For one that thing looks ancient. It's NOT 64 bit which means most newer plugins will never work with it, IF it ever worked very well with mainstream plugins to begin with. I swear I expected to see super mario pop out of there somewhere while looking at their web site. It's actaully amazing they still have that site up. I heard of this back in the day and remember laughing at it back then.



Good luck getting it (or anything like it) working with modern audio hardware. Unless you already have some soundblaster or midi-man computer ware laying around collecting dust and the drivers and host machine to run it all. don't really see the point actually. I mean I get the point of older OS's they can actually be more respectful of user privacy than anything released today. However I do not share that same opinion of ancient audio wares... They are just ancient. My guess is, from remembering what it was like using similar mainstream audio products of that day, when pushed, that thing will just start breaking down. In that era, even the main stream devs like Steinberg, Motu, Cakewalk, etc, all had difficult times dealing with the memory models of those earlier windows OS's. I still remember dealing with Cubase on WinXP on machines of the day. They were all OK up to a point, but when the projects got larger the performance went down, noticeably. And seemingly no matter how many extra hardware resources one would throw at the problem it never seemed to fix or improve the issues much.

Compatibility & System Requirements
All MW products are compatible with Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/VISTA/7

Minimum: Multi-media PC with Pentium Processor, 2G HDD, 16MB (Try running any other music software on this system!)

Recommended: Pentium Dual Core with 2GB Ram if you are planning to run a lot of VST instruments and effects.

Personally, if you're looking for a good solid DAW I would try Reaper. Since you aren't looking for all the bells and whistles you could probably do with just the free version. It's a solid MODERN audio engine to work with and not 10-15 years old that can work with modern audio hardware and will yield a professional sounding result.

 

Last edited: Mar 16, 2025

@clone
Thanks for your suggestions. Let me try some of these alternatives.

 

@saccamano
Yeah, it is ancient. Nevertheless, it works with my M-Audio Air 192|4 and it is stable except that it crashes once you hit the internal explorer button

 

I just installed Radium's 1.91 version.

It works perfectly on this Wn10 Ent 22H2 build 19045.3570 laptop. Didn't see my ASIO drivers, of course.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz 2.21 GHz

 

Last edited: Oct 15, 2023

I would use a TEAC 144 !

 

Does anyone else remember using Cubase 3/4/5 on Windows XP on here? Were these retail versions or something? I don't. I remember using the Radium release of Cubase 3.7, and then it taking (10,000 hours cracking time according to nfo file) almost a year after the release of Cubase SX for a release by H20 due to the Syncrosoft dongle they switched to for that version. But by then we had Logic 4.11 (with ES-1) to use in the meantime. If you want to BS people, you could at least get your story straight.

 

Making Waves was a great sequencing program for sequencing beats externally of your DAW. Back then, I don't think it was possible to sync 2 of these types of programs together unless you had a MOTU timepiece and sync'd via midi. Anyway, I never screwed with it on my Pentium II Win 98/XP 350MHz machine. Then, I imported the beats back into the DAW. What a PITA that was, but it was loads of fun and inspirational. MW was a great tool, and did give you control of each steps (...sample file for me) release value! - something that FruityLoops couldn't do yet since that was before FLs infamous piano roll mode. Hell, now I'm considering firing up MW for a random break/beat, just to see what happens in 2023

 

I remember that I could never get the damn thing to not crash upon start and scan. Wavelab worked like a champ back then though.

 

Thanks! Let me try this.

 

I would like to add that I have been using Making Waves v5.42 for many years as this was the first DAW that I used as I couldn't use trackers and found a way to use this app in Windows 8,10 and 11 there is a file that crashes the software once you try and get to file explorer I would say if anyone is interested to mail me [email protected] and maybe exchange.TRK files or collab for future tracks. But for those that cant wait just delete the file in the making waves folder called Making Waves.exe.manifest. I found out by using an empty folder and copying just the exe to see what would happen. I also have a v6 of Making Waves but it is a beta and this also works well in all windows if you delete the Making Waves.exe.manifest file and can email the zip file if anyone is interested. Here is a track I made using making waves on Soundcloud in fact all my tracks there was used with the software. Hope this helps.

 

Cool
I sent you a DM. I will try the fix for my MW 5.46 version. Would be awesome to check the beta

 

I can confirm that the fix is working... Thanks

 

Some of that hasnt been updated for decades
Go for smt that's being updated instead, you can have built-in synths and VST support.
https://milkytracker.org

https://openmpt.org

https://www.linuxlinks.com/best-free-open-source-music-trackers/

There are also several modern 8bit/chip trackers to choose from, most used is Sunvox i guess.

All these are more hobby level i think, so i agree with Renoise if you want above that, in tracker style.

 

Last edited: Jan 31, 2025

Just signed up seeing this thread, might be a bit old but others may stumble upon... The current Making Waves is here-

http://www.spacehead.co.uk/download.htm

It is version 6 beta10... If you have a previous license say from version 5.xx it will be detected thus registered... The plug scanning is a bit better than 5.xx & there is a change, the content folder is now located in your 'My Music' folder not your root programs directory...

Making Waves deserves a bit of respect it's very unique & quite capable if you have not fully tested it out then you are missing out... many cool feature not in other DAWs & a very nice workflow... Drawn envelope automations can have strength per bar changed (thus automation of an automation) There are clever note toolbox features, when you choose a plugin by preset it will 'sound' in the background, which can be turned off if you don't like... The full studio has very nice MIDI feature set better than alot of others out there... Plenty more I could boast on about but the upshot is that it's very good on resources, current version could even be installed in windows 95 & used, certainly not to it's fullest but it could...

Using Making Waves Daniel Bedingfield made a hit single in which he made like 400 grand off of back in 2001-2 'Gotta Get Through This'... Here's the 2005 Making Waves interview with Bedingfield-

https://web.archive.org/web/2005122...dio.co.uk/media/downloads/DB&SteveTmaster.mp3


Fact is Making Waves is quite a genius app because the Developer was a genius, cool ideas... It is sad he is gone because nobody can evidently take his place...

Plug scanning is probably the worst part, make a custom folder & go easy a few at a time, DX plug scanning much better if you can't run MW on your super advanced modern machine then get an XP machine off ebay for ten bucks & get MW...

Since there are a billion plugs out there if youcan only pass a half-billion well that's still plenty...

As far as other tracker & such I have many threads over at the SunVox forum in the 'Other Music Software' Sector... My AXS Tracker thread is about to crest 855,000 views & it's only 2 years old thread so come on over if you get bored-

https://warmplace.ru/forum/viewforum.php?f=21

 

Another thought... Might be good or bad depending on individual...

Did not know that Frieve had a free version of Music Studio Independence & it's almost as good as the full it's Music Studio Producer... It's 32bit & is MIDI or Audio or Both, Quite a powerhouse for free... It comes with it's own VSTi-VST or you can pipe in your own, has step recording from MIDI keyboard or QWERTY... VSTForx works well in it so then one can bring in VSTForx's 'MIDI Receiver' so that any MIDI CC envelopes generated in MSP can be used on VST parameters in VSTForx... Tried Serum in it thru VSTForx very good on resources... I have a thread over here-

https://warmplace.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7280

 

@TalkOrBell just want to say that, as funny as this may sound, i am a big fan of your posts. over the years I have stumbled upon them across many forums lurked, always providing very useful info and annotated tutorials like the one above.

it is through you that i discovered some really cool trackers like AXS.

in some ways you have embarked upon a thankless task as your interest in uncommon, "obsolete", and useful software and whatnot is a bit of a niche among niches. i share the burden of this interest and so I want to offer my fellow acknowledgements to you. kudos

anyway, there seem to be a few of us retro / win32 xp heads here, so welcome aboard!

 

Well, Thank You mondomorte... Best compliment I have received!... Yea, I like working with the retro, perhaps finding workarounds or hookups that have never been tried, digging deep, but there is disadvantage to trying to learn everything at once...

But, I like taking detailed screenshots, sometimes animated GIF tuts & make threads not just for everyone else... But because I FORGET! I have perused my own postings many times to re-discover' how to do something so all the threads help me as well... Getting old you see... You retro/win32 XP Heads don't be strangers then! Thanks again for the warm welcome....