Use Hackintosh For Home Recording

Is it worth to build a Hackintosh for Home recording? Does it work good in any way? Let’s find out!

Yesterday, I was posting a thread on a forum about this. And then decide to talk more decent about this topic on this site. You know, the forum is still don’t have many members yet. So there was like I am doing monolog :))

But here, maybe will be read by a lot of more peoples. ‘Hackintosher’, fellow audio friends. By you guys! … hopefully. So, back when I begin to find out the possibility of how to install macOS on a lowest ‘Hackintosh’ PC spec. In this case your minimum spec at least your CPU is a core2 duo. Yeah! that’s mission was driving me nuts sometimes.

I finally discovered a successful method to create a Vanilla Hackintosh, which I shared on this blog. Later, I explored whether a low-budget Hackintosh could handle demanding tasks, such as home recording.

And surprise surprise it works too!

Believe it or not, with only 4GB of RAM installed and I can record a song on it. As an experiment, I do some cover song from my teenage favorite bands ‘Nirvana‘. You can check the result on my Soundcloud profile.

Below is the video overview of low budget Hackintosh performance for recording audio.

How to make hackintosh PC fully working for home recording

In my previous post, I discussed this topic, but now I want to provide more details on optimizing Hackintosh for home recording, even on low-spec PCs like mine. As shown in the case study, it functions well on a Core 2 Duo with just 4 GB of RAM, so it will perform even better on higher-spec machines.

Here that determine what makes Hackintosh run flawlessly.

A good Graphics card

Whether if you are running a core i3, i5, i7 pc. But if your graphics card isn’t supported for macOS. Then it will be suck. Is not always an expensive graphics card. But, the most important is, the GPU should be compatible with the Hackintosh. Since most audio software is required graphics acceleration to work too. Then it’s the most important part.

You can check the list of working graphics card on this page (link will open in new tab): Working Graphics Cards For Hackintosh [Case Study]

If you want to install macOS Mojave, see the references of alternative Metal capable graphics card here: Want to Install macOS Mojave on Hackintosh Think Again!

So, once again. It does not have to be expensive! as long it compatible it will just work.

Make sure your Power Supply Unit is good too!

In the first trial and error of how to make a low budget Hackintosh work for recording audio. I was having a problem with latency and noises. When running a DAW or guitar amp sim software. And recently found the problem is coming from a bad power supply.

After replacing the PSU with the good one. DANG! the issue is gone. But not 100%. Because I use a super cheap Audio Interface at the time. So I bought a new audio interface and the issue is 100% solved.

A low latency Audio Interface

There is a bunch of super cheap audio interface out there on the market. That promise you with low-latency audio. But you only got what you pay. So make sure your audio-interface really have low-latency. Once again, is not always super expensive.

There’s some good audio interface that not costs so much. But have a ‘real’ low-latency audio. Like Behringer U-Phoria USB audio interface for example.

For more list of cheap but good USB audio interface for Home Recording, you can check here: Best Cheap USB Audio Interface For Home Recording

Optimize macOS

You may also need to optimize macOS on your Hackintosh for home recording. By tweaking some of the basic settings to make it run smother while recording or jamming.

Here you can read the article: Optimize Mac OS for Digital Audio Workstation [Home Recording]

Conclusion

That’s some insight from me. So, now you have your own conclusion that if it running well on low budget PC. Then it should run more great on better PC specs. As long as all other parts supported. Your Hackintosh should be able doing any task just the way the real Mac does. There will always some issue with Hackintosh but you’ll find the way 🙂