I am so glad that Presonus had the peace of mind to bring you on staff. You are definitely a Godsend for making Presonus Gear and Software workable and enjoyable as we learn from these youtube videos. I think that Gregor and Joe really make Presonus Studio One and Gear a step above other DAW's because of these great tutorials. Thanks for being a great teaching tool for the masses. Have a great day.

Excellent tutorial! For those who do not need the “top 5%” professional studio grade gear: I’m a ship designer who does music production as a hobby. I used to spend tons of money on computers for 3D CAD ship modelling, rendering and calcs….till the gaming laptops arrived. I now do both the design- and the S1 audio work on a high end gaming laptop without problems. Spending less money on a single machine allows also for buying a new (fast-unclogged) state-of-the-art machine each other year… just make sure to get rid of the HDD and use a big SSD instead. Thanks Gregor!

I went for Ryzen 7 5800x, 32Ram, 2TB SSD and so far don't regret it. I wish this video was posted sooner. I spent a lot of time searching for the crucial specs for audio PC. I would also recommend checking how many memory channels your CPU of choice and motherboard supports (not the slots). It can influence latency when playing sample-heavy instruments - obviously the more channels the better. Cheers!

9:57 Don't underestimate the number of USB ports that you need! Especially count how many USB C, 3.1, 3.0, 2.0 devices you will have connected. You will need plenty. Auido interface, MIDI keyboard, control pad, some synths, edrum, foot controllers, digital amps, etc... I have a small studio but there are 15+ USB cables at the back of my PC.

Been using Studio One for around a month, the S1 family is just, so wholesome. I love y'all!

Would love to see you explain the bios setup in computers it's never explained and is very important on how your system performs .

Mistake #6, buying a laptop. If you NEED a laptop, then get one. But you will likely get a much better computer for much less money if you buy a tower -- especially if you already have a screen to use with it. My HP tower came with an i7 3.2 GHz for $1000. Comparable laptops were priced at nearly double that. Laptops also often have issues with heat dissipation, which is less common with towers.

Love this. I already had a pc built for me and this confirms I did pretty well. One mistake I made was to think that the system drive would only need to be a half TB because I had two other 2 TB drives for samples and storage. I underestimated how often downloads would want to install to the system drive. So now I'm upgrading it to a 2 TB ssd drive as well. But the motherboard had extra slots for that so it's an easy task. By the way, another great subject to cover might be optimizing all the computer and operating system settings for audio recording. I don't know much about that and have been hard pressed to find resources that are understandable and easier to follow.

Great tip on the connectivity features. Bought an MSI motherboard advertised with Thunderbolt 3 so I could get a Quantum interface, only for MSI to completely remove support, so you really have to do your homework for both features and manufacturers.

I've been googling for straight talk about this topic for years - what a great presentation of the facts and WHY they are the facts. Thank you!

It's also worth pointing out that different DAWs will have drastically different needs for computer resources. Studio One 5 is really good at only using what it needs but in my experience Pro Tools First, which is the basic, free version of Pro-Tools is an ogre when it comes to RAM and CPU usage, that makes me wonder what the full version is like. I don't know how other DAWs measure up but that's something to keep in mind

You nailed it by explaining the need for powerful single core performance. Let us say that eight motor scooters do not equal one truck. I get all I need from a quad core i5 CPU.

Some great tips here, I see a lot of people recommend to others "Just get an i7" without even considering core count or clock speed! With so many options on the market these tips will be great for many, myself included!

I bought a PC audio labs Roc Box last fall. Maximum upgrade everything except the graphics card (only upgraded to the first level there) Was about 6k Canadian but holy smokes this computer is BAD ASS. Can literally NEVER hear it and it preforms lke a champ ! Fast AF. I'm sure I'll have it for at least 10 years.... So I chalk it down as a great investment ! The guys over there at PCAL are very knowledgeable and helpful. Highly recommended !

Thank you, Gregor! I built my computer some 7 years ago, and it's still great. A gamer colleague helped me. But this will be even more useful when time comes to upgrade.

Wow this is a very valuable video. Rare to find a company that tells you in detail what computer specs to look for to get the best performance out of there software. Thank you for taking the time to make this.

I Use an AWD gaming system, that runs my Studio One 5, Professional, with ease, I also keep my soundsets on a separate external hard drive a 250Gb SSD, which works without any problems when recording, mixing, or mastering in studio one. I also use the same system and Studio One to put together my podcast series, I have been impressed since upgrading from artist 4.2 to Professional 5.3, the software has never failed me yet. all that's left to add is to update my audio interface (currently using a Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen) to Presonus io24. Keep up the great work Gregor & Joe

Great video, but I would like to point out to everyone watching that this is really for a professional studio that has a $3000-$5000 budget to buy a professional workstation that they will have for upwards of 6-8 years and that they will be loading and saving projects on every day for that time. If you are getting by on a $600 dollar laptop with a 1tb HDD, there is no reason to upgrade. Work with what you've got, upgrade gear ONLY when it is holding you back. Also, this video is really general knowledge if you plan to build or even just check the boxes on a builder site. I would do more research into each area before trying to build something for yourself. I built my computer 4 years ago. It was 1500 dollars by the time I was done, and I see no reason to upgrade it any time soon for audio production.

PreSonus, I know you were just bought out - I don’t care. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH GREGOR AND JOE AND DON’T CHANGE ANY ASPECT OF THEIR CURRENT APPROACHES TO INSTRUCTIONAL AND PRESONUS CULTURE VIDEOS!!! These guys epitomize an educational and professional ecosystem that is unprecedented in this market. We love it. We need it. We will always come back if it’s here. Thank you for your wisdom and insight in giving these gifted guys their podiums, and keep churning the vids out. Thank you!!!

Gregor ... your videos and common sense approach to audio work is so helpful ... I am clueless on many things ... but each time I watch one of your videos ... it helps me immensely to become better in working on my music ... thus making everything better ... thank you tons!!

Regardles of all the things available, my basic specs will always be 24/96. I have a large collection of 16/44 and do not want to go back, but I hear the difference at 24/96. So all my recording and results will end up 24/96. I just do not see a need to go higher than 24/96. I also agree with the SSD, fans and PS. I would add a cd/dvd opticle disk drive.

“All that glitters is not gold.” Frodo did a great job. Lots of helpful information delivered effectively!

Excellent video topic , really helpful info . Hope to see more of these , matter of fact you don’t hear to much about this topic for us musicians. Cheers from Michigan BC

I would never advise anyone to buy an Intel Mac anymore, even for audio. It's going to be Apple Silicon all the way. Studio One lacks behind with compatibilty, but this is the future. Performance of my M1 is comparable to my old Intel i9!

everything he says has value, literally no rambling wow. thank you for the incredible video. great tips.

Important subject here. What are your feelings on Mac M1?

Most midi musicians are handicapped by having to watch KZfaq guides that focus on graphic-gaming performance 1st, recommended sound libraries 2nd, so this is quite the rare blessing, thanks!

Not just great sound but also superb Video Quality of your video here. Far better than 90% of anything else I can see on my low quality monitor!

Thank you for mentioning PCAudioLabs and what we do! We appreciate you all.

Gaming machines are great for audio production! When I first started building computers I thought more cores is better but I soon discovered higher cores cpus are more expensive and their base clock and even boost clocks were not as fast a lower core cpus that gamers raved about. I though I'm building a workstation so I need a xeon not a gaming rig and I thought the workstation should be able to handle gaming. However I wanted to game and all the videos on youtube showed that higher core count cpus were actually worse at gaming. So I went with the fastest cpu I could get at that time and luckily I was right. This translated to great performance in the daw. A fast cpu is where the money should be spent just like gaming where you want to get high fps. I think most audio pcs don't need more than 8 physical cores. The faster the better.

I checked out PC Audio Labs. Wowza. Their prices are pretty high for not the best choices internally. Other than the site, I really appreciated your insights. Thank you for the video.

great beat playing in the background! also, as a die hard geek myself, props to gregor for knowing his way around computers!

Gregory Positive 1 !!!!! King of the United Kingdom Studio One !!!

I'm so glad I changed my main DAW and joined Studio One! Appart from the fact that Presonus knows on which parts of the program to focus and develop, content like this is very helpful and they do it in a very proffesional way and to the point. That's why I rarely need to watch several more videos to get my head around particular things because I can always come back to these well made official ones. When it comes to PC built, this video was my base for further research since I had almost zero knowledge in that area and I've managed to built a great PC that will finally be a great home for Studio One and other applications. I really do hope they continue in the same pace because that's one of the main reasons I realised I need to change my main DAW and ended up choosing Studio One. It's not about "more more more", it's about focus.

Thank you, Mr. Frodo sir. One DAW to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

Excellent video Gregor! You articulated the confusion with purchasing a computer for audio. I take you're using a mac - what model are you using for audio?

I feel that some topics were left out, oversimplified. For example. What kind of SSD should i get? Is Sata enough for larger sessions? And RAM, what clocks should it have? I thinkt that many people ask what computer should they get for audio, but rarely there are guides with specifics on what to aim for exactly.

Can you put this onto a pdf list or something? I’d love to be able to read a list of recommended specs when looking at parts lists

This video is ABSOLUTELY spot on! Tip of the hat, PreSonus

Great video. A must watch for all S1 users.

Great video. 👍 But could you help me pick the right parts for a new pc build especially based on what you mention in this video please 🙏 I'm willing to compensate you for your time ⏲️

I would love to see a comprehensive and up-to-date deep dive into setting and tweaks for best audio performance; especially towards S1 users. Nice job Presonus & Gregor... keep it up!

Speed over cores. As much RAM as possible. 4 NVMe drives (OS+Programs, Samples, Temp Cache, Export Storage).

...have been working for 5 years with an 11 year old HP Z800 workstation (about 8000 $ then, 600 now) with 2 6-core 3.3 Ghz XEON processors. Now for the first time I have a problem that the new NI Massive synth needs a newer chip generation. I got a 5 year old laptop for this. Folks, buy old workstations for 1/10th the original price and be happy. I recommend anything from the HP Z620.

I just purchased a new PC after many months of researching it primarily for S1 use. DLC performance is key to choosing a motherboard peeps, along with single core performance.

My self build PC is a mix between gaming and studio rig. Low latency , 8 cores , 9tb on several ssd.. 32gb ram at 3300 mhz And cost me a fraction of professional studio PC .. 3 years ago, with 16gb and 2tb hd and a rtx2070 I spend 1800€ Now upgraded to 32gb , liquid cooling system, 4 tb on hd 5tb on ssd and a big fat rtx3090

I bought a PC for approx $2000 AUD, I built it myself and it is fantastic for audio. I'm thinking of upgrading my cpu at a further $500 AUD though (Currently have a 5600x, want a 5900x). But I have 48Gb of ram, many many hard drives including 2 nvme SSDs (1 spare slot) and mechanical drives for raw data. I even got a 1660 super graphics card so can play casual and older games just fine. I'm hoping a new cpu will give me more headroom when recording at lower latencies in Ableton 11. I upgraded to this system from a 2015 MacBook pro, which was frankly terrible for recording. Just not powerful enough and I hear Apple silicone macs are terrible for recording audio too. lol @ using 11900k as an example, the 10900k was actually faster!

If you want the sweespot between singlethread perfomance and core count, it is the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU . Singlethread is a little slower than Intel Core i9-11900K but it's basically the same thing, in fact, in gaming both are pretty close like 1% difference or something like that. Then that will change with 12 gen Core.

This is more towards Music Production.What about for only Mixing and Mastering purposes ?

Amdahl's law specifies that increasing core count will always result in diminishing returns. once you get to around 10 cores, there is an inflection point where adding more cores really doesn't have much benefit in most situations. I think the sweet spot for most people is an 8 core 16 thread with amazing base clock speed. Good advice here!!

I own an MSI Prestige 15, and it performs great for audio and even video. It could get a bit loud when running a big project, but I would still recommend it.

Thanks Gregor. Love to see you do a geeky walkthrough of all the tech settings w/in S1. I suspect even the basics are helpful for many.

I was looking for a video like this. Thanks for putting it together.

I want to upgrade to a new PC. Unfortunately, after reading thru the comments, I am more confused than ever. The other problem with Windows PCs is that their system is not user friendly for music production. There are so many system settings you need to change to maximize its efficiency.

this is one of the most important topic so far. thank you gregor

Thanks this is fantastic and very helpful.

Great video, Gregor! Can you do something similar for laptops users?

Gregor, I think every time you are reading my mind and making a video about that. I am trying to build a music production/gaming pc and I researched a lot about components I need to able to fit together work as a harmony. According to this video, the only thing I should consider is my ssd storage which I was thinking for 1tb nvme ssd and 2 tb hdd. Now instead of that 2tb hdd, I will look for a second nvme ssd. Thanks a lot :D

The goal is to get Studio One(and other daws) to process 1 audio channel with multiple cores and spread the load evenly (single clock speeds are not really going up anymore but core counts do)- no one managed (yet) to accomplish this. Having that said SO is utilizing resources better than most DAW's out there.

I am going for a Mac in my next studio set up. Are M1 machines ok??

Great information..!! Thanks

I would add that if possible, dedicate your audio computer to audio production, and optimize it for that purpose. Also, go with a PC, unless you enjoy spending money unneccesarily (Mac).

Gregor flexing his NASA computer

3:20 It's a different story if the DAW has better multi-threading support/optimization, 1 channel/VST can be processed by many CPU.

With a lot of people now using DaVinci resolve's Fairlight for tweaking their videos you might want to think about GPU memory too. You don't need to go full gonzo video render mode - but Resolve does use GPU memory so something in the 4+ GB range is good as an addition to regular memory.

I would just like to add that you can have the most powerful computer, fancy expensive monitors, and preamps and gear to boot. None of that means anything in your untreated (or poorly treated) room. I get asked advice all the time about gear and I always have to bring this up.

Great Video lots if Important Information

Really helpful Gregor, Thanks.. Can also share your System Configuration and your type of workflow on it.. It would be a great reference point to start with..

Wouldn't it be great if Presonus designed and sold a PC set up perfectly tuned for Studio One.

The other reason to over estimate the "hard drive" size (is an SSD a hard "drive"? Nothing is being driven....): Drive lifetime. An SSD has a "terra-bytes written" rating, which has to do with how much data writing is expected and can be accommodated by the drive over its lifetime. The issue centers around the facts that: (a) an SSD writes data in large blocks, and (b) these blocks can be written only so many times (maybe a couple thousand) before writing fails. A larger SSD can handle more data writes because it has, simply, more blocks.

Informative and delivered in a way that an amateur (me) could understand. Thank you.

This is the reason I purchased the i7-8700K processor. But, as of this video, I don't know if anything has taken its place. I'm not ABOUT to drop that much money on a Mac. And, the vast majority of stuff I record is outboard. The fastest single core processor made, and 32g RAM, with the option of 32g more. And, solid state drives including NVME. Is that still the norm? Again, I'm recording standard outboard gear (i.e. 70's/80's classic rock recordings).

This is a must watch for those starting out. Great vid 👍

Thank you for these videos, You can not understand how much I appreciate a Professional presentation and intelligent information. Are you doing these on the fly or scripted, if your going from the dome you have a true talent….

PC. The options are so delicious and affordable.

I'm searching over a week and this is the best information I found ! Thank you

I filled up a 2 TB internal SSD in less than a month. Ended up moving almost all of my sample libraries over to a Samsung 8 TB external SSD and have since used up about half of that.

You should update this video every December each year. Do an annual update with recommendations for pc and max models.

Thxs Gregor for this very informative info on computers for DAWs.I am looling into upgrading my PC and this helps tremendously on my decision.thxs again.

You showed Diva while you were talking about how 1 channel can only be processed by once core (~3:14) and of course this is true most of the time but an instance of Diva can actually use multiple cores, the button for enabling this is right up there near the "Output".

The Audio interface connection performance seems not to be so important. I thought first to need a fast USB connection to get rid of latency and was surprised that most audio interfaces just have USB2. And even one of the best ones from RME do not have high performance. And it seems to be true: the connection performance is not so important. What is important here is the quality of the driver software. RME stands out here but has a high price.

Thanks for that very informative video, I especially like that you take the time to explain why the most expensive option is rarely the best option. Check your needs before specing out a 5000€+ computer or you set yourself up for disappointment !

Super hyped for my next studio pc build!

It literally depends on your audio interface and it’s connection type. And there’s three main pc company’s AMD Intel and Apple. AMD is great for gaming and streaming and video editing, Intel good for music and gaming, and apple best for music. Thunder bolt connectivity is an apple proprietary connection so it gets finicky when paired with other pc parts and thunder bolt is the fastest on the market so everyone who is professional audio mainly uses apple computers. You can use a custom PC instead but then it gets really noisy compared to how silent apple computers are and also custom pc will have to mess around in the bios if you wanna gets thunderbolt comparable connection. Otherwise you can just use a USB audio interface but they don’t sound as prestine as the high end interfaces

thank you so much!

Minute 8:53: cutting CORNERS!!! oooooohhh ok!... all the the video I was like...don't cut the wrong what? hahaha

This presenter is amazing. Thank you for this very informative video!

I'm about to buy a new computer, the big problem with studio one is that you need a good graphic card, that's why my CPU was too hot in studio one but not in reaper. The prices of graphic cards are insane because of mining... Thanks for the advice about graphic cards, cheers.

Good explanation - big orchestral arrangements = more cores. Thanks a lot.

This is great now I definitely know how to pick my $250 laptop

Hi all.... Great vid Gregor as ever... I'm going through this right now. My Options: 1: Mac Mini... Great power and silent but 16gb too much for me. 2: Upgrade old PC to Ryzen 5600x with new mobo, 32GB and NVME approx £700. (after watching this video I understand that integrated graphics is not a good idea... shame because I ws gonna go for a 5600g or 5700g) 3: Buy older but high spec Xeon workstation e5 1650 v4 six core 3.6 ghz or e5 1680 v4 eight core with 32gb etc etc £450.... I understand the M1 and Ryzen will be more powerful than the Xeons but by how much???Those workstations were mega bucks when new and a lot more power than I have right now.... It might be a great Studio One pc maybe?? Its so hard making the right choices in life.. haha..

Excellent information with a straight forward explanation for any music enthusiast to understand. Great job my friend. Danke! ++Peace, Funk & Rock n' Roll 4 Your Soul++

Hi. I've been running a quadcore Dell for 5 years . It works pretty well for general recording However. It sucks on latency specifically related to using external midi controllers for Virtual instruments. I have the money to buy a decent computer, pc or mac. I have considered both the Mac Mini with 16GB ram and 2 Terabyte SSD internal and the Mac Studio Max at 32 GB ram and 1 Terabyte ssd internal. I have been told that a thunderbolt external drive is as fast as an additional internal SSD for the Mac studio. Are either of these configurations adequate to get my desired result with zero latency on midi controllers for orchestral libraries and virtual instruments in general?~ I understand the need for single core count to be high enough to get low latency? Will the better CPUs with more cores do the jobb or is the Thunderbolt connectivity the essential element of achieving midi low latency?,,, are these macs suitable or is a PC build more likely to solve my issue.? Thanks'! Great honest video!

Hi Gregor great video as always! Question: are we going to see hardware accelerated graphics on PC?

Where was this video 2 months ago when I finally made the upgrade from my 5 year old toshiba laptop to to my lenovo i7 9500 3.8ghz up to 4.3 I belive, 512 GB HD 16 ddr4 ram it's not the best but on my budget it works for me. Great video btw!!

I use use loads of Kontakt, Spitfire, bbc orchestral plug ins and heaps of live recordings, drums especially and layered guitars with or without fx, plus then I I want to put it to 4k film I'm editing at the same time. So far I've been trying to do score in parts and then add them in a final score, it takes up far too many hours. i want to work on the fly. I'm going for 128 ram ddr4 and m.2 @2gb. G-force card I've got - 3 years old but okay for the requirements and more. I'm going to use the big drives for external storage - Hdd from experience I got through 2tb in a year, so 20tb in old skool drives and as you say keep the fast drives where they're needed.

would love an updated vid for this. but thank you!

This is the one I needed. Thank You.

Thank You for this video. I learned alot. I wish that this video came out before I purchased my last computer. LOL!

Oh finally some sanity on the CPU benchmark and specs. But quick note... I did many experiments on the SSDs for my sample library but sadly this doesn't seem to make too much difference on my project loading time - there seem to be a lot of complex stuff happening when Studio One loads a project (well same with Ableton). And last comment, buying a high quality power supply did reduce my overall noise.