Windows 7 DAW

[braincell]

Is anyone using Windows 7 for your DAW? I just installed in on my laptop and I really like it. It runs much cooler now which makes it faster and less likely to crash. I don't know if the same is true on all computers. My DAW desktop seems hotter than I would like but it is a Core 2 Quad.

[astroman]

you liked Vista too, didn't you ?

cheers, Tom

[netguyjoel]

astroman...i could have not said it better myself

[braincell]

That is another computer.

[valis]

I thought you were poo-poo'ing Windows 7 before? It's good to note that it's working out for you though, Win7 should certainly have a much better footprint for mobile use, as MS is being shafted by having to still support WinXP on netbooks that are currently in vogue (Vista is too bloated for them). So you can thank the emerging low power market for shifting their focus...

Also good to remember that where WinXP might be canon for many windows musicians, there are a lot of people out there using not only OSX and Vista (or Win7) or even Linux, but also Win98 (still) and in some cases even ATARI OS. Needs & workflows differ... (something you seem oblivious to at times braincell...)

[braincell]

People using Win 98 or the Atari belong at a Star Trek convention.

[Fluxpod]

1040 and unitor 2 with notator is still king in our studio.The timing with a lot of outboard is incredible.Ofc there is a modern cubase rig and a mac aswell but for midi sequencing...it is just working really really well. I am off now....NR1 you have the bridge.

[netguyjoel]

Fluxpod is right. The MIDI timing on the 1040, Mega 2, or Mega 4 is still, even today...has some of the tightest timing I have ever used.

I can't stay for long...I have a Star Trek convention to attend

[Neutron]

I had atari with notator and a special add on midi thing. the timing on that was better than any PC i had untill i used a MIDEX 8, (and that accurate timing only works in cubase)

[siriusbliss]

I STILL have my 1040ST with Notator Logic, and I agree that the timing was very tight and reliable.

Even Windows 3.1 had better timing since it still had the DOS core.

Nowadays, since Windblows buried DOS shell inside the OS, and glommed on all kinds of clock restrictions, the timing is nowhere near as tight and fast.

Greg

[Neutron]

the Midex 8 is sent the midi with a time stamp before it needs to play, then it sends it out exactly when it is supposed to. problem is it only works like that with cubase, with other programs it is just a dumb midi box (not bad for USB)
They had to stop making it because that tech is actually owned by access music and they used it in the Virus TI (it has a midi out though so you can still have 1 port of Midex. and an awesome synth.)

i have done the old test i used to do and it can actually output as fast and steady as hardware (if you play a hihat fast enough does it become a steady note?, thats my test)

[braincell]

I got a letter from my ISP. They doubled my internet speed on the exact same day that I installed Windows 7! It still seems faster though even when not on the internet. This computer has the integrated graphics card which sucks power from the CPU and RAM. I also had severe bit rot.

[valis]

Read the other Win7 thread and you'll find a link on the improvements in Win7's GUI, which were done specifically to improve performance on low-memory & integrated graphics situations...would explain some of that. But there's numerous improvements across the board including better handling of multicore situations (previous multithreaded support was more agnostic to cores that share cache) and improved support for modern hyperthreading implementations (which Intel is about to go into overdrive with.) The latter won't matter to you but to general users on modern hardware it will make some difference...

[braincell]

Do you think it would make a difference on a fast computer with plenty of RAM and a half decent graphics card? I am so tempted to try this on my DAW. I think I'm going to try the upgrade option since it's not a well worn computer. When I read about benchmarks they say it's not much faster but then I hear it's faster for gaming which would mean it's faster for Cubase I think, also Cubase uses multi-core threading.

[siriusbliss]

Most DAWs are built on streaming horsepower and throughput - not necessarily big graphics-driven apps like games that require big 3-D overhead. DAWs are more 2-D.

You gotta have good throughput/bus speeds.

Greg

[braincell]

But there is a problem. When apps try to access the graphics card in Vista, it causes a pause. Cubase or any sequencer moves, thus it is frequently accessing the graphics card.

[eric]

People using Win 98 or the Atari belong at a Star Trek convention.

Atari Falcon, Cubase and a Midex 8 and ADAT interface. Sweeeeet.

That reminds me, I must get tickets for the new Star Trek Movie...


Eric.

[valis]

Do you think it would make a difference on a fast computer with plenty of RAM and a half decent graphics card? I am so tempted to try this on my DAW. I think I'm going to try the upgrade option since it's not a well worn computer. When I read about benchmarks they say it's not much faster but then I hear it's faster for gaming which would mean it's faster for Cubase I think, also Cubase uses multi-core threading.

I can't really endorse switching your whole OS over to Win7 just to 'see if it is better'. At the very least make a proper image of Vista that won't require re-activation if you restore it (Acronis TrueImage, Ghost, DriveImageXL etc), or clone that partition (shrink it first if necessary) and apply the upgrade to the clone (ie, on another partition). Or better yet just make room for a Win7 partition & play around with it & see, that's what I did (and am still doing).

[braincell]

You are right. I heard of a free imaging software. I will make sure the boot disk can see my RAID and make room for the backup. Hopefully I can exclude files from the image because Windows 7 doesn't delete everything. It is still risky because the backup could fail but I can get everything back in one day I think if I have to. I'm not using as much software as I used to.

They should have put a restore to previous OS function in Windows 7. What is the point of them saving the old Windows folder in "Windows Old?"

[braincell]

In the process of installing Win 7 on my DAW now. It took me all day to back up my system because I wanted non-system related data saved on DVDs. After all that I got it down to 13 gigs on the image. My USB drive had 13.3 gigs free space. That was lucky. I'm downloading the updates now during the installation and it seems to take forever. So far it has been 20 minutes. I'm wondering if it is stuck but the hard drive is writing.