Producing Electronic Music With a “Low-Specs” Computer.
Hello aspiring producer, you read the title right. You don’t really need a PC containing a $1000 NVIDIA graphics card, or one with 32GB of RAM to make your new hit, although you wouldn’t call me a genius when I say that the production experience is a lot easier with a high-end machine. As I am writing this, I wish I had one.
For context, I’m using a Lenovo laptop. These are the current specifications:
- Intel core i3 CPU (64 bit)
- Windows 10
- 6GB RAM
- 500GB Toshiba hard-disk drive
- Intel integrated graphics unit
For additional context, my Huawei phone from 2017 has slightly less-leveled specifications (3GB Memory and powered by a Kirin 710 SOC).
Despite this, I’m still able to produce electronic music at a somewhat professional level. Here are some of the tactics I use to overcome my rubbish computer power levels.
1. Using slightly older software
Ableton released Live 11 last year (2021). Here are the minimum system requirements required to run it:
You can see I’m lacking a bit.
Let’s contrast that with Live 10 (released in 2017):
I tried running Live 11 on my PC, just to see what an 8GB RAM and an i5-required program would do to my system. Not only was the program “Not Responding” on launch a couple of times, it also crashed whenever I used a VST instrument, or whenever I made a bit of progress on a new track.
On Live 10 however, the program boots up on time, there’s barely any crashes, my VST instruments (particularly Serum as it is my default synth) work just fine, despite the occasional slow-downs.
I’d also like to point out that there’s not much of a difference between Live 10 and Live 11. The only new stand-out features for me are comping, upgrades to Reverb, Redux and the Frequency/Pitch Shifter devices, and the Spitfire sample library. To be honest, these new features wouldn’t really make a difference to my workflow and process, therefore I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything given my inability to upgrade.
The only disadvantage is collaboration. My mates running Live 11 still have to bounce audio to stems in order to collaborate with me. If I had Live 11, they’d simply send over a Live Pack/project file. They understand my situation though, so they don’t mind.
2. Frequently bouncing heavy VST processes to audio
I primarily make dubstep, future bass, festival trap and progressive house. Sometimes, designing sounds required by these songs can be really demanding on the CPU, and if you have a potato like me, you are really going to struggle if you leave the VSTs on.
A main lead, chord stack or dubstep bass can have a chain of around 10–15 sound effects. Last week I made a chord stack sound containing a rack of 3 instruments. The main one had 15 effects, layer two had 10, and the 3rd one had 8. Running by itself, my CPU meter was at around 45%. ONE rack! Now imagine having to layer 6 or 7 similar racks to get that desired group of sound… mate my computer would die!
(Note: In Ableton Live, we call bouncing “freezing” , and this is the term I’ll use from now on)
As soon as I froze that rack, my CPU usage went back down to normal (4%).
Not only will you save your CPU, but you’ll also be encouraged to move forward with your track, as you will be unable to make tonal changes to your frozen melodies and chords.
Speaking of freezing tracks to audio…
3. Having separate sound design sessions
Every big dubstep producer always emphasizes on having dedicated sound design sessions and projects. Their reason is to save time and not lose their flow whenever they’re working on a track. However, our reason is to save system resources.
From my experience, making a dubstep bass from scratch in the middle of a large project sometimes never ends well. I could be cycling through a wavetable on serum, and next thing you know, the whole software crashes, and if Ableton Live was unable to make its automatic backup for that session, I’d have to restart from my last save, which could be from hours ago.
This is where my personal dubstep folder (and sample packs) come to my rescue. There’s a high chance Virtual Riot’s Splice packs have a sound similar to what you want to make, so why not use that? Tweak it with some effects and you’re good to go! 70% of the work done.
4. Using stock plug-ins
If you’re running a modern DAW, you already have everything you need in terms of plug-ins, which, surprise, use less resources than their VST equivalents.
FL Studio users for instance can use their stock Sytrus for FM synthesis, and Harmor for additive synthesis. Ableton Live users can do the same with Operator for both aforementioned operations, or Wavetable in place of Serum or Massive for Wavetable synthesis. I’m pretty sure DAWs like Cubase and Logic have effective stock instruments.
Guy from Disclosure once said 3rd party instruments only give you an extra 5% in music production, and I 100% agree. Here’s Guy breaking down Disclosure’s mega-hit song Latch, in which you can see him barely using 3rd party plug-ins.
Worth listening to Sam’s raw vocals (toward end). If you start with great ingredients, you don’t need $10k of plugins.
- Sol State, YouTube comments.
You will save both your computer and financial resources, and you will become a better producer overall. Forget about collecting VSTs if you know your computer is slow, and focus on getting creative with the tools you have.
In conclusion…
I always tell aspiring producers that if they have a computer that can run Google Chrome smoothly, and have a pair of decent headphones, they can download demo versions of FL Studio or Ableton and start learning how to make music.
Also, I definitely would love to upgrade my computer. Music production is not the only thing I do, as I am an engineering student as well. CAD and simulations need enough power, and that’s something I lack. That being said, and going back to the previous point, if it can run Chrome, it can basically run a DAW. You have no excuse if you want to start music production.
Thank you for reading, and I hope this helped.