In my experience, it doesn't take much computing power to produce piano tracks. I will let you know that most of my tracks were produced using a laptop containing an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz processor with 2 GB RAM, which is on the low end of modern day computing in most households. This computer was more than sufficient for my needs so computers that are older and slower may work just as well. I also have a much newer MacBook Pro, which I used to create my most recent tracks. I will say that most of the music for my tracks were conceived at the piano, though I have a few tracks that were 100% thought-up and produced on the computer.

You will definitely want to have both a set of speakers and a decent pair of headphones for the purpose of creating music. On occasion, I have used $10 ear buds bought at Target to create my music. I do not recommend using ear buds. There are inexpensive headphones that can do the job well. I use Gear One (G40DX) headphones ($30) and a computer speaker system (Altec Lansing ATP3) although this system is mostly overkill for this purpose. I only use it because I found it wasting away in storage. A conventional two-speaker system should suffice. I recommend both speakers and headphones because the sound of your track may differ greatly between the two modes of audio output and you may pick up sound issues with your track in one mode that are not apparent in the other.

Other than a computer, there is no other required equipment to create professional quality piano tracks. I am a pianist, so I do have an 88-key digital piano. It is a Williams Allegro piano that cost me only $300. This is about as low as you can go in terms of finding a cheap digital piano with realistic hammer action and velocity-sensitive keys. I highly recommend this piano if you intend on using it primarily for making tracks. Certainly, there are better (high cost) pianos that are more impressive in their sound quality and hammer action. However, these pianos won't serve any greater purpose for the task of making piano tracks. The keyboard should have MIDI capability (MIDI In/MIDI Out) to allow you the option of connecting your keyboard and computer via MIDI cable. I will discuss how to do use the keyboard effectively as a MIDI controller in a separate article. My digital piano came with a sustain pedal, which of course broke in a matter of weeks. With the aid of some duct tape and wires, I was able to fix it (I think it's even better than the original design) and it has done the job well ever since.