Budget pc deals

DCS222

Ayup.

looking at replacing the dinosaur in my studio... but I’m not great on computer specs.
 Anyone recommend new computers (Black Friday deals or anything) round about, or below, the £500 mark which would be upto a bit of music editing work?

duotone

@Danny1969 ;
Is probably your best bet on this topic

John_A

Can you elaborate on  a bit of music editing work'?

DCS222

Sure... very much an amateur. I have a a Zoom HD16 digital recording desk, which is ok for capturing sounds but a bit of a pain when wanting to manipulate a bit more. So I’d like to use a DAW to play about with... currently I have audacity, which feels little better than the Zoom. My computer got mistakenly upgraded to Windows 10 (32 bit) and so won’t connect to any online stuff as they are all 64bit... and it’s become increasingly clunky as it fails to update itself. I am sure it’s gonna fall over and die soon, so I’d like to pre empt that and get something adequate for an amateur music fiddler (well guitarist actually)

John_A

Any modern laptop should be fine.  A solid state hard drive makes everything faster, if you can get one with 16mb RAM that would be great, but 8 would be OK.  If it’s an intel processor try and get an i7, but my Mac with an i5 handles recording easily so dont worry too much.

Danny1969

Recording music isn't that taxing on a computer, running a lot of virtual instruments can be but actual audio tracks place very little demands on even older computer. My main recording machine is a 2007 dual core iMac with 4Gb ram and that runs Protools 8 just fine with no probs running 30 tracks or so. 

£500 will get you quite a nice machine, there's a lot of Lenovo's about with 128 /256 / SSD boot drives plus 1TB rotational drive, 8Gb ram and i5 quad processors  ... call Andy on 02392 296988 for a direct price

mike257

I've had some great deals on refurbished machines from a company called Stone Refurb (previously Encore PC). The stock varies but it's all we'll set up and warrantied, and on the one occasion I've had an issue with a machine (duff laptop battery) it was resolved quickly. Definitely worth a look. 

DCS222

Danny1969 said:

Recording music isn't that taxing on a computer, running a lot of virtual instruments can be but actual audio tracks place very little demands on even older computer. My main recording machine is a 2007 dual core iMac with 4Gb ram and that runs Protools 8 just fine with no probs running 30 tracks or so. 

£500 will get you quite a nice machine, there's a lot of Lenovo's about with 128 /256 / SSD boot drives plus 1TB rotational drive, 8Gb ram and i5 quad processors  ... call Andy on 02392 296988 for a direct price

Is Andy an independent builder or part of a shop?

Mudcrutch

I’m a Mac user.
The latest Macmini’s are SSD and great for using two or more monitor screens and most of the best DAWs don’t need drivers.
Im not a lover of windows but my son is and the computers he uses cost big money.
How do I know this? I paid for them.
He has a great looking gaming computer he uses that’s Water cooled.
Buy the best you can afford that does everything you want and need.
lots of good interest free deals about at the moment.

Danny1969

DCS222 said:

Danny1969 said:

Recording music isn't that taxing on a computer, running a lot of virtual instruments can be but actual audio tracks place very little demands on even older computer. My main recording machine is a 2007 dual core iMac with 4Gb ram and that runs Protools 8 just fine with no probs running 30 tracks or so. 

£500 will get you quite a nice machine, there's a lot of Lenovo's about with 128 /256 / SSD boot drives plus 1TB rotational drive, 8Gb ram and i5 quad processors  ... call Andy on 02392 296988 for a direct price

Is Andy an independent builder or part of a shop?

He's a laptop dealer, supplies Lenovo's to a computer shop that I do repairs for. He's also a mix engineer so understands audio requirements for a laptop. 

Jez6345789

Think if I was at the 500 mark I would hold on and save for the new MAC mini from the demo I watched even of the 8gb version that's pretty much going to knock budget intel laptops into the wind. Even if your not a heavy user the ability to run a high level of plugins is going to give you a lot of future-proofing and  I just bought an AMD 500 quid laptop off Amazon as I needed a Windows machine and fairly underwhelmed and even the budget Ryzens are supposed to be a step up from Intel and once you get Windows running it all gets pedestrian very quickly. But then I am a MAC user.

LooseMoose

I can help you out here:

Fantastic build that I completed a few weeks ago - all components under warranty.

Here's the spec:

Case: Thermaltake Core V21 Usb3.0 Micro-ATX

Power Supply: Aerocool Cylon 500W PSU

Motherboard: MSI MAG B450M Mortar - WiFi

CPU: Intel Core i5 10400 Comet Lake 4.3Ghz 6 Core 12 Threads

RAM: HyperX Fury 16Gb 2 x 8Gb

Graphics: Zotac  GTX 1660 Super 6Gb

Storage: 500Gb Crucial PCIe NVME SSD

Postage possible but will be expensive as will need insurance.

Minor light scratch on side window but may polish out - rest of case is in lovely condition and ready to smash through any game you throw at it!

Quiet and powerful. Yours for £500!

Heartfeltdawn

A general noodling PC is not expensive or difficult to build if you're really looking for music and a bit of internet. 

Case: £30
PSU: £55
Motherboard and Ryzen 3 3100: £150 (I'm liking MSI motherboards now)
Passive GT710 silent graphics card: £30
RAM: 16GB RAM £60 for two sticks of 8GB. 
SSD: 500GB Sandisk £43. 
Quiet CPU cooler: £20 for a Bequiet Pure Rock. 

Plenty of change left from £400. What audio interface are you running? 

DCS222

I have a zoom HD18 and an I-rig for GarageBand on my old iPad ... I create and record my crap on these and upload to audacity for any further fiddling about (because that’s the only DAW) that will work on my current computer.

As you can see, there’s little incentive to “create” stuff. My music skills are basic, but I feel I’m alright as a lyricist... I’d love to get to the stage where I can put down a basic track pretty quickly (that doesn’t just sound like GarageBand loops) and then collaborate with more talented artists.

So I’d be using my I-rig until I can afford a better interface

DCS222

mike257 said:

I've had some great deals on refurbished machines from a company called Stone Refurb (previously Encore PC). The stock varies but it's all we'll set up and warrantied, and on the one occasion I've had an issue with a machine (duff laptop battery) it was resolved quickly. Definitely worth a look. 

Thanks for all the advice and offers... I’ve just pulled the trigger on a unit from Stone Refurb!
All the input was much appreciated.