charlottegelin said:

In '96 I had a PC that was 22mhz and had a "TURBO" button that, when pressed, cranked up the mhz to 25

Spookymuffin said:

I remember that shit. My friend's was 16 mhz but would go up to the incredible speed of 32 when using the TURBO!

Spookymuffin said:

I have a 512k modem though so I can surf the web pretty quickly and download stuff. I just can't do anything else at the same time, like breathe, drink a beverage, move from my chair, use the mouse, depress one of those buttons on the keyboard, that type of thing.

Fauxie said:

you couldn't sell your computer for more that about 50 quid.

Spookymuffin said:

Come on, it cost me 18,000 baht (250 quid), has 96MB of RAM, a CD writer, 38 MB hard drive, a subwoofer - no wait a substandard woofer, a keyboard that stopped working and which I had to replace, a mouse which I had to replace, and a big silver box thing to put all the computer ROMS and RAMS stuff in for FREE!

Actually, it has a 2.4mhz Celeron processor (which is fine, I don't play games on it), but I did buy a nice subwoofer and speakers, an ADSL modem, a cool mouse, and a mad wicked mouse mat for it, so if I just upgraded my RAM to, say, 512MB, it'd run pretty sweetly.

Fauxie said:

hmm...I settle for nothing less that 2gb of ram, but then again I produce music and game seriously, so I need that much.

My pc (self-built, of course):

AMD64X2 4400+ 2.1ghz
2GB RAM
256MB GeForce 7800 GTX
80GB HD (OS)
160GB HD (Storage)
NEC DVD +/- RW-DL

Spookymuffin said:

First off, fuck you.

Secondly, I don't game on the PC, only on ps2. I do (did), however, make music, and I would be interested in getting into that again (I was a hardware man, but it's all back in the UK so I figure at some point I'll have to give in and use some kind of music program on the PC ). How much RAM do you think I'd need for that? Processor speed isn't important for that, am I right?

Fauxie said:

ahahahahahahahahahahahah!

JPW said:

What? Help me out here!!!

What would I need. I can get a midi keyboard, copied programs no problem. What spec computer do I need to make music?

Fauxie said:

well let's just say that if you want to run mr drum-machine in BASIC, you're gonna to be smooth sailing

anything above that may be a problem

JPW said:

So what would I need?

I'm used to using hardware - samplers, mixing desks and stuff, but never got on with computer music. I had to study it for a while but never really got the hang of it. It's been so long now since I made any music, I wonder if I can anymore, but I'd like to at least have a little tinker with it and see if I'm still inspired to do something. I was never any good, but was enthusiastic and put my heart into it and most importantly enjoyed myself when doing it.

Fauxie said:

try fruityloops software to begin with....drum programming, VST instruments, etc..... but AFTER you get a new computer!

seriously though, i'm no expert... do some research on google... i need better hardware and recording equipment myself

You can easily make music with even the slowest processors that are on the market these days (and I'm not talking about your thai-made computer), and just the normal amount of RAM that you get with every stock PC these days as well will be enough for most projects anyway. The main point is to get a good audio interface so it has the muscle to run those programs solid enough.

And that's going to cost you.

JPW said:

Ah yes, I've a little experience using those programs. Didn't enjoy it, but I tried them and probably could get on with them a little better with more time at home. I guess I'll make it a Christmas present to myself to do my computer up first.

Novabreaker said:

Most computers run on rice whiskey though right?

Fauxie said:

You need about a gig of ram once you start adding distortions and other effects. I hate myself for saying this, but the best music program I've used is Logic for Mac OS X, but there's Cubase for Windows which is just as good, but I'm not used to it yet.
You will need a better processor too, tbh. In all honesty, you need a new computer.

Spookymuffin said:

Nawh. 256Mb-512Mb is just fine for most productions, if you go beyond that you know you are most likely already overproducing. One gigabyte certainly is no minimum requirement for basic music production, not even today. Of course, your experiences of such high RAM requirements could be because of slower audio interface drivers if you aren't using a proper recording setup.

Novabreaker said:

Yeah I'm not using decent audio eqpmnt - I don't have any room left in my PC