Your Questions: Which Budget PC Should I Get For Producing Music?

Digital DJ Tips reader Rafa writes: “I want to get a new computer that I can produce music on. I don’t have a digital audio workstation (DAW) yet, but I want to use a Windows PC because I’m on a budget (not more than $600) and splurging on a Macbook is way beyond my means. Any suggestions? Desktop or laptops are fine.”

Digital DJ Tips says:

First off, I’m going to recommend that you get a laptop computer. The reason being that if you’re going to invest in a desktop PC for producing, you may as well have one that you can take with you to a gig the lets you perform.

For example, if you’re going to get into Ableton Live and its Session View performance mode, you need a computer that you can depend on to run your project and that can pack up quickly, instead of having a desktop that you take to the gig and assemble onstage.

I know this because this is exactly what I used to do – back then, I had a “souped up” Windows 98 PC running Reason, and my set up took almost the same time as my live performance! Laptops have indeed come a long way.

I’m going to recommend three different types of budget PC laptops here, all running Windows 8 or 10. I’ll also assume that you’ll be using either Ableton Live or FL Studio.

1. Dell Inspiron 15 ($600)

It’s got a 15” screen, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive for all your DJ tunes and productions. Configurable if you want a touchscreen or higher specs, too. Relatively inexpensive clocking in at just $600 (especially compared to a Macbook Pro of almost the same spec)

2. ASUS F555UA-EH71 15.6 ($580)

This Asus laptop features an i7 “Skylake” core processor, which is one of Intel’s newer PC processors and is faster than the Dell Inspiron, a 15” screen, 1TB of disk space for your music files, and 8GB of RAM.

3. Toshiba Satellite C55-C5241 15.6 ($469)

Cheapest on this list is the Toshiba Satellite, which has a 15” screen, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. It’s cheap, has SD card slots and a USB 3.0 port, and other connectivity onboard.

Finally…

Buying a PC laptop is tricky because there’s always a new one right around the corner and they can quickly lose value as a result, but you’ll want to buy closest to your budget’s ceiling to avoid having to buy again soon just because you decided to save a few hundred bucks to buy a sick pair of headphones that scream “DJ/producer”. Of course production accessories are important too, but don’t spend way below your budget just to accommodate gear that you “think” you need right now like a fancy Midi controller – you can buy them later on, don’t sweat it at this point.

In the modern production game, your computer is the heart of everything that you do, whether it’s music or social media marketing. Spend a little bit more on it instead of buying other little production knick knacks that you think will take you to the top of the DJ Mag Top 100, and you’ll thank yourself in the long run, I promise!

What other PC laptops can you recommend to our reader? Let us know below.