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Windows working ok for those who use it for recording ?

#61
I use Windows and Cubase for many years now. No issues for many years ...
... the only real issue is the compatibility. I had an interface compatible with Win XP, then with Win 7 it still worked fine, but with Win 10 the issues are just too many. I believe these pointless moral deaths of good hardware will not change with Win 10. If I wanted a machine really working for recording, I'd buy older cheap notebook with clear install of Win 7 or later, installed the audio software, then shut down internet connection to avoid updates, and used it only for recording.
 
#62
pfschim said:
In a recent thread there was a ... ummm ... lively discussion about how viable Windows is for home recording and general audio use. I have used various versions of Windows based systems for decades with very few issues, and with Windows 10 I have not experienced any BSOD's at all. But the discussion got me wondering if perhaps my experience was somehow unique. I'll add that this is not religion for me, I have used MacOS and Linux as well, but I'm just more comfortable with general work-flow in Windows.

So, I'm interested to hear from anyone using Windows for recording if its working well ... or not.
I'd like to keep this focused on Windows and not get into compares to other OS platforms ... and as always, I'd like to keep the discussion fact based and polite.

So, anyone want to share their experience with Windows and recording ?

thanks!
Click to expand...

Used it for years with pro tools and it worked great. Also has the advantage of working with other applications if desired!
 
#64
I am a Windows and VMware admin for a living. Windows has come a very long way and I haven't seen a BSOD in over 5 years or more. The thing is this: If you use your Windows computer for lots of things it will need some (if not several) forms of protection against malware and computer viruses.

For this reason I would (if it were my profession) only rely on a Windows system as a DAW if this system would be dedicated to just that. No internet connection, no games, no office apps but just and only the DAW software of choice (there are plenty).

That said, for the occasional recording jobs and because I have a studio background I do have Cubase and Mixbus32c running on the Windows computer I also play some online games on and have not run into any problems yet. I did throw off Bitdefender antivirus and replaced it with Kaspersky because of the latter being far less intrusive and resource heavy.
 
#65
I was running Win 10 and Reaper and had 1 major issue after upgrading to a new pc (AMD 3700X). I have some older Sonovox plugins I use and due to an issue with an old iLok dll my pc blue screened on me (strangely my old win10 system ran the same software and never had this issue). Luckily I had a restore point and was able to get the pc running again without losing anything. I was unable to find the culprit dll and have yet to fire up Reaper again as I am afraid it will happen again (it's been a few months now).
 
#66
Vomish said:
I was running Win 10 and Reaper and had 1 major issue after upgrading to a new pc (AMD 3700X). I have some older Sonovox plugins I use and due to an issue with an old iLok dll my pc blue screened on me (strangely my old win10 system ran the same software and never had this issue). Luckily I had a restore point and was able to get the pc running again without losing anything. I was unable to find the culprit dll and have yet to fire up Reaper again as I am afraid it will happen again (it's been a few months now).
Click to expand...

Your iLok probably “tattooed” the dll with some hardware information from your old machine to make sure you didn’t just copy it over to a new one.

Try contacting iLok tech support and see if they can help you with the issue.
 
#67
pfschim said:
anyone want to share their experience with Windows and recording ?
Click to expand...
windows + pro tools = works great (~20 years)!

that's not to say there haven't been buggy moments with both windows and pro tools, but once you get a 'system' going i think the combination works well, especially these days. no complaints.


disclosure: i use reaper for some/many things.
 
#68
Valvehead said:
For this reason I would (if it were my profession) only rely on a Windows system as a DAW if this system would be dedicated to just that. No internet connection, no games, no office apps but just and only the DAW software of choice (there are plenty).
Click to expand...

Great advice, of course, but for some folks, there is subscription-based software that requires a “phone home” occasionally. So an internet connection may be required in some cases, no?

And what do you think of Eset security software? My significant other works remotely for a commercial insurance company and they require having Eset as the preferred AV software on her computer at home. It seems to work pretty well and use very little resources. I’m a Mac guy, but I keep my PC chops up on her PC, the studio PC, and my mother’s PC. They all run very well, just a tweak now and then.

Thanx.
 
#69
Hand-me-down laptop running win10/reaper. It works to the best of my meager DAW abilities.
I have shut down programs that needlessly run upon booting. They are there at MY beck and call and only run when I desire, then revert to their state of inactive servitude upon manual reboot. This is NOT accomplished with msconfig.
I also adjusted/expanded the Virtual Memory Paging File.
 
#70
I used Reaper with Windows 7 for a few years, and now windows 10. To date, zero issues. Also Have Reaper on an older laptop running Windows 7 without issue.

Geri O said:
And what do you think of Eset security software?
Click to expand...

Been using ESET NOD32 for years. Love it. Pretty aggressive. Some time it recommends not to go to a site that I know is a trusted site, but I'd rather it warn me and have an extra click or two than not warn me. I also like the right mouse click feature to scan an individual file before opening.
 
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#71
Last year I upgraded the PC in the studio to refurb Dell Optiplex 3010 desktop Intel i3-3220 3.1 GHz and upgraded the memory to 32GB. Using Bandlab Cakewalk with a Tascam 16x08 interface. I really haven't had any issues with this system. Sometimes refurbs can be touch and go, this one was from Amazon for $150, pretty hard to beat.
 
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#73
I use two older I7 laptops one running Windows 7 ,which used to also work fine with XP, the other running 10 with StudioOne Pro. Both have SSDs and 8G of ram and external SSDs for audio. I use 2 Presonus Firepods/FP10 or a Behringer XR18 Air for my interfaces. I have recorded whole bands 16 tracks at a time for years and no problems of any sort ever. I have a newer I9 desktop with 64G of ram and M.2 drives running WIN10 and StudioOne Pro that is in my main room using a Presonus Stuxio Live 24ch rack mixer as my interface. Never had a single problem recording 24 tracks at once or mixing a gob of tracks with tons of plugs or virtual instruments. Only problems I really ever had was not Windows fault it was back in the day of using mechanical drives for audio taking a crap.
 
#75
I've been using Windows for audio since Windows 2000 running Logic, Cubase SX 1, Nuendo and Ableton Live version 1. I've also a systems analyst and worked with Microsoft on the design and roll-out of their AVI technology way back when.

The primary difference between Windows and most other OS was the preemptive kernel. The original Mac was designed around a cooperative multi-tasking kernel and came with hardware implemented ADC/DAC and MJPEG. This allows a single application program to take over the machine completely and use the hardware enabled sub-systems for smooth audio and video. This is why the Mac excelled at AV (and why Steve Jobs hired us to make an accounting program so he could sell into businesses).

Windows was designed to exist primarily in a business environment where data tends to move in small packets on a transaction basis. The hardware enabled protected memory modes and preemptive kernel make it impossible for a single program to dominate the CPU and there is no standard hardware support for audio and video compression/decompression. This makes Windows a trickier platform for AV. It can be made to work but requires some tweaking.

When Steve Jobs started Next he married a graphic user interface developed in England with a Unix kernel developed out of a US university IIRC. That OS was brought into Apple when Jobs returned and became the basis for what Apple is selling today. Unix and it's variants support preemptive multitasking (which I believe can be disabled) so that part of the playing field has been leveled, but Apple still provides valuable hardware support on-board that Windows boxes don't come standard with.

At the end of the day audio works well on Windows and Mac and other Unix variants but you need to understand your hardware/OS and tune it accordingly. Here is a link to some helpful tips for Windows users:

How can I tune a Windows PC for best audio performance? | Audinate | FAQs
 
#76
Hypocrite said:
Ouch, must have hit a nerve...
I think you misunderstood my comment, enthusiasm is fine, regardless of your OS of choice. Its when that enthusiasm turns to some tribal form of idolatry,rendering you incapable of seeing any merit in the "rival" OS/product/sports team/religion that problems occur. In one of my old bands the drummer was a complete Apple fanboy, so much so that he flat-out refused to track in a particular studio simply because the engineer used a PC for recording.
Enthusiasm good, irrational pigheaded fanboyish superiority complex bad.
Click to expand...
This is an important point for people to understand - Apple doesn't have a traditional "marketing" department - they have what they call an "evangelical" department.

Steve Jobs, who I met and worked with under contract, was very clear that Apple and it's products were to be sold like a "religion" - hence the "evangelical" handle. This creates and encourages the "irrational pigheaded fanboyish superiority complex" you note. It is by design.
 
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#77
My experience has been mostly the same as above. Although I still use (2) Windows 7 machines. I had one that I upgraded to Windows 10 and nothing seemed to work right so I switched back. 16 GB RAM / dual core / 500 GB SSD running Ableton Live 10 / Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 / Waves 11 (all plugins bundle) plus many others. Only issue was upgrading to Waves 11 on Windows 7. It "requires" Windows 10. Some latency issues, but my understanding is that it's more Ableton than anything else, and nothing that you can't work around.
 
#78
DwaynieAD said:
The only reason people think windows isn't good for recording is marketing by the other guy that you don't want to talk about
Click to expand...
I don't disagree with you on this for the most part. OTOH, it's not so much that I don't want to talk about other platforms or stop others from doing so, it's more a matter of being primarily interested to hear specifically about Windows experiences .... good or bad ... and so far it would appear that most users responding are having reasonable experiences with Windows and recording, at least here on TB which I recognize can be a bit of a bubble.
 
#79
mike-matthews said:
My experience has been mostly the same as above. Although I still use (2) Windows 7 machines. I had one that I upgraded to Windows 10 and nothing seemed to work right so I switched back. 16 GB RAM / dual core / 500 GB SSD running Ableton Live 10 / Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 / Waves 11 (all plugins bundle) plus many others. Only issue was upgrading to Waves 11 on Windows 7. It "requires" Windows 10. Some latency issues, but my understanding is that it's more Ableton than anything else, and nothing that you can't work around.
Click to expand...
any idea why Windows 10 did not work for your set-up ?

A few years ago I decided to abandon a several year old Ableton setup (Ableton Live 9 ?) when I had to migrate off of an older laptop running Win7 which had a fatal hardware failure of some kind. I ended up on Windows 10 and Ableton's pricing for a full version had gone up beyond what I was willing to pay, so I decided to go elsewhere ... in this case to Reaper.

It was kind of a pain because I had learned Ableton pretty well and had my workflow down ... at least for my limited tracking needs. I like Reaper just fine but I still miss some of what Ableton brought to the table. Of course none of that had to do with Windows functionality really, other than the fact that Win 7 was no longer available.
 
#80
I have dealt with various hardware conflictions.
Usually related to Sound Cards or drivers.
It can be a combination of windows or usually drivers when operating platforms are changing.

Being on 10 will usually solve the issues, and of course a computer and motherboard
that support 10 well.

Far as DAW i have heard all kinds of stories.
Steinberg invented most of the midi piano screen type sequencers
and was always the leader when audio or wav entered the picture.

Steinberg also invented the VST plugin platform
So it always made sense to stick with Cubase.

Far as soundcards Maudio was always the leader in early days.
so i stuck with them over the years.
In very very early systems on windows 98.
The only way it was going to work was with a full duplex soundcard from Maudio
everything in and out was Maudio.
I was down to 3 to 5 ms of latency on some rather ancient computers.

So it often surprises me when guys have problems on todays computers.
then again software will always be software.
So I stick to the original companys.
Steinberg and Maudio
Ableton and many others really didnt appear or develop anything till way after XP
all seemed liked copy cats to me. Since Cubase and the VST 32 was ground breaking
 

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