This is mostly a reaction to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFL3wOfPx9s and a translated and updated version of an earlier Czech article https://getmania.blogspot.com/2014/10/hudebni-notebook-jedine-s-windows-xp.html.
Music is about being real-time which means it should be made close to the hardware. You cannot make (good) electronic music without knowing Ohm's Law, Fourier Series and Frequency Modulation. You are severely limited when you cannot just touch a hardware register and have to ask the driver, which asks the kernel, which then asks the hardware to willfully comply with your request. That means you need to have an OS that allows unrestricted direct access to hardware. Last Windows that did by clearing the way with "MS-DOS mode" was Windows 98. Linux never did.
Another bummer comes with audio interface redesign in Windows Vista, carrying into Windows 7. No longer does my favorite S-YXG50 work and generally everything involving MIDI at the OS level is simply weird. PC Speaker can no longer be accessed. That leaves Windows XP as another stop. In modern Linux distros I miss OSS, which provided a simple way to output audio by diverting standard output to /dev/dsp.
HARDWARE MIXING AND SYNTHESIS
There is a bunch of vintage home computers with legendary sound chips to choose from:
ZX Spectrum -> AY
Atari ST -> POKEY
Commodore 64 -> dual 6581 SID chips stereo or 6581+8580 mono
Amiga 1200 -> Paula
Or if you somehow need IBM PC, then this:
CPU: Pentium III @ around 1 GHz
RAM: 512 MB
HDD: literally anything still working with IDE/PATA these days
GPU: GeForce MX420 blaze it or whatever VESA/SVGA/XGA fits, capable of at least 2048x1536 for modern convenience
Soundcards: Gravis UltraSound
SoundBlaster AWE32 (with OPL3, not CQM)
SW1000XG / SW60XG
Softsynths: S-YXG100 + VL
Display: one of those high-end CRTs for resolutions like 1920x1440 or 2048x1536
OS: Windows 98 SE / FreeDOS
DAWs: Scream Tracker 3.21 - using GUS + AdLib
Ad-Lib Tracker ][ - using OPL3
Fast Tracker 2.08 - using GUS
Impulse Tracker 2.14
Voyetra Sequencer Plus Gold
old versions of Cubase, Cakewalk, Reason etc.
It mostly matches what is considered good for a WinXP machine at https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/can-you-still-make-music-elderly-pc. But my WinXP installation on my Atom netbook eats as much RAM as Vista on startup (over 300 MB), so I would suggest MicroXP. Even 64-bit LXLE uses less with all the long pointers everywhere. Remember, more recent versions of software (that run on XP) are incredibly bloated, so you have to lower the OS version to prevent yourself from using them.
SOFTWARE MIXING AND SYNTHESIS
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / AMD Phenom 9650
RAM: 4 GB if using WinXP or 8 GB
HDD: 500 GB (for Windows) + 2 TB + 300 GB (for Linux /home)
SSD: 128 GB (for Linux /)
GPU: nVidia GTX 750 Ti / AMD R7 260X (for making music in Minecraft)
Soundcard: Soudblaster Audigy RX / ASUS Xonar DG(X)
Display: 1080p or 1440p IPS, nothing really fancy but as big as possible
OS: Windows XP / Ubuntu Studio / Musix GNU+Linux / dyne:bolic
DAW (Windows): Buzz, Psycle, Renoise, FL Studio *, NoteWorthy Composer, Rebirth RB-338, Anvil Studio, Chibitracker, MadTracker 2, SunVox, MIDI-OX, NGWave
DAW (Linux): Rosegarden, SoundTracker, CheeseTracker
DAW (both): OpenMPT (Wine), MilkyTracker, TuxGuitar, LMMS, Audacity, SynthFont (Wine), Ardour, MusE, SchismTracker, MuseScore, Frescobaldi, SoX, Viena (Wine)
Softsynths: S-YXG50 (WinXP only)
OmniMIDI / VirtualMIDISynth2 / Timidity++ / FluidSynth
* Bloated FL stock plugins: Sawer, Toxic Biohazard, Harmor, Sakura, Morphine
Remember, if your track can't be played in real-time even on an C2Q9550, you are doing something wrong and have to change your workflow. Proprietary VST plugins suck ass and CPU. Use samples and sample-based effects, like trackers do. Cubic Lagrange interpolation has by far the clearest sound, Splines and Sinc muffle treble too much. You don't need 100 tracks, just listen to what Amiga could do with just 4. Also there's a difference between a Black MIDI and a Lag MIDI.
Fan noise is an inseparable part of working with computers. If it annoys you, use headphones. I'm actually more concerned when the PC remains suspiciously quiet. If you find it hard to talk over the noise, learn the sign language, it'll also help you with talking in subways, on airplanes, on loud concerts, with people wearing headphones, and over soundproof glass in studios. You can also practice your voice by talking over the seashore with marbles in mouth like Demosthenes if you don't feel like learning to sign.
Keyboard should support full N-key rollover and antighosting, therefore should be connected via PS/2. There's nothing more annoying than when you try to play 1 of those Jazz chords like Gbmaj7#9, and only 2 notes of it play. And yes, I mean the typing keyboard. You can append a smaller MIDI keyboard for another additional octaves and save real estate on a table for a cute hairy pet. Furthermore, you can easily map your typing keyboard to 2 octave-apart single-row Jankó, so that you fit 3 octaves with half an octave overlap. The 2 rows of keys also help with composing quarter-tone music, where the upper row is tuned 1 quarter-tone higher, giving only full 2 octaves in top row when using Jankó or 1.5 in both rows when not.
You are looking for something about Hackintosh? Sod off, learn normal FreeBSD/XNU and use GNUstep. After "transitioning to Intel", Apple has become an expensive OEM fashion brand that has no place in my nerd cave, where "some assembly required" (pun intended) is a challenge, not an inconvenience. NeXTstations and PowerMacs were at least somewhat decent. 68k Amiga is better than 68k Mac. Have some Louis Rossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVNkglXc84. Rick Beato also had a rant some years ago.
Just for comparison, my current PC:
Gigabyte X99P-SLI (integrated sound chip)
Intel i7-5820K @ ~4.20 GHz
Kingston HyperX 32 GB DDR4 @ 2133 MHz
nVidia RTX 2070 SUPER
M.2 nVME SSD 256 GB (Manjaro Cinnamon)
Kingston SSD 240 GB (broken Win10 Enterprise x64 yarr harr)
HDDs 1+4+0.3 TB (Western Digital, Seagate, Western Digital)
bunch of exHDDs and flash drives
a DVD burner from an old PC
a 3.5" card reader (broken, now just USB hub)
2x EIZO SW2433W, 1x EIZO SW2431W (1920x1200 VA)
... which I also use to program my assignments (countless memory leaks), watch YouTube, and play Minecraft.
But by the time I got the PC above, I wasn't making music that much anymore. Most of my music (2012 ~ 2016) was actually done on these machines:
HP Mini 5103
Intel Atom N550 @ 1.5 GHz
2 GB RAM
Intel GMA 3150 - weirdly timed 1680x1050 in Windows, proper 2048x1536 in Linux
300 GB HDD - 200 GB for Windows, 8 GB for Linux swap, 32 GB for /, rest for /home
single D-SUB without screw holes for an external monitor
still more USB ports than a MacBook (only 2.0 though)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11, then dualbooting openSUSE 12 with Windows 7 Ultimate x64, then dualbooting Windows XP Ultimate Edition 2009 with openSUSE 13.1, and then finally dualbooting XPUE2K9 with LXLE 16.04.4
crappy 1368x768 TN panel, not touchscreen
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz
4 GB RAM DDR2 @ 667 MHz, then 8, then again 4
nVidia Quadro NVS 290, later GTX 660
ASUS Xonar DGX 5.1
300 GB HDD, later also the 1 TB one
exHDDs slowly accumulating
a DVD burner
a PCI serial and parallel port adapter
Windows XP Professional (destroyed itself during Disk Cleaning), then 7 Ultimate x64 (ceased to work along with on-board Ethernet after a lightning), then XP Ultimate Edition 2009 (ceased to work after too much adware), and then finally XP Black Edition 2013. Now reportedly running openSUSE.
some 17" 1280x1024, later EIZO SW2433W (1920x1200 VA)
... which should tell you why I hate the "modern" way of doing relatively shitty music (compared to the computing power needed) via a buttload of complex proprietary plugins and continue to pursue samples and occasional vintage sound chip emulation.
Music is about being real-time which means it should be made close to the hardware. You cannot make (good) electronic music without knowing Ohm's Law, Fourier Series and Frequency Modulation. You are severely limited when you cannot just touch a hardware register and have to ask the driver, which asks the kernel, which then asks the hardware to willfully comply with your request. That means you need to have an OS that allows unrestricted direct access to hardware. Last Windows that did by clearing the way with "MS-DOS mode" was Windows 98. Linux never did.
Another bummer comes with audio interface redesign in Windows Vista, carrying into Windows 7. No longer does my favorite S-YXG50 work and generally everything involving MIDI at the OS level is simply weird. PC Speaker can no longer be accessed. That leaves Windows XP as another stop. In modern Linux distros I miss OSS, which provided a simple way to output audio by diverting standard output to /dev/dsp.
HARDWARE MIXING AND SYNTHESIS
There is a bunch of vintage home computers with legendary sound chips to choose from:
ZX Spectrum -> AY
Atari ST -> POKEY
Commodore 64 -> dual 6581 SID chips stereo or 6581+8580 mono
Amiga 1200 -> Paula
Or if you somehow need IBM PC, then this:
CPU: Pentium III @ around 1 GHz
RAM: 512 MB
HDD: literally anything still working with IDE/PATA these days
GPU: GeForce MX420 blaze it or whatever VESA/SVGA/XGA fits, capable of at least 2048x1536 for modern convenience
Soundcards: Gravis UltraSound
SoundBlaster AWE32 (with OPL3, not CQM)
SW1000XG / SW60XG
Softsynths: S-YXG100 + VL
Display: one of those high-end CRTs for resolutions like 1920x1440 or 2048x1536
OS: Windows 98 SE / FreeDOS
DAWs: Scream Tracker 3.21 - using GUS + AdLib
Ad-Lib Tracker ][ - using OPL3
Fast Tracker 2.08 - using GUS
Impulse Tracker 2.14
Voyetra Sequencer Plus Gold
old versions of Cubase, Cakewalk, Reason etc.
It mostly matches what is considered good for a WinXP machine at https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/can-you-still-make-music-elderly-pc. But my WinXP installation on my Atom netbook eats as much RAM as Vista on startup (over 300 MB), so I would suggest MicroXP. Even 64-bit LXLE uses less with all the long pointers everywhere. Remember, more recent versions of software (that run on XP) are incredibly bloated, so you have to lower the OS version to prevent yourself from using them.
SOFTWARE MIXING AND SYNTHESIS
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / AMD Phenom 9650
RAM: 4 GB if using WinXP or 8 GB
HDD: 500 GB (for Windows) + 2 TB + 300 GB (for Linux /home)
SSD: 128 GB (for Linux /)
GPU: nVidia GTX 750 Ti / AMD R7 260X (for making music in Minecraft)
Soundcard: Soudblaster Audigy RX / ASUS Xonar DG(X)
Display: 1080p or 1440p IPS, nothing really fancy but as big as possible
OS: Windows XP / Ubuntu Studio / Musix GNU+Linux / dyne:bolic
DAW (Windows): Buzz, Psycle, Renoise, FL Studio *, NoteWorthy Composer, Rebirth RB-338, Anvil Studio, Chibitracker, MadTracker 2, SunVox, MIDI-OX, NGWave
DAW (Linux): Rosegarden, SoundTracker, CheeseTracker
DAW (both): OpenMPT (Wine), MilkyTracker, TuxGuitar, LMMS, Audacity, SynthFont (Wine), Ardour, MusE, SchismTracker, MuseScore, Frescobaldi, SoX, Viena (Wine)
Softsynths: S-YXG50 (WinXP only)
OmniMIDI / VirtualMIDISynth2 / Timidity++ / FluidSynth
* Bloated FL stock plugins: Sawer, Toxic Biohazard, Harmor, Sakura, Morphine
Remember, if your track can't be played in real-time even on an C2Q9550, you are doing something wrong and have to change your workflow. Proprietary VST plugins suck ass and CPU. Use samples and sample-based effects, like trackers do. Cubic Lagrange interpolation has by far the clearest sound, Splines and Sinc muffle treble too much. You don't need 100 tracks, just listen to what Amiga could do with just 4. Also there's a difference between a Black MIDI and a Lag MIDI.
Fan noise is an inseparable part of working with computers. If it annoys you, use headphones. I'm actually more concerned when the PC remains suspiciously quiet. If you find it hard to talk over the noise, learn the sign language, it'll also help you with talking in subways, on airplanes, on loud concerts, with people wearing headphones, and over soundproof glass in studios. You can also practice your voice by talking over the seashore with marbles in mouth like Demosthenes if you don't feel like learning to sign.
Keyboard should support full N-key rollover and antighosting, therefore should be connected via PS/2. There's nothing more annoying than when you try to play 1 of those Jazz chords like Gbmaj7#9, and only 2 notes of it play. And yes, I mean the typing keyboard. You can append a smaller MIDI keyboard for another additional octaves and save real estate on a table for a cute hairy pet. Furthermore, you can easily map your typing keyboard to 2 octave-apart single-row Jankó, so that you fit 3 octaves with half an octave overlap. The 2 rows of keys also help with composing quarter-tone music, where the upper row is tuned 1 quarter-tone higher, giving only full 2 octaves in top row when using Jankó or 1.5 in both rows when not.
You are looking for something about Hackintosh? Sod off, learn normal FreeBSD/XNU and use GNUstep. After "transitioning to Intel", Apple has become an expensive OEM fashion brand that has no place in my nerd cave, where "some assembly required" (pun intended) is a challenge, not an inconvenience. NeXTstations and PowerMacs were at least somewhat decent. 68k Amiga is better than 68k Mac. Have some Louis Rossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVNkglXc84. Rick Beato also had a rant some years ago.
Just for comparison, my current PC:
Gigabyte X99P-SLI (integrated sound chip)
Intel i7-5820K @ ~4.20 GHz
Kingston HyperX 32 GB DDR4 @ 2133 MHz
nVidia RTX 2070 SUPER
M.2 nVME SSD 256 GB (Manjaro Cinnamon)
Kingston SSD 240 GB (broken Win10 Enterprise x64 yarr harr)
HDDs 1+4+0.3 TB (Western Digital, Seagate, Western Digital)
bunch of exHDDs and flash drives
a DVD burner from an old PC
a 3.5" card reader (broken, now just USB hub)
2x EIZO SW2433W, 1x EIZO SW2431W (1920x1200 VA)
... which I also use to program my assignments (countless memory leaks), watch YouTube, and play Minecraft.
But by the time I got the PC above, I wasn't making music that much anymore. Most of my music (2012 ~ 2016) was actually done on these machines:
HP Mini 5103
Intel Atom N550 @ 1.5 GHz
2 GB RAM
Intel GMA 3150 - weirdly timed 1680x1050 in Windows, proper 2048x1536 in Linux
300 GB HDD - 200 GB for Windows, 8 GB for Linux swap, 32 GB for /, rest for /home
single D-SUB without screw holes for an external monitor
still more USB ports than a MacBook (only 2.0 though)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11, then dualbooting openSUSE 12 with Windows 7 Ultimate x64, then dualbooting Windows XP Ultimate Edition 2009 with openSUSE 13.1, and then finally dualbooting XPUE2K9 with LXLE 16.04.4
crappy 1368x768 TN panel, not touchscreen
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz
4 GB RAM DDR2 @ 667 MHz, then 8, then again 4
nVidia Quadro NVS 290, later GTX 660
ASUS Xonar DGX 5.1
300 GB HDD, later also the 1 TB one
exHDDs slowly accumulating
a DVD burner
a PCI serial and parallel port adapter
Windows XP Professional (destroyed itself during Disk Cleaning), then 7 Ultimate x64 (ceased to work along with on-board Ethernet after a lightning), then XP Ultimate Edition 2009 (ceased to work after too much adware), and then finally XP Black Edition 2013. Now reportedly running openSUSE.
some 17" 1280x1024, later EIZO SW2433W (1920x1200 VA)
... which should tell you why I hate the "modern" way of doing relatively shitty music (compared to the computing power needed) via a buttload of complex proprietary plugins and continue to pursue samples and occasional vintage sound chip emulation.
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