Really old PC.. What DAW/software to use?

[Mea_Culpa89]

Hello! For the next few months i will be obliged to work with my old PC, an old Pentium 4 with either 256 or 512 (not quite sure yet, totally forgot) MB of RAM.

What DAW/software should i choose? Would it be better to buy a used Sonar 4 on Ebay, or maybe a newer up-to-date version would run smoother?
I suppose that the newer the version, the more requirements it would have from my PC.

What is the maximum amount of channels this PC can handle? Can i make a full project by constantly freezing/printing channels?

I am thinking of using Windows XP sp3, any general advice would be precious, please no "Buy a 4Core PC" replies, as this is not possible, for the time being.

 

[AdamWathan]

I think Reaper would probably be your safest bet on an older machine, it is really light on the CPU generally.

 

[CAlexanderParra]

Definitely download reaper. The installer is only 4.9MB too!

 

[Ashgarth]

+1 for reaper, used it some times in a pentium 4 with 2 ram gb and it worked pretty well!

 

[Mutant]

+1 for Reaper

 

[metalfanat1c]

Reaper.

 

[Russtopher]

Reaper. As if it's not been said enough already

I've run that on an older Athlon with 512M of RAM, and most recently on a 1.4 Celeron laptop with 1GB RAM. After 2-3 ampsims it bogs down, but if all you're doing is tracking and/or rendering tracks to stems, you can do a lot.

 

[Mea_Culpa89]

So, just to make sure, you suggest to use Reaper?

As i am not familiar with this specific DAW, so i will give it a test drive.

Thank you :hotjump:

 

[crillemannen]

I can't see you working on a computer like that!!! You could get away with it if you freeze and bounce every effect you put on haha. Good luck

 

[Harry Hughes]

Well if you can't afford a brand spanking new Core i7 980X, surely you could afford to drop like, 200 bucks on a used Core 2 Duo machine?
Will totally what you have now.

 

[greyskull]

reaper or pro tools hd.... think i know which is more cash efficient.