While it’s certainly possible to produce quality music on a cheap quad-core system, it becomes a pain when it comes to large orchestration projects. As the number of tracks, sample libraries, plugins in a music project grow, the pressure on PC components grows significantly as well. So it’s better not to invest in PC components that will force you to optimize things again and again. First, it wastes “a lot” of valuable time. Second, it just kills the creative mind. In this post, we’ll show you the best PC components you can get for your large orchestral music production build. These components will offer great value for money. Now let’s find out the best CPU, Motherboard, RAM, SSD, GPU, PSU, Case, and Cooler you should use for your Orchestral music production PC build.
PC Build – 1 – Best PC components for Large Orchestral Music Production Projects (500+ Tracks)
This PC build is recommended for those music producers/composers who work for feature films and deal with a massive amount (500+) of tracks and sample libraries:
| PC Component | Model |
|---|---|
| CPU | Threadripper 3960X |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte TRX40 Designare |
| RAM | Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro SL 3200 MHz C16 – 128GB |
| SSD | Boot Drive – Samsung 980 PRO PCIe Gen4 – 2TB Media Drive (Sample Libraries) – Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus – 4TB Media Drive 2 (Sample Libraries) – Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus – 4TB Write Drive – Samsung 980 PRO PCIe Gen4 – 2TB Backup Drive (Option 1) – Inland Platinum NVMe PCIe Gen3 – 8TB Backup Drive (Option 2) – Sabrent Rocket Q NVMe PCIe Gen3 – 8TB |
| GPU | NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3060 Ti |
| PSU | be quiet! Straight Power 11 Platinum – 1000W |
| Case | be Quiet! Dark Base Pro Rev.2 |
| Cooler | Thermaltake Floe Triple Riing RGB 360 TT Premium Edition |
Why Threadripper 3960X CPU for Orchestration?
You may find people arguing that there’s no benefit of choosing a CPU with more than 8-10 cores for music production. That’s true in case of Pop, Rock, EDM, and projects like that. But when you have hundreds of tracks in the timeline for orchestration with top-notch virtual instruments, sample libraries, plugins, even the mighty Ryzen 9 5950X with 16 cores falls short. You’ll find yourself doing optimizations time and again such as purging sample libraries, freezing tracks, and things like that.
In most cases, even those optimizations are not enough. A large number of voices put so much strain on the CPU so bad that it becomes a pain. That should explain why it is best to choose a high core – high clock CPU like Threadripper 3960X for orchestral music production PC build.
PC Build – 2 – Best PC components for Orchestral Music Production Projects (Cheaper Version)
This PC build is recommended for those music producers/composers who love to work on orchestral projects but are not working on such a large scale. Note that this build will still offer enough power to smoothly work on 100+ tracks with demanding plugins, sample libraries, etc.
| PC Component | Model |
|---|---|
| CPU | Ryzen 9 5950X |
| Motherboard | GIGABYTE X570 AORUS Master |
| RAM | Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro SL 3200 MHz C16 – 128GB |
| SSD | Boot Drive – Samsung 970 EVO Plus – 2TB Media Drive (Sample Libraries) – Inland Platinum NVMe PCIe Gen3 – 8TB (Option 1) Media Drive (Sample Libraries) – Sabrent Rocket Q NVMe PCIe Gen3 – 8TB (Option 2) Write Drive – Samsung 970 EVO Plus – 2TB |
| GPU | NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3060 Ti |
| PSU | be quiet! Straight Power 11 Platinum 850W |
| Case | be Quiet! Dark Base Pro Rev.2 |
| Cooler | Thermaltake Floe Triple Riing RGB 360 TT Premium Edition |
A word of caution here! Be sure to get the (rev. 1.1/1.2) Gigabyte Aorus Master X570, not the (rev. 1.0) version. This is because the latest (rev. 1.1/1.2) Gigabyte Aorus Master X570 comes with Thunderbolt 3 support. Note that it doesn’t come with built-in Thunderbolt 3 ports, it only comes with a Thunderbolt header. To get access to Thunderbolt 3 ports on this motherboard, you need to connect this Thunderbolt add-in card connector.
If you’re not heavily using demanding sample libraries with all mic-positions turned on and not dealing with too many voices, you won’t benefit much from these PC builds. For such purposes, an eight-core processor such as Ryzen 5800X will easily satisfy your needs.
Conclusion
There’s a very strong reason for every PC component chosen in this orchestral music production PC build. Each component provides amazing performance and value for money. Whenever you’re building a PC for music production or any other purpose, be sure to focus on whether the component is compatible with other parts or not. The 2 PC builds you can see in this post for orchestral music production contains 100% compatible components. Have fun building an amazing PC for your orchestration projects!
