Minimum spec PC for Reaper?

[Mudchild]

Hi all

I'm looking to kit out a small recording space for use with young blind and visually impaired people who are learning about recording, sound, music etc. In some cases they may be using the computer themselves, in other cases I'll be doing that on their behalf. However my question is, what can we get away with on a small budget? Do basic Chromebooks run Reaper OK? The projects are not going to be super CPU intensive. Needs to be essentially decent quality though. What would you do?

Probably looking to get low cost but decent versions of:

- computers to run Reaper and other stuff
- mics for speech/singing
- XLRS, pop shields
- probably Scarlett interfaces
- MIDI keyboards and other controllers

Gracias for any input

[claz]

For what it's worth, I use Reaper daily on a 9 year old MacBook, 1.7Ghz processor, and 8GB RAM. Works fine!

[Sam Spoons]

Reaper is very frugal WRT CPU load and will certainly run on what most would consider very low spec machines. I wouldn't use Chromebooks or Chrome OS for running an audio recording system though, if for no other reason than they is a lot more online help available for Windows (or Mac OSX). Nearly all the contributors on here run Windows or OSX.

[Arpangel]

You can run Reaper on more or less anything, almost!
I have it on a seventeen year old PC running Windows XP, a current PC with Win 10, and a Mac.
A friend has it running on a cheap PC with Linux, works fine, albeit a little idiosyncratic regarding the UI!
Chrome Books? As someone else said, maybe not a lot of support for those.
Depends on what previous experience your pupils have, if any, I’d look at that, it would influence my decision regarding Mac or PC.

[James Perrett]

I'm running Reaper on an ancient budget Acer laptop from 2004 running Windows XP. It handles 24 track recording at standard sample rates and 16 tracks at 96kHz with no problem.

I'd agree that PC or Mac would be better than a Chromebook for this.

[Mudchild]

Thankyou folks. That is helpful.

[jaminem]

Just a thought but regardless of whether Reaper will run on a Chromebook, not sure you'll get drivers for Chrome OS from any of the interface manufacturers?

Focusrite for certain only do Windows or Mac, so unless Chrome OS can see an interface as a class compliant device - as would be the case if connected to an iPad i'm not sure it would work?

Id be checking that if I was even remotely thinking about a Chromebook

[Adamamam]

I use a dell e4300 laptop for tracking drums in reaper because the room with the drums is too far from the room with the fancier stuff. It works great! 8 or 10 tracks simultaneously no issue. Obviously mixing on this would be painful.

[Rockrooms]

Just a thought but regardless of whether Reaper will run on a Chromebook, not sure you'll get drivers for Chrome OS from any of the interface manufacturers?

Focusrite for certain only do Windows or Mac, so unless Chrome OS can see an interface as a class compliant device - as would be the case if connected to an iPad i'm not sure it would work?

Id be checking that if I was even remotely thinking about a Chromebook

It's not so much the drivers as the control software. Scarletts are class compliant, (I've got a G3 2i2 hooked up to generic Android phone via an OTG USB cable) but there isn't a Focusrite control for Chromebook, so you won't be able to setup custom mixes and some units have features that don't have associated hardware controls. The device will remember any config made on a PC / Mac, but from the Chromebook itself there's no control software.

The other thing to bear in mind with Chromebooks is that they have an expiry date, which is several years, but not from when you bought it, so it's hard to check in advance, so that 6.5 years from product launch might be somewhat shorter by the time it gets to you. They don't stop working, but like all these things, you're then running on something that is technically out of support and for devices that are designed on being connected to the internet, it's not ideal.

[BWC]

It's not so much the drivers as the control software.

Two parts of the same animal, you're not likely to find one without the other (not alive and well anyway).

...but there isn't a Focusrite control for Chromebook

Right, because there isn't a custom driver, so the two devices can't communicate beyond what's established by the generic "class" driver provided by the OS.

[Rockrooms]

It's not so much the drivers as the control software.

Two parts of the same animal, you're not likely to find one without the other (not alive and well anyway).

...but there isn't a Focusrite control for Chromebook

Right, because there isn't a custom driver, so the two devices can't communicate beyond what's established by the generic "class" driver provided by the OS.

For something like a Scarlett 2i2 it would make little difference as the unit has physical buttons for all the features, so you don't need Focusrite control, the unit should just work, although it's been a while since I've used one with a Chromebook. For a 4i4 and upwards though, you would. One other thing is that the use case here is for blind / visually impaired and unfortunately, Focusrite Control is built using JUCE and currently it isn't screen reader friendly, all the controls are basically just a bitmap. I understand that the current owners of JUCE are looking at this so hopefully this will change in the future. One thing you can do with Gen 3 units and Focusrite Control is change the gain halo colors to make them more distinguishable for visually impaired.

To the OP, just out of curiosity, is this working with a charity?

Joe

[Mudchild]

To the OP, just out of curiosity, is this working with a charity?

Joe

Apologies for the delay in replying - yes Joe, indeed it is

[Rockrooms]

To the OP, just out of curiosity, is this working with a charity?

Joe

Apologies for the delay in replying - yes Joe, indeed it is

Thanks, have sent a PM, it didn't seem to want to leave my outbox last night, so you might get two copies Or none!