Buying a Computer for Film Composers and Music Producers

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Buying a pre-built system (the way a majority of people buy their computers) can be an excellent way to get something usable, fast, and stable - not to mention the usual tech support and warranties that are often offered with pre-built machines. For the less tech-inclined, this can be a totally viable and nearly effortless option - though it can be challenging sorting through all of the offerings available to you.

The first step would be to pick an operating system - windows or mac.

Operating systems were discussed in an earlier post, however the main things to know are Macs are ONLY made by apple. Any mac computer has been designed with this operating system in mind, with hardware custom suited to work best on an apple computer. Windows machines however can be made or installed by anybody: Dell, Acer, HP, etc are all different brands that build full machines that install Microsoft’s windows on them. This approach allows for a much greater range of options available to you, but also comes at the cost of more choices to make with a greater range of performance. Apple typically doesn't do “budget” machines, so they tend to have a better rep for “it just works” - but then again they are also expensive to replace as modern mac computers aren’t modular and instead everything is soldered onto the logic board. Neither operating system is better than the other - but the performance of one machine can vastly out perform another based on it’s specs and hardware that is inside.

The other consideration for your operating system is what software you plan to use. A majority of music software (DAWs, Notation programs, etc) are cross-platform, meaning you can use them on mac or pc - but some additional programs that you might use such as keyboard maestro are mac only. For a majority of programs, there are alternatives available so as long as you are willing to research/learn/adapt you shouldn’t feel like you’re being held hostage to one OS by a single third party piece of software.

Performance Specs

Different parts of a computer give different performance benefits and some are more relevant to composers than others. As a composer, I’d look at RAM first as that is where a majority of composers get bottle neck’d via sample libraries and speed. Next, I’d consider the CPU clock speed well as the amount of cores. This is the spec that’ll affect your mixing plug in’s, your latency, and the amount of work/how fast it can perform. The third spec I’d really consider (though not as urgently) is the amount of storage. a 256gb machine works great - if you are just using it to stream video on netflix or browse the internet. But if you are looking to work with large video files, have lots of sessions and data on your machine you might want to consider at least a terrabyte of storage these days. Storage however can usually be upgraded (albeit, most often externally) or expanded via a NAS unit. But for music, working locally in a session is far more efficient than trying to record to a drive on the cloud or through a usb drive.

I/O (Inputs and outputs)

The other consideration composers need to make are how many external devices are going to be connected to your machine? If you’re going to be composing, you’ll likely need (at a minimum) a midi keyboard, an audio interface, and a keyboard/mouse. That’s already four peripheral devices - aka 4 usb slots that you are using. Some keyboards have a usb slot for a mouse - which makes this now 3. But even then that can be all (or at least a majority) of the I/O. You may still have an iLok or an E-liscener so that’s even more I/O required. Even more so if using external storage….

You can get a USB hub to expand this, but different devices react differently to a hub so be sure to consider this when implementing one: any device that latency and speed is a priority (audio interface, midi keyboard) should be connected directly to the motherboard for the best speeds rather than through a hub. If a device is “bus powered” like some MIDI keyboards or external drives, they may not work in a hub either (unless it is an active-powered usb hub, but that’s a later discussion).

Additionally, your I/O should support the amount of monitors you intend to use (typically on your graphics card, not the motherboard itself) as well as the internet speed you want to run if you are using a hardwired connection. If you plan to use wi-fi, make sure your machine supports that as well.

Upgradability/Repairability

As mentioned earlier, some machines are way harder to upgrade or repair than others. There is a trade off between this and performance usually when this is the case, but if you are prone to breaking your machine (like me with laptops) you might want to consider this because it can cost as much to replace a component as it can to replace to whole machine. Apple machines are notoriously bad in this regard, but are usually high enough quality that they last a LONG time and don’t need to be repaired often if you are maintaining them (I am still rocking a 2013 mac pro in 2025!)

Intentionally Designed Machines

If you’re shopping at stores like best buy, you may find machines labeled for different purposes such as “gaming”. These are optimized for those sorts of experiences, but gaming machines can actually be great for composing (sometimes a little overkill in some respects) as both can be incredibly taxing on the computer’s resources. This can be a good starting point when looking for machines, but if your time/budget allows consider buying a pre-built from companies such as Block Builds or PC Audio Labs - Companies that build machines specifically optimized for composers.