What are the minimum system requirements for home music production?

Question

And why have they changed over the last 7 years? I'm wondering, because I have a 1.5GHZ Compaq Deskpro
running Windows 98SE with 256MB PC800 RIMMBUS(?).
It's the maximum amount of RAM that the system will hold
(I have no idea why).

Answer 1

YIKES, Windows 98 has a maximum usable RAM size. If you have a 1.5GHz machine with 256MB or more RAM, you shoulld be using a real 32bit operating system like Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Once you upgrade your software, you will be able to expand your RAM to the maximum of the computer system, or 4GB.

Home music? Like mixing music... Cool Edit Pro is still COOL. But certainly there are many more software packages.

MIDI? Oh man, Band-in-a-Box is still pretty cool, but there is a TON of MIDI programs out there.

Even CakeWalk is still cool.

If you are doing DJ work, there are hundreds of different software packages.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Answer 2

You are looking to do studio work? or DJ mixing? or just some misc stuff. For studio work like protools, you are looking for something with at least 2 gigs of memory. I would suggest DDR2. RDRAM or Rambus is usually only 16 bit memory with speeds up to 1066MHz. DDR2 is up to 1066MHz with around 128 bit or more. A 2 GHz processor would be ok... more speed the better. Intel Dual core or quad core. AMD X2 64 bit dual core or better. the "Why" is simple. you can mix more tracks now than before. and most signals are completely digital. Analog it was not necessary to have the details.