Composing/Recording Workstation Build

[jsbull23]

Hi all, I was wondering if the motherboard in my planned build for a new composing(with virtual instrument plugins used in Reaper DAW)and audio recording/engineering is a good idea to get for this purpose. 

There are so many motherboard options out there I'm not entirely sure if it's a good fit for the PC I'm building. I'm not planning on overclocking anything on this PC. Here's a link to the parts I'm sourcing for the build: 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/jsbull23/saved/tnWJMp

[Pitbull Tyson]

5 minutes ago, jsbull23 said:

Hi all, I was wondering if the motherboard in my planned build for a new composing(with virtual instrument plugins used in Reaper DAW)and audio recording/engineering is a good idea to get for this purpose. 

There are so many motherboard options out there I'm not entirely sure if it's a good fit for the PC I'm building. I'm not planning on overclocking anything on this PC. Here's a link to the parts I'm sourcing for the build: 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/jsbull23/saved/tnWJMp

Here is where I can be of help.  The motherboard is not the most important thing in a DAW or even close.  You can use the built in codec but not sure about their ASIO drivers and you might need to get ASIO4ALL to get it to work.  You need nice audio interface or a pro sound card.  You will want to record at 24bit 48khz anything above is a waiste of CPU horsepower and audio being worse latency.  There is even 384khz does not mean you use it.  Then you make a 16bit 44hz CD Quality MP3 and your set.  So your concern is audio and what your going to use and the latency it will give. The time it takes between pressing a note and hearing it on your computer.  You can then increase the buffer size when you want to mix and master and what not so there are no pops and crackles. What you want is at least 256 IO buffer size about 22ms go around time.  You can as I said try ASIO4ALL as your motherboard audio codec will not come with ASIO drivers.  Then install Reaper configure the audio and midi and your good to go. Any questions hit me up.✝🎗

[jsbull23]

Just now, Pitbull Tyson said:

Here is where I can be of help.  The motherboard is not the most important thing in a DAW or even close.  You can use the built in codec but not sure about their ASIO drivers and you might need to get ASIO4ALL to get it to work.  You need nice audio interface or a pro sound card.  You will want to record at 24bit 48khz anything above is a waiste of CPU horsepower and audio being worse latency.  There is even 384khz does not mean you use it.  Then you make a 16bit 44hz CD Quality MP3 and your set.  So your concern is audio and what your going to use and the latency it will give. The time it takes between pressing a note and hearing it on your computer.  You can then increase the buffer size when you want to mix and master and what not so there are no pops and crackles. What you want is at least 256 IO buffer size about 22ms go around time.  You can as I said try ASIO4ALL as your motherboard audio codec will not come with ASIO drivers.  Then install Reaper configure the audio and midi and your good to go. Any questions hit me up.✝🎗

Thanks for your response. I should have clarified that this is not my first build for this purpose and I already have a workstation that I use for virtual instrument orchestration and audio recording/editing complete with an audio interface with its own ASIO drivers but as the resource demands for virtual instrument templates go up, I need to build a system with better hardware(did I mention the instrument playback plugin uses a lot of ram? I'm more wondering if the motherboard is going to be reliable for the next 6 to 9 years as I'm investing a good bit of money into the build and I don't want bottlenecks in performance when I'm orchestrating with virtual instruments. I'm looking at running 80+ track virtual instrument templates on this system for composing.

[Pitbull Tyson]

5 minutes ago, jsbull23 said:

Thanks for your response. I should have clarified that this is not my first build for this purpose and I already have a workstation that I use for virtual instrument orchestration and audio recording/editing complete with an audio interface with its own ASIO drivers but as the resource demands for virtual instrument templates go up, I need to build a system with better hardware(did I mention the instrument playback plugin uses a lot of ram? I'm more wondering if the motherboard is going to be reliable for the next 6 to 9 years as I'm investing a good bit of money into the build and I don't want bottlenecks in performance when I'm orchestrating with virtual instruments. I'm looking at running 80+ track virtual instrument templates on this system for composing.

Let me explain a story to you.  I used to run a HEDT 4930k and produced 2 pro quality instrumental and new age with electronic sounds.  I had a bunch of tracks.  DAW is a term for real time instruments and midi controller etc.  Digital Audio Workstation.  The most important things are CPU and RAM and SSD and Audio Interface and latency.  I was on a 2014 4930k and my projects were getting like 15 percent max cpu usage when live and playing and recording.  Then in the mix and master process I take up the buffer size to 192 which is a low latency but not important as were not hitting the keyboard key and waiting for the sound and we want it instant.TLDR

 

For your situation I think a 8700k or AMD 2700x and above will take you for another 10 years to be honest.  I do not know which plugins your using but most of them do not tax the CPU.  It barely touches the CPU and you can almost have a unlimited tracks with real time VST audio going on all at same time on a low latency depending on your audio interface and settings.  I did have 64GB RAM and SSD and as I said 40 VST plugins from the major players barely take up 1 percent for 2 of them or 3.  Back in the Core 2 Quad days you were lucky if you get 6 VSTs plugins playing at same time without clipping. When the HEDT 4930k came out it changed the ball game.  Now if you get 8700k or AMD 2700x which are both about 150 dollars or a tad more and your set with CPU.  Then it is RAM and you want 2933Mhz for Intel and 3600Mhz for AMD.  Then make sure your on SSD.  Your video card does not matter even a old 760 GTX will do along with a old AMD 460 card so video card is not important here.  Which audio interface do you have perhaps I can help you tweak it for best latency so when you press the key you hear the sound like your on a grand piano. That is the real job of a DAW and most important. Also you need good acoustics and good pair of monitors that give a flat sound and placed on foam to reduce resonance.  Just a couple foam touches around your walls and the echo and reverb will go away. Anyhow please feel free to hit me up anytime you want and although I have no used Reaper I have fooled around with it. I would recommend you check out www.cakwalk.com Cakewalk By BandLab.  There are some pro musicians who use it to score, compose, mix and master and produce.  Hans Zimmer switched from Apple along with 30 people that work under him to Sonar Platinum which is Cakewalk but they sold the company Gibson brand to Cakewalk By BandLab a company on Philippines and they have a mobile audio making app that has millions of users and people share they music on the cloud etc.  They come out with a patch which does updates and additions and performance updates once a month.  Now they took out some of the costly third party software and it is free DAW.  It is the most powerful and sexiest DAW. There is a reason Hans Zimmer switched back in 2017 but then I do not know what he did when Cakewalk was acquired by BandLab which has improved upon the software.  Check it out from a console with pro channel strip to award winning midi and scoring all the way down to the mix and master process. Good Luck✝ 

[jsbull23]

Just now, Pitbull Tyson said:

Let me explain a story to you.  I used to run a HEDT 4930k and produced 2 pro quality instrumental and new age with electronic sounds.  I had a bunch of tracks.  DAW is a term for real time instruments and midi controller etc.  Digital Audio Workstation.  The most important things are CPU and RAM and SSD and Audio Interface and latency.  I was on a 2014 4930k and my projects were getting like 15 percent max cpu usage when live and playing and recording.  Then in the mix and master process I take up the buffer size to 192 which is a low latency but not important as were not hitting the keyboard key and waiting for the sound and we want it instant.TLDR

 

For your situation I think a 8700k or AMD 2700x and above will take you for another 10 years to be honest.  I do not know which plugins your using but most of them do not tax the CPU.  It barely touches the CPU and you can almost have a unlimited tracks with real time VST audio going on all at same time on a low latency depending on your audio interface and settings.  I did have 64GB RAM and SSD and as I said 40 VST plugins from the major players barely take up 1 percent for 2 of them or 3.  Back in the Core 2 Quad days you were lucky if you get 6 VSTs plugins playing at same time without clipping. When the HEDT 4930k came out it changed the ball game.  Now if you get 8700k or AMD 2700x which are both about 150 dollars or a tad more and your set with CPU.  Then it is RAM and you want 2933Mhz for Intel and 3600Mhz for AMD.  Then make sure your on SSD.  Your video card does not matter even a old 760 GTX will do along with a old AMD 460 card so video card is not important here.  Which audio interface do you have perhaps I can help you tweak it for best latency so when you press the key you hear the sound like your on a grand piano. That is the real job of a DAW and most important. Also you need good acoustics and good pair of monitors that give a flat sound and placed on foam to reduce resonance.  Just a couple foam touches around your walls and the echo and reverb will go away. Anyhow please feel free to hit me up anytime you want and although I have no used Reaper I have fooled around with it. I would recommend you check out www.cakwalk.com Cakewalk By BandLab.  There are some pro musicians who use it to score, compose, mix and master and produce.  Hans Zimmer switched from Apple along with 30 people that work under him to Sonar Platinum which is Cakewalk but they sold the company Gibson brand to Cakewalk By BandLab a company on Philippines and they have a mobile audio making app that has millions of users and people share they music on the cloud etc.  They come out with a patch which does updates and additions and performance updates once a month.  Now they took out some of the costly third party software and it is free DAW.  It is the most powerful and sexiest DAW. There is a reason Hans Zimmer switched back in 2017 but then I do not know what he did when Cakewalk was acquired by BandLab which has improved upon the software.  Check it out from a console with pro channel strip to award winning midi and scoring all the way down to the mix and master process. Good Luck✝ 

Thank you again for posting. I feel like I should tell you I use Play 6 from East West to run their instruments as well as running many audio plugins(compressors, EQ, impulse response reverb etc.)I know the hardware I need to run this software in the way that I need to and I'm quite happy with Reaper. Aside from running virtual instruments I also need to live monitor electric guitar DIs going into a virtual rig(virtual pedals into virtual amps into an impulse response of a guitar cabinet)in Reaper. What I originally wanted to know however is an at least foggy idea of what motherboard will work best with all of the hardware I'm getting. I'm not just going for longevity here, I'm trying to eliminate possible bottlenecks in computer performance. Play 6 is not a very forgiving instrument player and I use impulse response reverb in my projects which can really tax the CPU. If you don't believe me try running 80+ tracks to a reverb bus running a 24 bit 44100 format wav impulse response. The CPU will spike.

[Pitbull Tyson]

1 minute ago, jsbull23 said:

Thank you again for posting. I feel like I should tell you I use Play 6 from East West to run their instruments as well as running many audio plugins(compressors, EQ, impulse response reverb etc.)I know the hardware I need to run this software in the way that I need to and I'm quite happy with Reaper. Aside from running virtual instruments I also need to live monitor electric guitar DIs going into a virtual rig(virtual pedals into virtual amps into an impulse response of a guitar cabinet)in Reaper. What I originally wanted to know however is an at least foggy idea of what motherboard will work best with all of the hardware I'm getting. I'm not just going for longevity here, I'm trying to eliminate possible bottlenecks in computer performance. Play 6 is not a very forgiving instrument player and I use impulse response reverb in my projects which can really tax the CPU. If you don't believe me try running 80+ tracks to a reverb bus running a 24 bit 44100 format wav impulse response. The CPU will spike.

Even a Gigabyte Aorus Elite 130 dollar motherboard would suffice. Either Intel or AMD counterpart.  Motherboard is only important for what products your going to put on it.  For example what CPU your going to put in it or RAM or whether you will use the built in audio codec which you said you have a dedicated audio for that so no worries there.  The rest is support for m.2 drive or SSD drives.  Support for how many SATA ports and Wi Fi which you don't need for what your doing.TLDR

 

Just grab a Aorus Elite of either AMD or Intel chipset that will work with CPU.  Any CPU 2017 and above will run numbers around your Reaper DAW.  So long as your audio interface or its ASIO drivers are not faulty or have issue.  At the end at this point your looking at low latency that is what you want.  Everything else is good do not stress about motherboard my friend.  As I said a mobo is only for things you want in future which isn't much. You must want a PCIe 16x slot and a m.2 slot and abou6 sata ports for SSD drivers.  The ethernet on it will be fine and you can even overclock as I have my fathers machine which has a Gigabyte Aorus Elite Z390 9900k @ 5Ghz all core Dark Rock Pro 4 fans not even spinning fast like 800rpm each. Also note a PC setup like a Ryzen 3900x or a 10700k are consumer builds.  Most people with DAW and serious about it as their business use HEDT or a Xeon server processor. However a 3900x or 10700k per say will do excellent.  you will be around 20 percent CPU usage on your projects.  Even after your done with your composition and now want to mix and master just raise the latency to prevent crackles and pops and in real time you can work with your plugins and fine tune the production so it sounds pro and what not.✝🎗

[jsbull23]

1 minute ago, Pitbull Tyson said:

Even a Gigabyte Aorus Elite 130 dollar motherboard would suffice. Either Intel or AMD counterpart.  Motherboard is only important for what products your going to put on it.  For example what CPU your going to put in it or RAM or whether you will use the built in audio codec which you said you have a dedicated audio for that so no worries there.  The rest is support for m.2 drive or SSD drives.  Support for how many SATA ports and Wi Fi which you don't need for what your doing.TLDR

 

Just grab a Aorus Elite of either AMD or Intel chipset that will work with CPU.  Any CPU 2017 and above will run numbers around your Reaper DAW.  So long as your audio interface or its ASIO drivers are not faulty or have issue.  At the end at this point your looking at low latency that is what you want.  Everything else is good do not stress about motherboard my friend.  As I said a mobo is only for things you want in future which isn't much. You must want a PCIe 16x slot and a m.2 slot and abou6 sata ports for SSD drivers.  The ethernet on it will be fine and you can even overclock as I have my fathers machine which has a Gigabyte Aorus Elite Z390 9900k @ 5Ghz all core Dark Rock Pro 4 fans not even spinning fast like 800rpm each. Also note a PC setup like a Ryzen 3900x or a 10700k are consumer builds.  Most people with DAW and serious about it as their business use HEDT or a Xeon server processor. However a 3900x or 10700k per say will do excellent.  you will be around 20 percent CPU usage on your projects.  Even after your done with your composition and now want to mix and master just raise the latency to prevent crackles and pops and in real time you can work with your plugins and fine tune the production so it sounds pro and what not.✝🎗

Thanks for your input. I'll still be watching for different opinions but I'll take your advice into consideration. Have a great day!

[Pitbull Tyson]

1 minute ago, jsbull23 said:

Thanks for your input. I'll still be watching for different opinions but I'll take your advice into consideration. Have a great day!

Anytime man any questions you have hit me up or PM me.  Once again seems like your stressing a bit to much over a motherboard which simply does not matter in a DAW.  What matters is RAM and SSD and CPU and Audio Interface and Monitors and acoustically treated room.  The motherboard is only for functions like ethernet and built lin audio codec and PCIe slots and SATA slots which most have 6. You can even in the future throw a Thunderbolt 3 interface on there however you would need a Intel setup for this. Once again

 

2014 HEDT 4930k @ 4.4Ghz 64GAB 1866 RAM 1060GB RTX with m.2 and SSD and externals is all you need along with a solid audio interface which doesnt pop or crackle at low latency and gives you a grand piano feel which is the most important thing in a DAW. Once you have that set and have a 6 core processor or higher your good to go. You can drop down like 30 virtual instruments and play it all at once and record and mix all at maybe 40 percent CPU usage. More then enough for you. As for recording live guitar into your PC that requires solid cables a good audio interface and even a hard disk drive will do but preferred SSD.  In real time you can record plus monitor it. If you can give me a example of one of your projects. How many audio tracks? How many VSTi's and then when mixing and mastering how many plugins used across the board. Good Luck.✝🎗

[jsbull23]

Just now, Pitbull Tyson said:

Anytime man any questions you have hit me up or PM me.  Once again seems like your stressing a bit to much over a motherboard which simply does not matter in a DAW.  What matters is RAM and SSD and CPU and Audio Interface and Monitors and acoustically treated room.  The motherboard is only for functions like ethernet and built lin audio codec and PCIe slots and SATA slots which most have 6. You can even in the future throw a Thunderbolt 3 interface on there however you would need a Intel setup for this. Once again

 

2014 HEDT 4930k @ 4.4Ghz 64GAB 1866 RAM 1060GB RTX with m.2 and SSD and externals is all you need along with a solid audio interface which doesnt pop or crackle at low latency and gives you a grand piano feel which is the most important thing in a DAW. Once you have that set and have a 6 core processor or higher your good to go. You can drop down like 30 virtual instruments and play it all at once and record and mix all at maybe 40 percent CPU usage. More then enough for you. As for recording live guitar into your PC that requires solid cables a good audio interface and even a hard disk drive will do but preferred SSD.  In real time you can record plus monitor it. If you can give me a example of one of your projects. How many audio tracks? How many VSTi's and then when mixing and mastering how many plugins used across the board. Good Luck.✝🎗

I run 40 to 60 virtual instruments at a time in my DAW with my current rig. I'm going for a lot more instruments in my templates for this new build. Here's an example of the work I've done with my current system, which is kind of basic and has a few timing issues https://jsbull23.wixsite.com/jonathansilasbull/recordings. I already have a Scarlett 8i6 https://focusrite.com/en/audio-interface/scarlett/scarlett-8i6 and I have a good pair of pro audio monitors. This isn't my first time doing audio stuff, I have everything I need to make my music but I need to build a new system soon to keep up with the growing resource demands of various virtual instruments. This isn't for recording a garage band or  small orchestrations, it's for cinematic orchestral music plus impulse response reverb plus compression and EQ(I use the stock compressors and EQs that come with Reaper).

[Pitbull Tyson]

4 minutes ago, jsbull23 said:

I run 40 to 60 virtual instruments at a time in my DAW with my current rig. I'm going for a lot more instruments in my templates for this new build. Here's an example of the work I've done with my current system, which is kind of basic and has a few timing issues https://jsbull23.wixsite.com/jonathansilasbull/recordings. I already have a Scarlett 8i6 https://focusrite.com/en/audio-interface/scarlett/scarlett-8i6 and I have a good pair of pro audio monitors. This isn't my first time doing audio stuff, I have everything I need to make my music but I need to build a new system soon to keep up with the growing resource demands of various virtual instruments. This isn't for recording a garage band or  small orchestrations, it's for cinematic orchestral music plus impulse response reverb plus compression and EQ(I use the stock compressors and EQs that come with Reaper).

Thanks for being detailed on your responses.  As for EQ, Reverb, Compressors, Multiband processors they barely take any CPU resourses.  I don't believe I know what computer you have now but so long as I said you get a Aorus Elite board which chipset supports your CPU.  Be it a 6 core 8700k or a 9900k or a 2700x or a 3900x. Thanks for letting me know what itnerface you have.  Scarlett is top notch.  I mean I almost feel bad for them at the price they sell their stuff for.  In return you get aluminum chassis and well built gear.  As I said with my 2014 HEDT 4930k 6 core 4.4Ghz 64GB 1866Mhz RAM 1060GB RTX and SSD I was able to do projects of dozens of tracks at about 30 percent CPU usage max depending on the plugin.  Some instruments will take up CPU resources more then others.  Those of which I don't even believe you use. What is your budget well get you a nice 8 core 64GB RAM SSD and any video card you like and you will be set. What buffer size do you use btw? This has all to do with Reaper and how it handles audio signals.  When you record and produce you want a low latency.  Anything 22ms and above is to laggy as when you play instrument and hear it or playing on keyboard and hearing sound or drum machine etc.  You want a buffer of no more then 192 in your ASIO settings.  For mixing and mastering after you have finished tracks and now want to add plugins EQ's Tape Emulations, Mulitband Compressors, Reverb etc etc then you can take up that 192 to 512 or all way up to 1024 as you at this point do not care about latency.  You just care your audio plays without popping and crackling and you want to add plugins and use them flawlessly.  You can easily get away with 100 track compositions with dozens and dozens of plugins be it built in or third party. You said you play guitar and I assume you want to monitor it as well with the Scarlett interface.  For this we want lowest latency possible without crackling and popping.  Then once were done and want to edit sound or use ton of plugins on your finished tracks then simply take up the latency like I said to 512 or more and enjoy smooth production experience.✝

[jsbull23]

Just now, Pitbull Tyson said:

Thanks for being detailed on your responses.  As for EQ, Reverb, Compressors, Multiband processors they barely take any CPU resourses.  I don't believe I know what computer you have now but so long as I said you get a Aorus Elite board which chipset supports your CPU.  Be it a 6 core 8700k or a 9900k or a 2700x or a 3900x. Thanks for letting me know what itnerface you have.  Scarlett is top notch.  I mean I almost feel bad for them at the price they sell their stuff for.  In return you get aluminum chassis and well built gear.  As I said with my 2014 HEDT 4930k 6 core 4.4Ghz 64GB 1866Mhz RAM 1060GB RTX and SSD I was able to do projects of dozens of tracks at about 30 percent CPU usage max depending on the plugin.  Some instruments will take up CPU resources more then others.  Those of which I don't even believe you use. What is your budget well get you a nice 8 core 64GB RAM SSD and any video card you like and you will be set. What buffer size do you use btw? This has all to do with Reaper and how it handles audio signals.  When you record and produce you want a low latency.  Anything 22ms and above is to laggy as when you play instrument and hear it or playing on keyboard and hearing sound or drum machine etc.  You want a buffer of no more then 192 in your ASIO settings.  For mixing and mastering after you have finished tracks and now want to add plugins EQ's Tape Emulations, Mulitband Compressors, Reverb etc etc then you can take up that 192 to 512 or all way up to 1024 as you at this point do not care about latency.  You just care your audio plays without popping and crackling and you want to add plugins and use them flawlessly.  You can easily get away with 100 track compositions with dozens and dozens of plugins be it built in or third party. You said you play guitar and I assume you want to monitor it as well with the Scarlett interface.  For this we want lowest latency possible without crackling and popping.  Then once were done and want to edit sound or use ton of plugins on your finished tracks then simply take up the latency like I said to 512 or more and enjoy smooth production experience.✝

I currently have my buffer size set to 1024 to avoid pops, clicks and sample dropouts. With the sheer number of instruments I'm planning on using for an orchestral layout(East West's Hollywood Orchestra library)I'm investing in 128 gb of ram for my new build. Details of my planned build can be seen here: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/jsbull23/saved/tnWJMp    I have just over 4TB of virtual sampled instruments so storing those instruments is going to take a few drives to accommodate. I'm only using SSDs for the sampled instrument libraries(I'm also buying a 3TB conventional hard drive for project backups), conventional spinning hard drives are too slow for stream-from-disk settings which I need in order to play back my compositions without sample dropouts.

[Pitbull Tyson]

33 minutes ago, jsbull23 said:

I currently have my buffer size set to 1024 to avoid pops, clicks and sample dropouts. With the sheer number of instruments I'm planning on using for an orchestral layout(East West's Hollywood Orchestra library)I'm investing in 128 gb of ram for my new build. Details of my planned build can be seen here: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/jsbull23/saved/tnWJMp    I have just over 4TB of virtual sampled instruments so storing those instruments is going to take a few drives to accommodate. I'm only using SSDs for the sampled instrument libraries(I'm also buying a 3TB conventional hard drive for project backups), conventional spinning hard drives are too slow for stream-from-disk settings which I need in order to play back my compositions without sample dropouts.

That buffer size of 1024 is going to give you a nice delay when you play a note.  It won't be instant.  You should get away with 256 and no hear pops or crackles if the rest of  your system is good enough.  1024 is more for mixing and mastering where you add bunch of plugins to tracks and you want to hear the tracks and make audio manipulation changes.  Are you using Kontakt ?  It sure sounds like it with the library you have you want to load in there.  So wait you have never really gotten into music production until now on this new PC you want corrrect?  Just because you have 4TB of data doesn't mean you need 4TB of RAM. Just remember that when you purchase your RAM kit.  I would personally get a HEDT the way your talking and not a conventional consumer grade PC.  You can't really be suffice with high RAM count on a Dual Channel non HEDT setup. Although it will work fine.  So you must step up the way your talking and get a HEDT motherboard.  Jumping out and buying a half assed Dual Channel motherboard with bunch of RAM will not fix any issue or resounding issue.  Grab the 64GB Kit work on a project and see where the usage is at.  I bet you anything you will never use 64GB total. Also as a Music Producer since the 90's I can advice you along with pro's in the industry as well that templates can be a bad thing.  They force down your thinking, they put into place something that will come automatically and not through raw moment or ability.  A lot of the pros using Logic Pro use empty templates and start off their song from there like the producer for Demi Lovato. If they need a drum kit they add that then some strings.  No need to load up 4TB of strings your never going to use.  For a beginning shot at music production your touting a lot.  I would first cover the basics.✝

[jsbull23]

Just now, Pitbull Tyson said:

That buffer size of 1024 is going to give you a nice delay when you play a note.  It won't be instant.  You should get away with 256 and no hear pops or crackles if the rest of  your system is good enough.  1024 is more for mixing and mastering where you add bunch of plugins to tracks and you want to hear the tracks and make audio manipulation changes.  Are you using Kontakt ?  It sure sounds like it with the library you have you want to load in there.  So wait you have never really gotten into music production until now on this new PC you want corrrect?  Just because you have 4TB of data doesn't mean you need 4TB of RAM. Just remember that when you purchase your RAM kit.  I would personally get a HEDT the way your talking and not a conventional consumer grade PC.  You can't really be suffice with high RAM count on a Dual Channel non HEDT setup. Although it will work fine.  So you must step up the way your talking and get a HEDT motherboard.  Jumping out and buying a half assed Dual Channel motherboard with bunch of RAM will not fix any issue or resounding issue.  Grab the 64GB Kit work on a project and see where the usage is at.  I bet you anything you will never use 64GB total. Also as a Music Producer since the 90's I can advice you along with pro's in the industry as well that templates can be a bad thing.  They force down your thinking, they put into place something that will come automatically and not through raw moment or ability.  A lot of the pros using Logic Pro use empty templates and start off their song from there like the producer for Demi Lovato. If they need a drum kit they add that then some strings.  No need to load up 4TB of strings your never going to use.  For a beginning shot at music production your touting a lot.  I would first cover the basics.✝

Like I said, I'm not a beginner. I've been doing virtual music orchestration for the last 14 years and have been using Play 6 from East West since 2012. No I won't be using all 4TB of sampled instruments at the same time but I do have use for all of them with different musical applications. Like I also said, I'm primarily using Play 6, I use Kontakt for some instruments but not all. I use custom templates that I make for specific instrumentation, I don't use other people's work. If you listen to my work in the link I provided you'll know that the work I'm doing is far different from pop orchestration like Demi Lovato. I'm talking about templates that use strings, brass, woodwinds, orchestral and cinematic percussion and choirs, not a sprinkling of strings for color. I don;t usually use synths(which are usually less of a resource hog than East West's sampled instruments)in my music so no need to consider those.

[Pitbull Tyson]

1 minute ago, jsbull23 said:

Like I said, I'm not a beginner. I've been doing virtual music orchestration for the last 14 years and have been using Play 6 from East West since 2012. No I won't be using all 4TB of sampled instruments at the same time but I do have use for all of them with different musical applications. Like I also said, I'm primarily using Play 6, I use Kontakt for some instruments but not all. I use custom templates that I make for specific instrumentation, I don't use other people's work. If you listen to my work in the link I provided you'll know that the work I'm doing is far different from pop orchestration like Demi Lovato. I'm talking about templates that use strings, brass, woodwinds, orchestral and cinematic percussion and choirs, not a sprinkling of strings for color. I don;t usually use synths(which are usually less of a resource hog than East West's sampled instruments)in my music so no need to consider those.

I missed that part ok cool I figured with your audio interface you been doing this for a while.  One thing you never did was give me a budget which might include monitor or other components and stuff.✝

[jsbull23]

7 minutes ago, Pitbull Tyson said:

I missed that part ok cool I figured with your audio interface you been doing this for a while.  One thing you never did was give me a budget which might include monitor or other components and stuff.✝

Oh, my budget for the PC its self is around $3800(Canadian). I have everything I need audio hardware wise, the PC is my main concern. My current PC is okay for orchestration(32gb ram, quad core Intel i5, SSD for operating system and DAW)but its limits are pretty apparent these days.

[Pitbull Tyson]

16 minutes ago, jsbull23 said:

Oh, my budget for the PC its self is around $3800(Canadian). I have everything I need audio hardware wise, the PC is my main concern. My current PC is okay for orchestration(32gb ram, quad core Intel i5, SSD for operating system and DAW)but its limits are pretty apparent these days.

Oh boy you have been suffering with a i5 ?  Which processor exactly?  You figure what can you get done on that has a limit.  A new PC will give you a unlimited studio.  Do you want to go consumer route or get a HEDT or a Xeon processor which would be to expensive for your budget. How much in US dollar is that 3800 can sorry plz clear that up.  So you have all your audio hardware and components like mouse keyboard etc and monitor.  All you need is CPU MOBO RAM and Video card in which you can still use your old one.  You need 3 things basically.  3800 dollars CAN is way to high for those 3 things.  If you want to go consumer route I would def grab the 10900k processor with a Z490 Aorus Elite or Aorus Pro and double that RAM to DDR4 2933Mhz and see how things work.  On a consumer build you get dual channel memory with 4 sticks.  So you will always have room to upgarde even if you get a 64GB kit now to cut costs and see how your DAW runs on that amount of RAM which is heaps for most. If your currently using 1024 buffersize then I would say try 256 buffer with the new PC.  You can even get a 9900k or a 2700x.  If you want high core count which won't really help much once your 8 core 16 threads already then choose a 3900x or a 5000 series processor with 8 or 12 cores You will not need more then that for DAW.  As I said your projects especially if your using Kontakt and have bunch of libraries you can have limitless tracks and on average your projects will never exceed 50 percent CPU usage so your more then fine and your future proof and what not. ✝

[LogicalDrm]

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