As my recording/music production studio is growing, I wanted to upgrade my PC, so I can use Ableton or Pro Tools with Propellerheads Reason at the same time smoothly. So I went to a lot of forums where people talk about building these audio workstations, saw a few youtube videos about this subject. What I realized is that there's not much common ground about this subject and pretty much 100% of people making these audio workstation build videos (which are few) doesn't know much about PC hardware, but more about software and all the gear out of PC.
It would be awesome if you could make a build video about this, because there are hundreds of videos about gaming, video editing, graphics design PCs, but there are pretty much zero great videos about audio workstations. So if you could make this video, there would be at least one great video about this subject on youtube for people like myself and people who get into music production in the future.
The budget for this PC is 1000$ - 1200$, priority for this build would be that it should be as silent as possible. It should also have at least 8Gb of RAM (or as much possible fitting the budget), Firewire, at least 4-core intel processor above 2.5ghz, and a SSD.
This build doesn't need a sound card, because I use external one, and graphics card pretty much doesn't matter, but it should support 2 monitors.
I don't know why you ask about headset and mic, because recording and listening back happens through firewire cable to audio interface and then to studio monitors, and mic goes in the audio interface too.
Basically, get as powerful a processor and as much RAM as you can afford, and at least one good hard drive. If you're using solid state, I'd recommend at least one mechanical drive as well, and some extra storage (whether internal or external) for backups is a must.
If you're going to be working with a lot of virtual instruments with sound libraries, focus a bit more on RAM. If you're going to be using mostly processing plugins and/or synth instruments (as in no audio library), focus a bit more on the CPU.
Make sure your thinking ahead with your motherboard. When you buy your ram (which better be 32GB to be on the safe side) try and buy as much memory you can on one stick so that if you upgrade in the future, you can.
Important: Mobo, CPU, RAM and a good quality interface. Be wary about Focusrite, I'm having some issues with mine and I don't think they are solvable thanks to the shitty drivers.
what kind of Focusrite audio interface do you have? I was thinking of buying Focusrite Liquid Sapphire 56, but if you are saying that they have some issues, what do you recommend?
Try and avoid focusrite, MOTU is a lot better, and presonus do a very good pre amp with outstanding A to D converters.
What you looking to be doing ??
if you are making music with sample and doing the odd small recording, personally I would use:
MOTU MicroBook II for driving headphone mix and talk back mic and monitors, also has a instrument 3.5 jack.
If you are like me and compose for film the Presonus firestudio project is good! I use the 8 outputs for 7.1 surround sound and the 8 pre's for small recording, However I dont use this for recording any more due to the lack of features, ie no pad and pantom power for each pair( but it is still really good).
If you need a Firewirecard you will need it with texus intruments on it !
For monitors, seriously check these out, theses win hands down everytime I compare them to any other monitor: http://www.presonus.com/products/Sceptre
I'm going to record gigs, adding effects from DSP and DAW, using it as a mixer. I will use it also for music production (song writing) and recording classical music. That is why I need that much I/Os and phantom power.
I'm really happy with KRKs. I have KRK Rokit5 G2s, but I will upgrade for KRK Rokit6 G3s. KRKs are the best for music production. It is really fun working with them.