you better performance. With that said, relatively modest projects will likely be just fine with a 6-core CPU, but depending on the complexity of your project and the latency you require, you may want to upgrade to an 8-core, 10-core, 12-core, or even higher-core-count CPU option.

Graphics Card

One of the things in the current market you can relax about is the GPU for your build. If you are using your workstation for more than audio production, then you are going to need to make sure that you do have a balanced system. But just by itself, the GPU is not really utilized when it comes to audio work.

This is why, in the first of our example builds in section one above, we were more than happy to recommend an APU (a CPU with integrated GPU).

For most music production and general DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) builds, the GTX 1660 will give you plenty of power for any and all needs. However, if you are also planning to use the workstation for 3D Rendering, high-resolution video editing, and/or gaming—or if you just want a PC that can handle a wide variety of program tasks, just in case—then you may want to consider upgrading to something like the RX 6600 XT or even the RTX 3060 Ti.

RAM

Having enough RAM is critical when looking for good all-around performance for your build. For music production and audio editing, having 16GB is a reasonable minimum to ensure headroom for all relevant applications. Then, as you go up in the performance of your CPU, you can jump up to 32GB or 64GB of RAM for a top-end system.

A useful alternative to just throwing more RAM at the problem is spending a bit more on faster RAM. Especially if you are happy with overclocking your CPU, you can get very noticeable performance improvements from 3000MHz (or higher) RAM over the standard 2133MHz. If you know you are not going to be running a lot of programs at once, then this is a major alternative to simply doubling your RAM.

Storage (HDD, SSD)

When looking at your storage in a workstation, workflow is king. You can have the fastest system in the world, but if the CPU cannot simply read the data from the HDD fast enough, then that performance is wasted.

The general rule of thumb is that you want a dedicated drive to store the files you are editing, and then a main storage drive once you are done with them. This is why all of our examples come with 2 drives as standard, a smaller-capacity (faster, more expensive) NVMe SSD or SATA SSD and a larger-capacity (slower, cheaper) SATA HDD or SATA SSD.

As you go up in budget, you can get even more elaborate by having one drive for your operating system and key programs, one for project files in use, and a third as a short-term cache drive. You can also get quite smart with this, as you’ll find a lot of the newer M.2 SSDs have super-high sustained read/write speeds to and from the drive. So, although they are more expensive, you are paying for pure performance.

An alternative to this or a further possibility (especially if avoiding data loss is a high priority) is setting up multiple drives in a RAID configuration; this can be achieved by mounting additional drives inside the case if there is space, or by purchasing an external enclosure.

Motherboard

For an audio workstation, the motherboard choice usually comes down to a very simple question of, “how many things can I plug into this?” For that reason, we would usually recommend full-size ATX boards, so that you are not losing a PCIe slot on the board. Losing a PCIe slot may seriously limit you, especially if you’re browsing the sound card list in the third section below.

A few other considerations when selecting a motherboard are likely to include exactly what the onboard sound is capable of handling in terms of bitrates and the like, the number of available USB ports, and the number of available SATA ports.

When it comes to audio processing, modern motherboards often have very good integrated sound. If you’re especially concerned about the quality of sound as you’re editing, however, check reviews of the motherboards you’re considering in order to make sure the audio quality will meet your needs. As mentioned above, a good additional purchase for such concerned users is a PCIe sound card.

Finally, as mentioned above, think about how many hard drives you’re planning to have. While most PC users get away with having one or two, editors are very often strapped for storage as you focus on maintaining good workflow. Standard SSDs and HDDs run off of SATA ports, whereas the super-fast M.2 SSDs run off a special M.2 port on the board (or can be mounted onto a PCIe slot adapter and plugged into the board that way).

Power Supply (PSU)

The last thing you want is for your PC to instantly power down through lack of power, or even to short out the entire board from an overload. So, it is important to not only get a power supply that will handle what you throw at it, but also one which has good power safety features in the unfortunate case of a power surge. For this reason, we would strongly recommend getting a power supply only from a well-known and reputable manufacturer (such as SeaSonic, Corsair, Silverstone, Cooler Master, Rosewill, be quiet!, or EVGA), and to opt for an 80+ rating of Bronze or better—which will also ensure your PC uses electricity efficiently, and runs cooler and quieter.

PCIe Sound Cards

Although built-in motherboard sound components have come a long way, which has made investment in a sound card have more diminishing returns than ever, no other internal component solution quite beats having a dedicated card to handle your audio—especially when driving high-end/high-impedence headphones or speakers, and especially when precise quality is everything.

External DACs and AMPs

While an internal sound card is a great choice in terms of convenience, reduction of cable clutter, and proximity to other input ports—the quality of any internal audio processor will be mitigated by the electrical interference inside of your PC case. For this reason, many serious audio production users have turned to external digital-to-audio converters (DACs) and amplifiers (AMPs) to fulfill their needs. The low end of these is as low (price-wise) as the low end of sound cards, but the high end here is as extremely high as the high end for other audio equipment like speakers, microphones, and headphones.

USB Audio Interfaces

If you’re going to be recording with your workstation before editing (and especially if you aren't going for a USB microphone), then you will be needing a USB interface. In a nutshell, it takes your various audio inputs and then transmits them into your PC.

As with each of these peripheral and audio-specific component sections, there are a couple of different quality grades here, depending on if you are just starting out, looking to spend a little more on some added features or quality, or wanting a more top-end interface.

Microphones

A lot of true beginners in the world of music production or audio editing are likely to go for a popular USB microphone—like the Blue Yeti Snowball. There is certainly nothing wrong with that choice, per se, as a USB microphone can not be beaten in terms of convenience and ease-of-use (they are typically plug-and-play devices).

But this section (and this article in general) is geared toward serious users who prioritize the overall quality, features, and future upgrade capabilities of their workstation over convenience. For that reason, the microphones we recommend here are XLR mics, which will require an audio interface (like one of those in the section above) in order to connect to your PC. The good news is that an entry level user who would have otherwise bought a Blue Yeti Snowball for $80 can instead buy the $40 entry level mic from this section and the $40 entry level USB audio interface from the above section to get a better starting kit for the same price!

Regarding Headphones and Speakers

When it comes to true audio quality (so we’re talking about a flat response to accurately work with when editing), you can go on and on all day long when looking at what headphones and/or speakers to buy. Any respectable designer of professional-grade products will post the response curves out there—as they show editors, engineers, and any other audio professional exactly how the device should handle. Yet even with that, there are exceptions.

A great place to start for selecting headphones is this headphone guide put together by users of the subreddit /r/Headphones. For speakers, there are similar resources in the forms of this chart of bookshelf speakers and this chart of tower speakers put together by the Reddit user /u/AverageJoeAudiophile, but those charts are somewhat dated.

In essence here, you need the right headphones and speakers for the job. For audio playback, there are plenty of great studio monitors out there and plenty of headphones designed for specific purposes. The best advice I can give here is to use your ears. If possible, test the headphones; go and listen to the speakers in a music store; and do your research, so you can be sure your choice is right for you!

Still have questions about equipment?

That's not too surprising! There is a massive variety of options out there for peripherals and components related to music production and audio work at all budget levels. With broad questions, such as looking for reviews or overviews, you should search for YouTube videos on the relevant subject. With more specific questions and concerns, I would recommend seeking the help of folks that already have a strong knowledge base. Reddit, for instance, is home to numerous helpful audio-centric communities; some that are highly worth checking out are /r/Audiophile, /r/Headphones, /r/AudioEngineering, and /r/BudgetAudiophile.

Alright, so you’ve got a PC now, or at least you have one in mind. Next, you’ll need one or more programs to do your design work. Below is an overview of the most prominent pieces of software for music production and audio editing.

What you’ll find with a lot of the software listed here is that they don’t need something super-fast to run them. Where the power of your PC comes into play is how fast they can perform various edits and effects, as well as when you are creating the final master and encoding your files.

Adobe Audition CC ($240 annual subscription for updates)

As part of Adobe’s creative suite of software, Audition is excellently suited for those who are providing audio content to use in their other software like Premiere Pro. As such, you will often find small multi-user studios doing quicker touch ups for video editing in this software. It is available as a monthly or yearly subscription; however, it is probably only worth it if you’re using other Adobe products.

Avid Pro Tools ($299 annual subscription for updates)

Like Adobe, Avid have their own audio program which compliments their video software. However, one of the main positives for Avid is their user-friendly interface and arguably better sound processing plug-ins and tools. Where Pro Tools really shines is (like Adobe Audition) how it performs with other Avid products. So if you prefer their general design and function, this is a no brainer!

Ableton Live ($499 single license)

One of the big hitters of the recording world is Ableton Live. The main advantage you will find in this software is super-fast multitrack recording and MIDI sequencing, making it a must for a professional recording studio when it comes to recording multiple sources for a track. Where there's a mixing desk, Ableton is usually not far behind.

iZotope RX ($1199 single license)

Rather than an editor, iZotope is an audio repair tool with so, so many features to fix and improve your audio. Because of the price of this, you’ll normally only see this in a professional studio setup. Yet, for a piece of software which has a simple interface, the tools are very in-depth. As someone who was stupid enough to use a shotgun mic to record someone’s speech in a high-reverb room, I can personally attest to how powerful this software will be for your audio.

FL Studio ($199 single license)

Personally, I think it's a shame they shortened the FruityLoops name to FL! Where Ableton leaned more towards studio work, FL Studio leans more towards DJ mixing and editing. But that doesn't mean it is lacking for features! As a music production suite, FL Studio is a favourite for the popular plugins it comes with, not to mention the fact that, if you purchase the producer edition, you get lifetime updates for the software (take that, monthly subscriptions!).

Cubase Pro ($740 single license)

The top dog of the composer world, Cubase Pro brings a superbly designed interface as well as a great feature set for composers and aspiring artists. Crucially, this is one piece of software that can utilize every piece of your hardware to the maximum to give you optimum performance, no matter what you are running on. Because of this, Cubase has become a natural choice for a lot of new users on simpler PCs, as they can get the benefit of optimization for their current system and know that when they do upgrade to something more substantial, the software can take advantage of that performance boost. The one downside for smaller systems is that this does take up a lot of drive space, meaning most users need to set aside at least 500GB for core software and plugins.

Reason ($400 single license)

Reason is a little bit different from the other options, mainly because it is designed to work as if you had a physical hardware rack connecting things—like a mixer, samplers, processors, and so on—together. What results is a piece of software which is oddly intuitive for someone who is used to using a hardware setup like that, and the flexibility/modularity that comes with, but less intuitive for typical digital producers. That being said, out of all the software listed, Reason often wins out in personal recommendations thanks to its stability and phenomenal customer support team, making it a life saver when you need to know a piece of software can get the job done!

Reaper ($60 personal use / $225 commercial use)

What's that? A company that still supports Windows XP?! Think of it this way: a closed off studio (for security reasons), which doesn't have internet access and doesn't need the next big update from Windows . . . a lot of these studios still run Windows XP, because it works and the systems don't need anything else. In steps Reaper with that support, but also importantly it does work in the same format all the way up to Windows 11. So, when the studio is done with it, that track can be taken and used by the super-fast, online-capable systems with confidence that it'll work just the same. What's more, any paid license includes the current version with all of its future updates—and a free upgrade to the next major version and all of its subsequent updates, when they are released—making it a strong choice for long-term adopters.

Audacity (free)

The audio junky's free tool for all! Audacity is a free, open-source program that can be used by anyone and everyone. Because of this, there are hundreds (and hundreds!) of free user-created plugins, which make it a great first start for your audio needs. One of my favourites is "chris's dynamic compressor" (no relation, haha!), as frankly I am yet to hear a better compressor for voice than what this provides—so much so that I still pass my audio for voice over through it when I'm creating a quick voice track for demonstration purposes. It is stuff like that which makes Audacity such a popular and flexible tool for people making their first big steps into the audio world.

Cakewalk (free)

A previously-premium professional DAW whose basic version recently became freely available, in a maneuver that may be familiar to video editos aware of Davinci Resolve. If you're going the Audacity route, it is likely worthwhile for you to at least check out this option as well—to see which of them better suits your needs, workflow, and style.

A great music production or audio editing PC is one that allows you to do all of the work you want to do, while never getting in your way by slowing you down or limiting you. In order to achieve this, put the weight of your resources toward your build’s CPU, followed (in order) by storage space and RAM. And don't forget, when you're budgeting for your build, to factor in the cost of audio-specific peripherals like those in section three above.

Consider following one of the example builds above in section one, so that you can be sure that your build will be suited for its role and also reasonably balanced. And always check for compatibility between the programs you want to use and the hardware you want to buy. (We do our research here, but it would be almost impossible for our team to check every possible combination of software and hardware on our own.)

Follow this guide, and in no time you’ll have a workstation PC up and running for audio editing and music production!

Chris is a contributing writer for Logical Increments, and has worked in the gaming and technology industries as a community manager for many years, as well as a live streamer. He has been building PC's for over 11 years.

When Chris is not here creating builds and guides, he can be found at University, studying for a BSc in Video Production as he makes the transition over to the film industry from gaming. You can read more about his journey on his website.

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