Recording using Windows XP vs. Windows 7

ZackP3750 · 01-14-2011, 10:19 AM

Since I started playing 7s recently, I've been coming up with riffs left and right that I've wanted to start recording. I have Sonar 7 on a Vista desktop right now, the only recordings I do are through GuitarPort software. For some reason Vista hasn't shit the bed on me on the desktop, and it's actually been fairly reliable, but I wouldn't hesitate to downgrade to XP for better performance. I want to record on my laptop as well, which is currently running Windows 7. I could take or leave 7, its graphically cool but the audio is constantly dropping out when I run GuitarPort through it.

So the question is, would it be worth it to downgrade to Windows XP from Windows 7 to get better performance for recording? Does anyone still run XP for recording?

TimSE · 02-27-2011, 08:08 PM

this was the only related search result i could find so il bump this instead of starting a new thread on it.

I recently upgraded to windows 7 and after 2 days i will be going back to XP without any hesitation.
the best way to describe Win7 (for recording perposes) is a Ferrari with a Lawnmoawer engine.
Iv had teh same PC for a good few years now and cetainly isnt the best speced pc ever but its never slowed down and has always done what i have needed and all i ever use it for is band recordings.
i couldnt even get all my plugins to install in win7. and although cubase itself runs fine, it simply DOES NOT handle ASIO interface drivers. massive microsoft fail on this one. Iv been doing some online hunting for answers and alot of people cannt get their audio interfaces to run properly.
They all have global latencey and so do I. only the click is onbeat.
although my Alesis i/o2 interface does work fine for playback (It still does have massive latencey problems however).
My main interface is crackeling and skips all over the shop! and this should only happen when your CPU is being pushed too hard which is not the case. CPU usage will remain steady at about 40% for me and nothing will stop the crackles.

My Top Gear Top Tip: Recording PCs need to stay away from Windows 7

Borges · 02-27-2011, 08:48 PM

Yeah Win 7 is pretty fail especially for drivers.

Gemmeadia · 02-27-2011, 09:02 PM

^ yeah, 7 is not so great for recording. For me, recording with a pod x3 is tough because once in awhile it will cut out all sound and the only way to get it back, even through my laptop speakers is to manually shut down. If i was building a computer for only recording, i would go with XP for sure.

Borges · 02-27-2011, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gemmeadia

^ yeah, 7 is not so great for recording. For me, recording with a pod x3 is tough because once in awhile it will cut out all sound and the only way to get it back, even through my laptop speakers is to manually shut down. If i was building a computer for only recording, i would go with XP for sure.

Yes yes I have that problem, annoying as hell. There are even many drivers that have been released since win 7 for the X3 but there hasn't been one that has fixed that yet.

They DID fix the blue screen of death every 5-10 minutes which is nice though. But still, everything is highly unsupported.

wjm123 · 02-27-2011, 09:56 PM

Glad I'm not the only one with the problems with the X3 Live. Mine still drops out even after the hardware fix, sometimes I have to restart the whole computer to get connectivity back.

EDIT: Also my old desktop had XP and it never drop out a single time.

Borges · 02-27-2011, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wjm123

Glad I'm not the only one with the problems with the X3 Live. Mine still drops out even after the hardware fix, sometimes I have to restart the whole computer to get connectivity back.

EDIT: Also my old desktop had XP and it never drop out a single time.

Yep mine does too. But mine used to just blue screen of death every 5-10 minutes when I first got 7 :\.

KingAenarion · 02-28-2011, 05:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Borges

Yeah Win 7 is pretty fail especially for drivers.

Ahhh... Windows doesn't write the drivers for 3rd party Hardware, the manufacturers do that...

Windows 7 works fine for what 99% of the population use it for

Internet Word. Hell... a lot of the time you don't even have to install drivers for the hardware in the computer like Graphics cards because Windows Recognizes it.

You sometimes just have to fiddle with some hardware... and would have to do that whether it was Windows7, XP or OSX

drmosh · 02-28-2011, 05:38 AM

I've had no problems whatsoever with windows 7 for recording, I was worried about it but I got all my interface drivers (tascam fw1884m), ASIO (via the tascam), everything (motor faders et al, axe-fx stuff, outboard midi gear) to work perfectly fine and it's a heck of a lot faster and stabler than windows XP.

As for the ASIO problems, oftentimes it's down to the firewire drivers that windows chooses based on the connected motherboard/firewire card. So choose legacy firewire drivers for your firewire port and everything should be dandy.

ZackP3750 · 02-28-2011, 06:16 AM

Holy shit guys, didn't think this one would be revived! Haha, thanks for everyone's input. When I say I want to do some recording, I really mean basic stuff (literally GuitarPort -> DAW). I'm not skilled enough to program drums like the djent kings, and being in my last semester of college doesn't afford me much time to learn, but I still plan on recording some guitar riffs just to get them down.

I'm also considering getting a new hard drive for my desktop. Right now I have an IDE-cable hard drive, but am thinking about jumping to SATA. Does hard drive speed play into recording? I know SATA hard drives are quite a bit faster than IDE, but would that impact recording (ie latency issues)?

KoenDercksen · 02-28-2011, 06:36 AM

That won't help you with latency issues... That's all processor/RAM related.

A faster harddrive will just make programs load faster, load up samples faster etc.

C2Aye · 02-28-2011, 06:40 AM

I run Windows 7 with no issues. The only problems I've ever had are hardware related which is understandable on a 3-4 year old laptop that can't handle a million vst's running at once.

I don't use an interface, so I wouldn't know anything on that front.

Konfyouzd · 02-28-2011, 06:40 AM

So what you guys are saying is that I should reconsider that upgrade I was recently considering...?

KoenDercksen · 02-28-2011, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konfyouzd

So what you guys are saying is that I should reconsider that upgrade I was recently considering...?

Seems like it huh?

I'm still thinking of getting Windows 7 64bit Pro though for my new PC.

Konfyouzd · 02-28-2011, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KoenDercksen

Seems like it huh?

I'm still thinking of getting Windows 7 64bit Pro though for my new PC.

Yea that's what I was thinking... See I had a PC and a laptop at one point (by one point i mean like 2 weeks ago) and they were both running XP. I enjoyed that all my music related hardware installed fine on XP and for my laptop I just enjoyed the familiarity of XP and not being asked "ARE YOU SURE?!" ten thousand times (although Win7 seems to be better about that than Vista)... Well my desktop crashed and I have 4GB of RAM but XP can only see like 2.5GB of it so I thought why not upgrade to Win64?

Maybe I should wait til I can get my hands on another desktop and install Win7 on my laptop...

KingAenarion · 02-28-2011, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KoenDercksen

That won't help you with latency issues... That's all processor/RAM related.

A faster harddrive will just make programs load faster, load up samples faster etc.

Not true... remember that most DAWs, once you've recorded a file will write the file from RAM to the HDD... if they're still doing this while you've started recording again...

Also paging files if you don't have enough RAM..

But honestly if you're using IDE HDDs... then yes... XP...

And for simple recording, if you already have a copy of XP lying around it should be fine

Xarn · 02-28-2011, 08:16 AM

If you got a new, fairly decent PC with atleast 4 GB of RAM there's no way in hell you should install Windows XP on said computer, I used to run both XP and Win7 32-bit on my desktop computer that I use for all recordings and lets just say it was a nightmare, less than 3 GB of ram for recording with lots of VSTs running is not something I recommend at all, got real frustrating with the amount of times Cubase crashed.

Now running Win7 64-bit and everything flows perfectly, never had a driver issue since I checked the compatibility with everything I use before installing.

The only reason you should run XP is in case you have an issue with driver compatibility or a old computer, a decent laptop nowadays can run win 7 smoothly.

Konfyouzd · 02-28-2011, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xarn

If you got a new, fairly decent PC with atleast 4 GB of RAM there's no way in hell you should install Windows XP on said computer, I used to run both XP and Win7 32-bit on my desktop computer that I use for all recordings and lets just say it was a nightmare, less than 3 GB of ram for recording with lots of VSTs running is not something I recommend at all, got real frustrating with the amount of times Cubase crashed.

Now running Win7 64-bit and everything flows perfectly, never had a driver issue since I checked the compatibility with everything I use before installing.

The only reason you should run XP is in case you have an issue with driver compatibility or a old computer, a decent laptop nowadays can run win 7 smoothly.

Mind if I ask your setup? Mine is relatively simple compared to what I've seen on here and that may mean that a lot of the Win7 horror stories I hear aren't even applicable to my situation.

My setup:

-Ableton Live 8
-M-Audio Fast Track Pro
-That's it...

EDIT: I don't run any plugins (none that don't run by default); I'm not quite the recording guru just yet...

ZackP3750 · 02-28-2011, 09:47 AM

Thanks for all the feedback guys, it is greatly appreciated. Sounds like I'll be getting more RAM for the desktop and leaving my OS alone

ArrowHead · 02-28-2011, 11:37 AM

Also, keep in mind that when having issues getting your plugins to load in win 7:

Make sure you have plugins that can run in 64 bit. Some were made for 32, and in making the switch to a 64 bit version of windows they won't make it over. There are some workarounds I've seen, but it reminds me too much of back in the days of the old "VST wrapper" I used to need to run in any DAW other than Steinberg. It would work, but every so often it would crash and take your whole project with it, Not good.

Konfyouzd · 02-28-2011, 11:41 AM

**Deleted post**

Misunderstanding...

Fred · 02-28-2011, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konfyouzd

Mind if I ask your setup? Mine is relatively simple compared to what I've seen on here and that may mean that a lot of the Win7 horror stories I hear aren't even applicable to my situation.

My setup:

-Ableton Live 8
-M-Audio Fast Track Pro
-That's it...

EDIT: I don't run any plugins (none that don't run by default); I'm not quite the recording guru just yet...

Just to jump in here, I run Ableton Live 8(.1.5) on Windows 7 Professional (32 bit) without the slightest hint of a problem. I have also run it on XP Pro and Vista Business without the slightest hint of a problem.

My recording setup is Ableton and an Edirol UA25, and then a shedload of VSTs and the like. Ie; it's vastly similar to yours, albeit with significantly more plugins. On Win7 I'm running 4GB RAM on a 2.1GHz processor. Same story when I was running it on Vista, and I think on XP its roughly similar.

Basic gist of this: whether by sheer good luck or not, I have absolutely no problems recording with Windows 7. I've turned off Aero (as I did on Vista), but only because I really don't see the point in it, and otherwise I've made no other alterations to the OS. Latency is fine, and I've never experienced any dropouts or similar. The only crash I can remember having is when I first installed SD2.0 and tried to completely load a ridiculously oversized kit - using the cache option instead it runs extremely smoothly.

Konfyouzd · 02-28-2011, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred

Just to jump in here, I run Ableton Live 8(.1.5) on Windows 7 Professional (32 bit) without the slightest hint of a problem. I have also run it on XP Pro and Vista Business without the slightest hint of a problem.

My recording setup is Ableton and an Edirol UA25, and then a shedload of VSTs and the like. Ie; it's vastly similar to yours, albeit with significantly more plugins. On Win7 I'm running 4GB RAM on a 2.1GHz processor. Same story when I was running it on Vista, and I think on XP its roughly similar.

Basic gist of this: whether by sheer good luck or not, I have absolutely no problems recording with Windows 7. I've turned off Aero (as I did on Vista), but only because I really don't see the point in it, and otherwise I've made no other alterations to the OS. Latency is fine, and I've never experienced any dropouts or similar. The only crash I can remember having is when I first installed SD2.0 and tried to completely load a ridiculously oversized kit - using the cache option instead it runs extremely smoothly.

Ok... I'm much less worried about going forward with this upgrade then... I really wanna use my damn RAM

Thanks for sharing, man!

Xarn · 02-28-2011, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konfyouzd

Mind if I ask your setup? Mine is relatively simple compared to what I've seen on here and that may mean that a lot of the Win7 horror stories I hear aren't even applicable to my situation.

My setup:

-Ableton Live 8
-M-Audio Fast Track Pro
-That's it...

EDIT: I don't run any plugins (none that don't run by default); I'm not quite the recording guru just yet...

Well my setup if you mean recording gear isn't impressive either.

I run a Pod XT for guitars/bass into a M-Audio Fast Track Pro like yourself. Maybe I throw a few vsts, like Recabinet for the guitar/bass tracks, some compressors, eqs etc. My main concern with XP/32bit win7 was actually with Superior Drummer, I use Metal Foundry for my programmed drums and Cubase would crash everytime I loaded one of those huge presets that take up 2 GB of memory. Eventually after I switched to 64-bit those problems disappeared.

I bought my computer a little more than 1,5 year ago so it's farily new and decent, but not exactly a monster PC.

Plankis · 02-28-2011, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xarn

My main concern with XP/32bit win7 was actually with Superior Drummer, I use Metal Foundry for my programmed drums and Cubase would crash everytime I loaded one of those huge presets that take up 2 GB of memory.

Why load the whole kit? Cache is the best button on that vsti, loads only the samples that's being played.

I have never had a problem with win7 either. It has worked wonderful for me, love it.

	sevenstring guitars		sevenstring registry		photo gallery		subscription		spy

01-14-2011, 10:19 AM	#1
ZackP3750 SS.org Regular Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Syracuse, NY Posts: 366 Thanked: 20 Feedback Score: 2 reviews	Recording using Windows XP vs. Windows 7 Since I started playing 7s recently, I've been coming up with riffs left and right that I've wanted to start recording. I have Sonar 7 on a Vista desktop right now, the only recordings I do are through GuitarPort software. For some reason Vista hasn't shit the bed on me on the desktop, and it's actually been fairly reliable, but I wouldn't hesitate to downgrade to XP for better performance. I want to record on my laptop as well, which is currently running Windows 7. I could take or leave 7, its graphically cool but the audio is constantly dropping out when I run GuitarPort through it. So the question is, would it be worth it to downgrade to Windows XP from Windows 7 to get better performance for recording? Does anyone still run XP for recording?

02-27-2011, 08:08 PM	#2
TimSE SS Contributor Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Hampshire, UK Posts: 4,161 Thanked: 140 Feedback Score: 7 reviews	this was the only related search result i could find so il bump this instead of starting a new thread on it. I recently upgraded to windows 7 and after 2 days i will be going back to XP without any hesitation. the best way to describe Win7 (for recording perposes) is a Ferrari with a Lawnmoawer engine. Iv had teh same PC for a good few years now and cetainly isnt the best speced pc ever but its never slowed down and has always done what i have needed and all i ever use it for is band recordings. i couldnt even get all my plugins to install in win7. and although cubase itself runs fine, it simply DOES NOT handle ASIO interface drivers. massive microsoft fail on this one. Iv been doing some online hunting for answers and alot of people cannt get their audio interfaces to run properly. They all have global latencey and so do I. only the click is onbeat. although my Alesis i/o2 interface does work fine for playback (It still does have massive latencey problems however). My main interface is crackeling and skips all over the shop! and this should only happen when your CPU is being pushed too hard which is not the case. CPU usage will remain steady at about 40% for me and nothing will stop the crackles. My Top Gear Top Tip: Recording PCs need to stay away from Windows 7 FYP666, Borges, ZackP3750 and 1 others like this. www.facebook.com/tempusfusionband http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/to-...ll/id507292058

02-27-2011, 09:56 PM	#6
wjm123 ss.org Regular Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Singapore Posts: 82 Thanked: 2 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	Glad I'm not the only one with the problems with the X3 Live. Mine still drops out even after the hardware fix, sometimes I have to restart the whole computer to get connectivity back. EDIT: Also my old desktop had XP and it never drop out a single time. [progressive metal\|music production\|mind-blowing-stuff] Youtube Channel ,Soundcloud Page!

02-28-2011, 05:38 AM	#9
drmosh Sir Paul of the Mosh Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 4,683 Thanked: 29 $drmosh is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $drmosh is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $drmosh is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $drmosh is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $drmosh is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $drmosh is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $drmosh is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ Feedback Score: 9 reviews	I've had no problems whatsoever with windows 7 for recording, I was worried about it but I got all my interface drivers (tascam fw1884m), ASIO (via the tascam), everything (motor faders et al, axe-fx stuff, outboard midi gear) to work perfectly fine and it's a heck of a lot faster and stabler than windows XP. As for the ASIO problems, oftentimes it's down to the firewire drivers that windows chooses based on the connected motherboard/firewire card. So choose legacy firewire drivers for your firewire port and everything should be dandy. redskyharbor likes this.

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02-27-2011, 08:48 PM	#3
Borges ss.org Regular Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Rhode Island Posts: 134 Thanked: 3 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	Yeah Win 7 is pretty fail especially for drivers.

02-27-2011, 09:02 PM	#4
Gemmeadia SS.org Regular Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 349 Thanked: 17 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	^ yeah, 7 is not so great for recording. For me, recording with a pod x3 is tough because once in awhile it will cut out all sound and the only way to get it back, even through my laptop speakers is to manually shut down. If i was building a computer for only recording, i would go with XP for sure.

02-28-2011, 06:16 AM	#10
ZackP3750 SS.org Regular Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Syracuse, NY Posts: 366 Thanked: 20 Feedback Score: 2 reviews	Holy shit guys, didn't think this one would be revived! Haha, thanks for everyone's input. When I say I want to do some recording, I really mean basic stuff (literally GuitarPort -> DAW). I'm not skilled enough to program drums like the djent kings, and being in my last semester of college doesn't afford me much time to learn, but I still plan on recording some guitar riffs just to get them down. I'm also considering getting a new hard drive for my desktop. Right now I have an IDE-cable hard drive, but am thinking about jumping to SATA. Does hard drive speed play into recording? I know SATA hard drives are quite a bit faster than IDE, but would that impact recording (ie latency issues)?

02-28-2011, 06:36 AM	#11
KoenDercksen Quantum Realm Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Lochem, Netherlands Posts: 784 Thanked: 6 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	That won't help you with latency issues... That's all processor/RAM related. A faster harddrive will just make programs load faster, load up samples faster etc. Quantum Realm, my solo project!

02-28-2011, 06:40 AM	#12
C2Aye has the groove. Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Galashiels, Scotland Posts: 1,428 Thanked: 58 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	I run Windows 7 with no issues. The only problems I've ever had are hardware related which is understandable on a 3-4 year old laptop that can't handle a million vst's running at once. I don't use an interface, so I wouldn't know anything on that front. Download my 2nd album 'Invent the Universe' for free! Download my EP 'Isles EP' for free! Download my album 'Cassini' for free! Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/SithuAyeMusic Soundcloud - http://soundcloud.com/c2aye

02-28-2011, 06:40 AM	#13
Konfyouzd Dread-I Master Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Mars Posts: 15,500 Thanked: 191 Feedback Score: 4 reviews	So what you guys are saying is that I should reconsider that upgrade I was recently considering...? "... and on either side of the river was the tree of life. The leaves of this tree were for the healing of nations." "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and the herb for the service of man." "Lifes too short to hate Floyd Roses."

02-28-2011, 08:16 AM	#17
Xarn SS.org Regular Join Date: May 2007 Location: Stockholm, Sweden Posts: 214 Thanked: 3 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	If you got a new, fairly decent PC with atleast 4 GB of RAM there's no way in hell you should install Windows XP on said computer, I used to run both XP and Win7 32-bit on my desktop computer that I use for all recordings and lets just say it was a nightmare, less than 3 GB of ram for recording with lots of VSTs running is not something I recommend at all, got real frustrating with the amount of times Cubase crashed. Now running Win7 64-bit and everything flows perfectly, never had a driver issue since I checked the compatibility with everything I use before installing. The only reason you should run XP is in case you have an issue with driver compatibility or a old computer, a decent laptop nowadays can run win 7 smoothly. My band, check it yo.

02-28-2011, 09:47 AM	#19
ZackP3750 SS.org Regular Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Syracuse, NY Posts: 366 Thanked: 20 Feedback Score: 2 reviews	Thanks for all the feedback guys, it is greatly appreciated. Sounds like I'll be getting more RAM for the desktop and leaving my OS alone

02-28-2011, 11:37 AM	#20
ArrowHead SS.org Regular Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 1,407 Thanked: 6 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	Also, keep in mind that when having issues getting your plugins to load in win 7: Make sure you have plugins that can run in 64 bit. Some were made for 32, and in making the switch to a 64 bit version of windows they won't make it over. There are some workarounds I've seen, but it reminds me too much of back in the days of the old "VST wrapper" I used to need to run in any DAW other than Steinberg. It would work, but every so often it would crash and take your whole project with it, Not good. My Youtube Channel My Bandcamp Page

02-28-2011, 11:41 AM	#21
Konfyouzd Dread-I Master Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Mars Posts: 15,500 Thanked: 191 Feedback Score: 4 reviews	Deleted post Misunderstanding... "... and on either side of the river was the tree of life. The leaves of this tree were for the healing of nations." "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and the herb for the service of man." "Lifes too short to hate Floyd Roses."

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