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S1E16 – Building a Custom Computer for Music Production

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In this episode we talk about how to build a custom music production computer, and what computer parts you should look for in a music computer.

The main thing to look for is a really good CPU. For more information, read best computer for music production.

I will leave videos from that article here:

Part 1 of Building a Computer for Music Production
Part 2 of Building a Computer for Music Production

Check out this episode’s resources for more valuable tips on building your own computer to make beats.

Backup Music Production Computer

Community

Questions about this episode

Transcript

S1E16 – Building a Custom Computer for Music Production

  1. Hey, this is Gratuitous. Welcome to Music Production Made Simple, the show that
  2. focuses on best practices about music production, which is based on FL Studio.
  3. If you're wanting to become the best producer you could be, subscribe and listen
  4. weekly. You can also check out my courses, which teach you the principles and basics
  5. of music production. They'll get you up and running quickly.
  6. In addition, I also have books on Amazon and tons of music on Spotify.
  7. Always feel free to hit me up at Hi at itsgratuitous.com.
  8. So let's get into the episode.
  9. Alright, hey, what's everybody?
  10. Welcome to episode number 16. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about building
  11. a custom computer for music production.
  12. so I've actually created a video for this when I actually built my custom computer.
  13. It's a two-part video series. I share with you the parts I bought, why I bought
  14. them, and then I also share with you how I actually put the computer together.
  15. Okay, so you know, you can just check it out on YouTube.
  16. The link will be in the resource section on this episode page.
  17. You actually have to come to my website for that, okay?
  18. So again, this is episode number 16.
  19. So before we get into the episode, I just want to share about my camera situation
  20. for my courses. So I actually had a huge learning curve here.
  21. So over my years, I was always using just this camcorder.
  22. It's like a Canon Vixia. I think it's an HF400.
  23. and you know, a camcorder, since it doesn't have like a big sensor, it doesn't pick
  24. up, you know, like it's it's harder to get a better picture in low light conditions
  25. as as well as you're not able to get like that nice blurred effect.
  26. And especially since now I'm trying to use this green screen, I'm wanting to upgrade
  27. this camera, okay? So I told you, I think you know, I think it was two episodes ago,
  28. I was talking to you about my camera and the problems I was having about you know
  29. the camera turning off by itself, or when you plug in HDMI, it still has like
  30. information on the screen, such as like the battery information, the autofocus and
  31. stuff like that. So, what I discovered was you want a camera with a clean HDMI
  32. output. And the Canon cameras, the lower end ones, I I actually have the Canon
  33. 80D as well as I have a Canon M6 and, both of those do not have a clean
  34. HDMI out. And so, what that means is that the battery information or like the
  35. autofocus is always there. So, if I want autofocus, you're always gonna see a little
  36. boxer on my face, which is you know, that's not professional.
  37. So, in order to get around that, I would have to put it to manual mode.
  38. In other words, you know, if I wanted to share something in the camera nice and
  39. close with you, you know, I couldn't do that as I was actually recording the video.
  40. And then in addition, the you know, the camera would turn off automatically, even
  41. though I have like a dummy battery, and a dummy battery just allows you to have your
  42. camera on all the time. You know, nowadays with streaming, you know, like with a
  43. gaming and stuff like that becoming so popular, you know, these streamers they're
  44. using all these different cameras, so the camera's on all the time, right?
  45. So you have to put in a dummy battery to do that, and then you just disable the auto
  46. shutoff on the camera. So, what I discovered was so since I use a capture card, it's
  47. by Elgato, okay? That's the company that creates these capture cards.
  48. There's there's other companies too, but anyway, so El Gato actually has a website
  49. where they talk about the different cameras that you can use for streaming, and they
  50. give you all the different specs on it.
  51. I'll leave that link in the show notes here as well on my actual website.
  52. And so I actually ended up purchasing a new camera that allows me to get autofocus,
  53. get a clean HDMI out. so from here on going out, I think I'm set up.
  54. I don't have to worry about all these little nuances because you know the thing is
  55. if I'm trying to create a course, I want to focus on teaching, and if I have all
  56. these like little distractions going on all the time, such as like the camera
  57. shutting off, or you know, it's not being focused on my face, or you know, just
  58. stuff like that. It's like it distracts me from teaching you.
  59. so now I'm gonna be good. I have this boom microphone, which I talked to you about
  60. that picks up my audio really, really good.
  61. I'm gonna have an awesome camera here now, which is auto focused, and then I have an
  62. awesome computer here, which we're gonna be talking about in this episode.
  63. I built this computer for more of yes, you know, solely music production based.
  64. However, I also do like video production since I do these courses.
  65. So I I you know, some things that I put into this computer may not be necessary for
  66. you, okay. So that's just a little rundown for you guys, you know, from some
  67. information for you guys to be aware of.
  68. Again, now that streaming is becoming popular, it's important to have a camera with
  69. a clean HDMI out. If you want to use a camera with autofocus and have a clean
  70. image that you can use for you know, courses or streaming or whatever, okay.
  71. So, like I already mentioned, I have an in-depth walkthrough video going over my
  72. personal music production computer.
  73. I think I built this computer around 2016 to 2017, but again, I explained why I
  74. purchased the parts and how we put it all together.
  75. It was actually my first computer that I ever put together and it went really really
  76. good. You know, I'm talking to you on the computer right now.
  77. one thing I want to share with you is ImageLine, the makers of FL Studio, they
  78. always keep an up-to-date page about what's the best computer parts to buy for music
  79. production. You know, they talk about like the CPU and everything like that.
  80. I will leave that link in the show notes as well.
  81. That's a really really powerful page.
  82. If you are interested in purchasing, you know, all these custom parts to build your
  83. own computer. Now, I just want to share that first of all, I am not an expert with
  84. with computers, but when I did build my computer, I did a lot of reading about all
  85. these different computer parts.
  86. So I'm just gonna relay a lot of that information which I learned onto you.
  87. And what I found. You know, so since I've built it, I've also discovered some things
  88. that I wish I would have done a little differently, you know, so that maybe you guys
  89. can make a better decision when you're purchasing your parts..
  90. Okay So my goal behind my music production computer was first of all, I wanted
  91. silence. I wanted to have a really, really quiet computer, and I wanted a really
  92. powerful computer, a computer that was really, you know, fast when I opened up
  93. plugins, that I could handle many plugins, many audio tracks, right?
  94. And you know, going further on to the future, I also wanted this computer to last me
  95. at least four or five, six years.
  96. Okay. So those were pretty much like my goals with this computer.
  97. Now the main thing that I learned behind this computer is when you're purchasing a
  98. motherboard, which we'll talk about in a moment, is you want to be purchasing a
  99. motherboard with a lot of USB ports.
  100. Because if you think about it with music production, there's a lot of different
  101. things that you know you plug in.
  102. Everything from your audio interface to your MIDI keyboard to dongles to in my case,
  103. I have like a webcam. thing that my what my motherboard didn't come with is it
  104. didn't come with like a blue Bluetooth, right?
  105. So I had to buy an adapter for that, just a little USB drive for that.
  106. hard drives if you were gonna be plugging in USB external hard drives.
  107. currently I have two external hard drives for backing up.
  108. So these are all just things that you have to think about going in the future.
  109. So learn from learn from my mistakes so that you guys can build an awesome computer,
  110. okay? So that's pretty much it that I've learned so far with this computer was just
  111. you know, pretty much just you want to have lots of USB ports.
  112. And if you don't, I ended up just purchasing some USB hubs.
  113. So I actually have a USB type C port on the back where I just plugged in a USB hub
  114. for that. I have four USB ports for that, and then I off the front, I have a USB 3
  115. plug-in with the hub. Okay, so let's discuss the components of a computer and what
  116. we're focused on for music production..
  117. Okay So things that you may need with your computer is like a CPU, your motherboard,
  118. RAM, power supply, hard drive, your computer case, and then maybe a video card,
  119. depending on what your goal is with your actual computer.
  120. Nowadays, your CPU actually has a video card built in.
  121. and then your motherboard, many times you can even have two monitors off of your
  122. motherboard off of that CPU graphics card.
  123. There's all these different routes you can take.
  124. one thing I will mention, you know, since we're talking about the video card there,
  125. is I actually had some trouble plugging into the motherboard video card and also a
  126. video card at the same time. Like, so just for normal browsing, it was fine.
  127. But if I was going to be doing video editing, many times the program would crash.
  128. So my way around that was I actually just plug my monitors right into my actual
  129. third-party video card, not off my CPU, and that has avoided all the problems, and
  130. then I'm able to get all the benefits out of that video card, you know, for like
  131. rendering and and all those kind of benefits, okay.
  132. So, like I'm saying, you know, some of these are the essentials, others will depend
  133. on your needs. So let's cover these parts that you need more in depth for music
  134. production, okay? So we're gonna talk talk about the CPU.
  135. So the CPU is like the most important part of your computer, it's like the brain of
  136. the computer, and it does all like the calculations, okay.
  137. So this is the thing with music production is music production is solely based on
  138. your CPU, and you know, if you have like a small buffer size at like 256 or 512, and
  139. once your projects get larger, you know, you can get like these underruns.
  140. Like, yes, you're gonna get lower latency, which means that you will be able to
  141. record easier without delay, or play like your MIDI keyboard without delay., but you
  142. know, again, you can get underruns
  143. Now, if you have a more powerful CPU, you will be able to, you know, run larger
  144. projects at you know, lower buffer sizes.
  145. But again, once your project starts to grow, even for myself, I still have to
  146. increase my buffer size to like 1024.
  147. But again, make sure you're using like an ASIO driver as well as an audio interface
  148. that has properly good coded drivers.
  149. Do your research before you purchase an audio interface.
  150. because over my years, I have had audio interfaces where using just ASIO for all has
  151. actually given me better results than my actual audio interfaces, coded driver.
  152. nowadays I'm just on the focus right, Scarlet 2i2.
  153. This is a second generation, they now have a third generation, but the second
  154. generation has been an amazing audio interface, just to let you guys be aware of
  155. that. Now, the biggest thing to look at with your CPU and what image line tells us
  156. is that the single core speed is the most important out of your CPU.
  157. Okay. So when you look at CPUs on Amazon, for example, you'll see that there's like
  158. two core, four core, like eight core, 16 core, and stuff like that.
  159. And you may think that, you know, like wow, like you know, this eight core, I'm
  160. gonna get that because that's gonna be way better.
  161. I'm gonna I'm gonna be able to process way more.
  162. And the thing is, you know, there's there's pros and cons to this, but we're focused
  163. on this single core speed, okay?
  164. And you know, so what that means is that that single core can actually calculate all
  165. these, you know, calculations very, very fast, okay.
  166. So, you know, over the years, computers have have, you know, they've progressed
  167. very, very fast. You know, now we're seeing eight core CPUs, which is you know, back
  168. in the day, even seeing like a quad core, a four core was was crazy, right?
  169. It was just like, whoa, like you know, these CPUs are advancing..
  170. Now, again, just because a computer has more cores doesn't mean it will be the best
  171. CPU for music production You know, like I'm saying, it might have some other
  172. benefits, like maybe being able to handle like more tasks, but that single core
  173. speed is what ImageLine recommends, and that's just because it will be able to
  174. calculate things faster on that single core.
  175. Image line actually has some helpful information about your CPU in terms of how like
  176. the threading and stuff all works.
  177. Like, so you know, with your audio, you have the option to you know route one insert
  178. to another insert, like for example, for subgroups or for sends and stuff like that.
  179. And for me reading that, it was like when an insert is being routed around that is
  180. still following like the one core or whatever.
  181. for my understanding, it's just like that's just how CPUs and coding works.
  182. It's like you can't spread that across multiple cores.
  183. So that's why the single core speed is really important because that one process
  184. that it can calculate that faster.
  185. And if you think about it, you know, it's like we have EQs, compressors, and then if
  186. you're again if you're routing all this audio all around, it's like you're making
  187. more work for your computer. So that's why they recommend the single core speed so
  188. it can do those calculations faster.
  189. Okay. Now, just to give you a little idea of you know the industry, so you know,
  190. there's like there's two leaders there's like Intel and AMD.
  191. Intel has been like the leader for many, many years, but recently AMD and they're
  192. the makers of like the Ryzen CPU, they've really stepped up their game and they're
  193. now competing. In all honesty, for my next build, I will be taking AMD into
  194. consideration just to see where it's at.
  195. And something that's really really cool when this stuff happens in the industry.
  196. So, for example, like I was was saying, Intel always like kind of like the leader
  197. for many, many years now. Now AMD is starting to step up their game.
  198. So, what that's gonna do is first of all, it's gonna create innovation.
  199. Okay, so you know, these two companies are gonna start trying to you know create new
  200. features and stuff, which is good for the actual industry as a whole, like not just
  201. music production, also like anything to do with computers, right?
  202. Like video editing or graphic design, everything like that, right?
  203. And then it's also gonna like you know lower lower the prices, and you're gonna get
  204. better performance and features.
  205. So it's really this like a win for the consumer many times, while these companies
  206. kind of duke it out. Okay, so let's keep moving forward here.
  207. So now with your CPU, you need some type of cooling, and there's actually many ways
  208. to cool something, so it can either be through like air or through like a liquid or
  209. through like heat transfer of like you know, different metal metals and stuff like
  210. that. So I didn't want to go the liquid cooling route, you know.
  211. I've just never really felt comfortable with like liquid inside of a computer, even
  212. though nowadays they create heat sinks, and a heat sink is just what you put onto
  213. your CPU to dissipate the heat, otherwise, your CPU will overheat.
  214. Again, you need some type of cooling, and they actually have liquid cooling kind of
  215. like it's all kind of built into one unit, and you simply just put it on with some
  216. compound paste onto the CPU. that just helps distribute the heat.
  217. And then this the liquid cooling is all kind of it's sealed, you know, it just comes
  218. from like from like the factory.
  219. I personally just went for a heat sink with like the metal and the air.
  220. I went with a be quiet brand. they have different models, but again, my whole goal
  221. here when it deals with fans is I wanted quiet.
  222. Okay. That was like my goal. I didn't get like the top of like the of the line, but
  223. I got you know a more expensive brand here on the heatsink because many times that
  224. CPU it can run hot, and you want to make sure that that that heatsink can handle the
  225. heat and that fan isn't just kicking into high gear because again, noise, right?
  226. Now, when we're also dealing with this CPU, something you want to be looking at is
  227. what's called the socket size, okay.
  228. And this is going to integrate with your motherboard, which I guess we will talk
  229. about next. So the socket size is the actual size of the CPU.
  230. So when you place your CPU inside the socket on your motherboard, you know, where
  231. the CPU goes, you have to make sure it's the same size, and that's that's just
  232. called the socket size. So, for example, the one I'm currently using is called an
  233. LGA 1151. and and just over the years, you know, this model
  234. changes every once in a while, okay.
  235. And you just have to make sure that your CPU size is the same as your motherboard,
  236. and that's it. Now, your motherboard is what allows all your components to work,
  237. okay. So, when you're plugging in your CPU, a video card, RAM, hard drive, all that
  238. kind of stuff, or like even like your power supply, like all that stuff plugs into
  239. the motherboard in order for everything to operate.
  240. And you know, through my readings, motherboards nowadays they're all really really
  241. similar for the most part, except for you know, some features, such as like you
  242. know, some might have more USB ports, or some might allow you to plug in more RAM or
  243. have like more PCI slots. Now, this is like where like your video card would go, or
  244. I already talked to you about like a capture card, and that just allows you to plug
  245. in like an DSLR camera into it, or even if it you know comes with like Bluetooth
  246. integrated and Wi-Fi, you know, sometimes these motherboards have these different
  247. features, and if you look at like a 150 version to like a $300 version, or even you
  248. know, a version that is maybe an extra 4$0 dollars, these different models that you
  249. can purchase., these are kind of like the different features that come with these
  250. motherboards But in terms of like how things are you know work on a computer, the
  251. motherboard give or take is gonna operate pretty much the same.
  252. Now, when it comes to your motherboard, you just want to look at the form factor
  253. because this will dictate your computer case.
  254. So there's different form factors, and what that means is just the size of your
  255. motherboard. So, for example, there's like ATX or there's like micro ATX, or like I
  256. even noticed there was like a mini ATX.
  257. So, again, these are just different sizes.
  258. I just have the normal, I think ATX in my computer, just a normal computer.
  259. So now let's just jump into some RAM.
  260. Okay. So, RAM is kind of like memory where your computer
  261. stores information on so it can grab it really, really quick.
  262. But once you actually turn off your computer or restart your your computer, your RAM
  263. resets, okay? So it's not like a hard drive where you actually save files on, it's
  264. it's a way for computers to kind of store information to access really really fast.
  265. Now, some common questions about RAM is how much RAM should you get, what speed
  266. should you get, what type of RAM, in a sense of DDR3 or DDR4, and then you know what
  267. brand, as well as you want to be careful of height clearance to the heat sink, okay.
  268. Again, the heat sink is what goes on the CPU, and when you plug in this RAM,
  269. sometimes there's issues with clearance, so you just have to make sure that you have
  270. the proper clearance on this RAM.
  271. Sometimes with RAM you can actually get like low profile, and that just means that
  272. it's just not as tall. So let's talk about how much RAM should you have.
  273. So on this computer, I actually started with 16 gigabytes of RAM.
  274. My motherboard allowed me to you know add more if I wanted to, but at the moment,
  275. 16 gigabytes was fine for me..
  276. You know, I was just making music, I was doing some kind of you know, I was doing
  277. kind of medium video editing, not super heavy video editing
  278. but in later years, since I've been doing video editing quite harder, I actually
  279. purchased 16 more gigs of RAM.
  280. I think it's only like an extra 150 bucks now.
  281. And so now my computer actually has 32 gigs of RAM.
  282. So if you guys are building a computer, I'd probably say just go 32 gigs of RAM.
  283. you know, 16 will be fine, but you know, things are becoming more affordable now.
  284. I would say go for 32 gigabytes of RAM.
  285. in terms of what type, so you're gonna be looking, there's gonna be like DDR3, DDR4.
  286. Now you have to reference your motherboard.
  287. Okay, your motherboard will state its specs, you know, its specifications, and it
  288. will say, you know, it accepts DDR3 or DDR4, and again, I
  289. haven't really looked on Amazon, you know, there might even be like DDR5 or whatever
  290. now, but again, you just want to check out your motherboard, look at its specs, and
  291. it literally will tell you what RAM to buy.
  292. So in my case, I purchased DDR4 RAM because you know that was like the newest thing
  293. at the moment, and I wanted my computer to be you know very, very high quality for
  294. the time being. Now, your RAM also has different speeds.
  295. So, for example, there's like 2033 megahertz or like 2400 megahertz.
  296. Again, you just want to reference your motherboard and it will share with you, you
  297. know, what speed to buy. it also shares if you want to start getting to like
  298. overclocking, which I personally don't suggest.
  299. You know, I want a nice stable computer.
  300. Overclocking is if you know when you want to push your components
  301. harder to drive them harder to get better performance, but you risk your computer
  302. not being as stable and stuff like that.
  303. Nowadays, the motherboard software, so once you actually put your computer
  304. together.her, the motboard it has its software
  305. Many times there is like a one button click if you want to kind of overclock at you
  306. know, in a in a safe way, just to get some more performance out of your computer.
  307. So you know, you can always approach it that way too.
  308. Okay. So, again, the questions for RAM was you know, how much RAM should you get?
  309. I at the moment have 32 gigabytes of RAM.
  310. what type I got DDR4? But again, check the motherboard, it's gonna tell you.
  311. for the speed, I think I got like 2133.
  312. Again, I just referenced the motherboard specs.
  313. And then, yeah, so just you know, make sure that the RAM is going to clear in
  314. height. I think many times it will share, like, you know, the actual dimensions of
  315. the RAM so that you can kind of get an idea.
  316. You can also ask questions into Google, and you know, because computer parts are
  317. purchased so much by so many people, and many people love computer parts, they love
  318. buying them, testing them out for performance and doing reviews and stuff.
  319. So information's pretty easy to find.
  320. for brand names, you know, I just went with Corsair, but there's tons and tons of
  321. companies out there now. When it comes to your actual power supply, so you just want
  322. to make sure that your power supply powers your computer properly, so you don't want
  323. to cheat yourself here, and there's also different ratings in a sense of like
  324. there's like bronze, silver, gold, and like platinum and stuff like that.
  325. And I think the whole goal behind this is just efficiency.
  326. So, in other words, for what you're getting in, are you getting out?
  327. And being an electrician, like this is like you know, this was always talked about
  328. in the school. you know, it's like power in equals power out, that's watts.
  329. But once you start introducing inductance and like capacitance into like these
  330. circuits, you start getting into what's called like this power triangle, and it all
  331. it is is just like Pythagoras' theorem, and in other words, your power in may not be
  332. your power out, so you may be paying more. than what you're getting, and that's just
  333. called efficiency, okay And if you're gonna be going for like a platinum, you may
  334. you know be paying you know more for what you're getting, in a sense of like your
  335. power bill, okay. So, in terms of your actual power supply, again, you just want to
  336. make sure that you're not underpowering your computer, and there's lots of actual
  337. websites out there that will tell you you know all the components and what the
  338. wattage is gonna be, and then you can just purchase a power supply based off of
  339. that, okay. So, for example, just into Google, just type computer power supply
  340. calculator. Now, one of the biggest things I can stress to you about the power
  341. supply is to get a quiet power supply.
  342. Over the years, in my experience from having many computers over the years, I've
  343. always found it's been my power supply, which starts to make noise.
  344. You know, usually at the beginning, typically it's fine, but later on, for whatever
  345. reason, this power supply just starts making noise, and there's really nothing you
  346. can do about it. So, in my opinion, you know, even if it's the same wattage, for
  347. example, like let's just say you purchased a 600 watt power supply.
  348. If the price is an extra 70, 80 dollars for like a silent version or like a super
  349. super quiet one, in my opinion, I feel it's worth it because for music production,
  350. silence is huge, right? Now, let's talk about your hard drive, okay.
  351. So nowadays, a solid state hard drive is a must, it's like a necessity.
  352. the speed, you know, going back to regular platter hard drive, just a regular hard
  353. disk, I never want to go back, right?
  354. The you know, even just turning on your computer, how fast a solid state hard drive
  355. is is is honestly just amazing at how fast it is, and then you know, loading
  356. programs and everything like that.
  357. And the price of these solid state hard drives has started to come down drizzly.
  358. So, what we were always doing is we were always buying a solid state hard drive for
  359. our C drive, which is like your primary drive where you install your operating
  360. system on. and then many times we'd also install like a FL Studio or like a lot of
  361. like the main programs that we're gonna be using, but then we would actually be
  362. purchasing a separate hard drive, like an actual platter, and this would just be
  363. more for our storage, for example, like our our samples, like our one-shot samples,
  364. or even like VSTs and stuff like that.
  365. and again, the reason for this is be just because of like you know, per gigabyte on
  366. a solid state hard drive was very, very expensive.
  367. But nowadays the price is coming down significantly.
  368. I personally would say, you know, purchase maybe a little bit more of an expensive
  369. solid state hard drive and just use a single hard drive, it makes things way easier,
  370. and then you get this the speed and the benefit, and you know, your computer doesn't
  371. have to search around for different hard drives, it's just it's all in one hard
  372. drive, and then when you want to back up, or if you do want additional storage, you
  373. know, then you can use these hard drives, you know, the like the actual disk
  374. platters. But like I'm saying, now that the price has come down, I would opt for
  375. like a 500 gigabyte or even like a one terabyte SSD.
  376. Now, I just want to talk about how you know, like the different form factors of an
  377. SSD. So there was like you know, just kind of like little like rectangle SSDs,
  378. and you would just plug this into SATA.
  379. SATA is just what you plug like your hard drives into, and there's also different
  380. versions of SATA that allow you to get different speeds.
  381. I think there's like three, three gigabytes, I think or might be gigabit.
  382. Again, I don't know computers super well, and then I know there's also like a six,
  383. and when you plug it in on your motherboard, again, you guys can check your manual,
  384. it will explain to you, you know, what SATA port.s are faster than others, okay
  385. But nowadays, and again, I built this computer like two years ago, so even this
  386. information could be dated. So, sorry about that.
  387. But these SSDs have started to start to come in like what's called like a bubblegum
  388. stick, solid state hard drive.
  389. So it literally is like the size of like a bubblegum stick, like for example, like
  390. juicy fruit back in the day. You pull it out, comes in like little the little like
  391. tinfoil wrapper. That is literally the size of the solid state hard drive.
  392. Now, this is called the M.2 form factor.
  393. Now you have to be careful because m.2 is what's called like a form factor.
  394. In other words, that's like the size, but you can get different versions of this
  395. solid state hard drive in this form factor, so it's a little bit confusing to
  396. understand. So, what I'm trying to say is you can also get this M.2 in SATA, or
  397. there's also NVMe, okay. These are two different I guess
  398. ways for your for your computer to read this solid state hard drive.
  399. Now, SATA is the bottleneck behind a solid state hard drive.
  400. The NVMe is what you want. So when you go to purchase the solid state hard drive, if
  401. this bubblegum stick, this m.2 is still popular.
  402. Again, you're gonna have to do your own research in a sense of you know hard drives
  403. and stuff like that. But make sure that you get the NVMe and not the SATA version,
  404. okay? That can be a little bit deceiving because again, it's the same size, but you
  405. gotta be making sure you're purchasing the right one, and then on your actual
  406. motherboard, there's actually a little spot for you just to put this bubblegum SSD
  407. into your computer, and it honestly, it's so amazing, it's so small and it's so
  408. fast. So that's what to look for in an SSD.
  409. You want to make sure you have an SSD, it is so fast.
  410. Th'eres no moving parts. You have a computer that just rips.,
  411. Okay so now let's talk about your computer's computer case.
  412. you So
  413. when're purchasing your computer case, again, this is going to be dictated on your
  414. motherboard, that form factor, the ATX, okay.
  415. in addition, they also allow you to purchase computer cases that have like
  416. insulation. So, in other words, like sound dampening material in them, which is
  417. gonna reduce you know the sound of if there's any moving parts or if there's fans.
  418. Fans is probably like the biggest one.
  419. but the biggest thing here is like if you're gonna be purchasing fans, you want to
  420. make sure that you're purchasing from quiet companies.
  421. For example, like Noctua is a really really popular one, or like Be Quiet.
  422. but for my computer case, I purchased the fractal design define R5 at the time.
  423. you know, again, you're gonna have to do your own research for a computer case, but
  424. just look for sound dampening material within them.
  425. and that's just gonna help reduce you know your fan noise, okay.
  426. now let's just talk about your video card.
  427. So, with your video card, so like I'm saying, your CPU actually has a video card
  428. built in, and you're able to get in all honesty, like comparable results to like
  429. lower end video cards. It's honestly amazing, and it's just on like the actual CPU.
  430. Like when you look at the CPU, like the CPU is pretty small, and it's like this is
  431. the brain of your computer, it does all the calculations, it now has a video card.
  432. You can actually plug two monitors into the CPU video card.
  433. So, again, you know, you you put the CPU into the motherboard, and then on the
  434. motherboard, you have different connections, whether that be like DVI or HDMI or
  435. like a display port or you know, however your motherboard is made.
  436. But again, the CPU video card is gonna be great for probably like 90% of you who are
  437. you know building this computer just for music. production, you know, you're not
  438. focused on any type of like let's say like you know video editing or gaming or
  439. anything like that If you are wanting to do you know video editing and you know
  440. actually use your video card a bit, one thing I do suggest to you is purchasing a
  441. video card which has more than one fan.
  442. Okay, so you're looking at like a dual to like a triple fan video card.
  443. This is gonna make your fans a lot quieter on that actual video card.
  444. because when you have just the one fan, like okay, so on my first decent computer
  445. that I had built for music production, I actually got it like built for me.
  446. And this was like this was like when I was actually running the website Beat
  447. Struggles. I had a pretty nice video card in there, but it only had one fan, and
  448. that thing was so loud, it was incredible.
  449. And once I did some more research into it, I learned that the more fans you have on
  450. this video card, the quieter it's gonna be.
  451. And really, the loudest fans with a computer is mostly gonna be like your video
  452. card. in addition, the heatsink that's what actually you know connects to the CPU to
  453. dissipate the heat, and then you have a fan on that heatsink just to help you know
  454. cool it down as well. Okay, so you know, like the heatsink and the video card are
  455. typically gonna be like your loudest fans in my experience on a computer.
  456. And then once you have it all built, one thing for you guys to research is airflow.
  457. Okay, so you know, there's lots of different mindsets for people when they come to
  458. airflow on a computer, but it's important that you do some research on airflow just
  459. to kind of learn, you know, how should you position these fans inside your computer
  460. just to get airflow? You know, is there is your computer gonna be fine, or do you
  461. want to purchase one or two more fans?
  462. And the thing is when you have more fans, many times you can set them at a lower
  463. RPM, which means that you know they spin slower instead of having like only like one
  464. fan and that thing's just ripping, right?
  465. So these are all just things to think about.
  466. Now I think that's pretty much everything when it comes to a computer for the most
  467. part. if I miss something, sorry, but I just made my list here about like the main
  468. components of a computer. So again, that's like the CPU, the motherboard, the RAM,
  469. the power supply, your hard drive, your computer case, and then a video card,
  470. depending on what you are using a computer for.
  471. you know, many people will say, you know, with music production, oh, you never use a
  472. video card. And well, it's kind of true.
  473. And why I say that is because some plugins actually take advantage of you know,
  474. acceleration and stuff on a video card.
  475. but like I'm saying, your CPU video card will be able to handle that kind of stuff.
  476. you want a third-party, you know, a more expensive video card again, if you're into
  477. like gaming or video editing, and you want to take advantage of like rendering or
  478. you know, playback and you know, speed and stuff like that.
  479. So I hope this episode helps you out.
  480. I did a lot of reading when I first did research for the CPU or sorry for my
  481. my custom computer. In all honesty, I'm really happy with how it turned out.
  482. If you guys have any questions or whatever, you guys can always reach out to me.
  483. But again, check out that video that I've created on YouTube.
  484. It's a two-part series. I broke it you know in half because it would have been too
  485. long. the one half of it, I go over all the parts, and again, all that information
  486. was fresh in my mind. So I would I'll be able to relay that information onto you a
  487. little bit better. Again, it's gonna be a little bit dated because I built this
  488. computer, you know, in 2016, 2017.
  489. And then the second part of that series is actually putting together the computer.
  490. Okay, so I hope you guys like this episode.
  491. let me know if you guys would like to, you know, me me talk to talk about a certain
  492. topic or whatever. talk. If not, like I said, I'm always just going to kind of pick
  493. and choose this different topics I want to about each week
  494. And if you guys like this podcast, you guys can always support it for $5 a month by
  495. coming to it'sgratuitous.com forward slash podcast.
  496. You guys will see a button there to subscribe for $5 a month.
  497. You guys can cancel any time, and it would be much appreciated.
  498. So thanks for checking out this episode, and I'll talk to you guys in the next one.
  499. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  500. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com slash podcast, select an episode
  501. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  502. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  503. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons.
  504. Visit the link it's gratuitous.com slash learning.
  505. That page will redirect you to more info and resources.
  506. I hope the best with your productions.
  507. I'm gratuitous, and I'll see you in the next
  508. episode.
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