That's interesting SineWave. I didn't know there was a 64bit version of cubase 5 released. Are you sure this is actual 64bit and can utilize the extra ram because of course the 32bit version will install and run just fine on Win 7 64bit but be unable to use the extra ram or load the new x64 plugins??? And if that is a true 64bit version, without problems, then why isn't it posted up on the sister site where people could make good use of it???

 

Yes.

I wouldn't know why. I found it purely by chance and not on the "sister site" but a *very* [*very* *very*] famous torrent site. I wonder if it's still alive, the torrent... checking... yes it is!

 

one thing i forgot to mention..

that when I got my Win 8 "ultrabook," I went to download the 8.1 update
and it wasn't even available in the windows store for download...because of all the issues
people were having with it.. but you were still being directed to it.. and these buffoons
are gonna help the NSA take over the world? I could only laugh... so fitting that this
crap ended up on big bang theory


I suppose I'll check again for that update..if it's not there.. it's back to Win 7 for me..
same as I wiped Vista on my laptops some years back.. and loaded XP again..

as for the "warez" issue..I have had all sorts of issues with 64 bit..and strange
behaviors from the "demos' I have found here and elsewhere, I had to do a system
restore after a Sonar X3 installation...

 

i guess i'm late to this party, but here's my own experience. a little over a year ago i built my current computer. it has a fast i5 processor and 16 gigs of ram. one ssd hard drive for the os, one ssd hard drive for the programs, and a 3tb drive for everything else. this thing rocks. and i have been using windows 8 from day one. it is the only operating system that has ever been on this computer. all of my music hardware is at least two years older than the computer, and all of it works just fine. in 14 months, i have never had a single crash or blue screen. i like the windows 8 interface, but i did add a freeware program called classic start menu to get my start button back. i have not upgraded to windows 8.1 yet, but as soon as i can confirm that i will not lose any of my programs when i upgrade, i will probably do so.

i use (or have used) 64-bit versions of sonar x3, reaper, and live without any issues. and i can't think of any older 32-bit vsts that i have had trouble with.

people who say that windows 8 sucks because windows 7 was good don't seem to understand that windows 8 is essentially windows 7 with a newer gui slapped on it. although, in my experience it is also much faster to load than windows 7, and seems to run smoother, so i think they streamlined it some.

i loved windows 7, but i have no desire to go back to it.

 

Buying a PC off the shelves for music production is not a good idea, in the first place.

I built my audio PC myself, and never had a better system (if you need help on this, you can contact me). Very powerful and silent (!!) at the same time.

But if you do, you probably will have to do a fresh install of the OS (no matter if Win7 or 8) anyway, since these PCs come usually with a shitload of bloatware installed on them (for your convenience, LOL), which slow them down like nothing else.

I personally would recommend you Win7 x64.
It has stood the test of time for audio production, and it works well and very stable.
All manufacturers of professional audio workstations still use Win7, as far as I know.
So many people have had problems with Win8 and audio.
It is just a shitty and not thought-through OS in the first place. An OS which was designed for tablets on a PC?
This is just utter nonsense which only Microsoft were able to pull off.

(As a sidenote: Try out Studio One.
Just like you, I used Cubase 5 before I switched.
Coming from Cubase, you will be familiar with a lot of things right from the start.
But you will also quickly discover how easier a lot of things can be done than in Cubase.)

 

Aah yes - drivers is a but point to consider (thanks Hurr Durr) for reminding us.

As for Aero - that is an eye-candy feature in Win7 which consumes extra CPU and RAM resource.
Disabling that is one of the first things people do when tweaking / optimisimg their new Win7 install.

Catalyst;
Food for thiught... what about implementing dual-boot (Win7 / Win8)?

 

Just a note on Drivers. I have several UAD's including M-Audio devices that were more than a little painful with any version of Win7. Guess what Win8 auto-found all the drivers.

Even more than that, anyone who has had problems with firewire [needing to buy a card just to use a UAD because built in firewire won't work under xp/win7] this too is corrected in Win8. In fact I was able to take my firewire card out and use onboard for first time. When I go to my Win7 x64 side it doesn't work without the card.

And this goes for a lot of things where you need specific and hard to find [working] drivers for XP/Win7 that are auto-installed and work fine on Win8

 

Ok, but to repeat it again, this topic is not about the start button or general functionality. It's about "Windows 8 Warez Experience".

It's about whether cracked programs/cracks/keygens still work or not. For example I can remember the days when I tried to install stuff on my new Win7-installation, and some keygens/cracks wouldn't work anymore (they worked on XP).

So to speak it out straight: Will the famous AiR keygens work (for Spectrasonics)? Will AiR's Syncrosoft emulation work (for Arturia)? Will AiR's Sylenth work? Will io's Live patch crack work? Will ASSiGN's Alchemy work?

That's the really interesing stuff, not the Win7 vs. Win8 discussion (or if some legit software will work).

 

This is not quite the truth *no*

If you have a graphics card, Aero is processed by the GPU.
So actually you even take some load off the CPU.

But in any case, a modern computer couldn't care less if Aero is turned on or off.

@ DokX

I think the question if you have a perfectly working audio computer (and how) is more important than if all warez will run on it or not.
But this is just my point of view, of course.

 

I use windows 8 on my laptop hate the fact they took away the start button there is a program that will put it back on though I haven't had any real problems loading software etc I have presonus installed and a ton of other plugs pretty much everything I have on my studio comp is on my laptop except omnisphere (just because of the size)

 

yes. they all work.

and drivers are not an issue at all. virtually all windows 7 drivers, and most windows vista drivers work in windows 8 if your manufacturer has not published windows 8 drivers. i have a native instruments audio interface that came out long before windows 8. i have one of the first generation m-audio axiom keyboard controllers. both of those devices came out in windows vista days. they both work fine.

 

Yeah, you can't see me jumping up and down going oh oh oh yeah it all works but that's what im doing.

 

Windows are really doing there best to push 8, i wasnt allowed to buy 7 from them! (srsly i begged on the phone.. found cheap OEM copy in the end)
but it looks like a big fail to me, i dont want my desktop pc looking like a weak mobile OS! wtf?

i bet everything will still work though (guess). better question is maby do you really want the update?..shit looks worse than vista .. ill wait for them to get back on track, maby windows9?

Also any question of 64 bit OS i dont understand?.. of course you would unless your system can only handle 32! 64bit DAW is another question completely.. peace

 

Here’s my bit

I currently make my music on Win 7 and Win 8.1, and the experience has been pretty decent for both OSs so far

Win 8: The “no Start button” complaint, for me at least, has been a total non-issue The hybrid shutdown/fast boot feature significantly reduces boot time. But of course, if you don’t shut down your computer often, then this may not be that nice an improvement for you.

A long time ago, I came across (elsewhere on this forum) a link to an article that compares the audio production performances of Win 7 and Win 8. I can’t seem to find that particular article but here’s another one (for those who may have missed the first one)

Windows 8 for Desktop Music Making: Faster etc: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/11/windows-8-for-desktop-music-making-faster-no-reason-not-to-upgrade/

‘Bye

 

Catalyst, have you ever considered getting a Mac Mini and running both Win 7 and Win 8 as Virtual Machines?
I was exactly in the same situation about two months ago, and after much research, you know what I did?
I bought a Mac Mini. For about the same price of decent PC hardware. Intel Core i7 quad, 4G RAM, 1TB HDD. I'm now running Logic Pro X on OS 10.8.3/64bit and, coming totally from the PC world but at least wanting to give MacOS X a try, I have noticed some obvious differences:

- I wanted to upgrade to 16GB RAM initially because my last PC with Core i5 Duo and 8Gb RAM collapsed, but Logic's Disk Streaming and AU handling works so well I had no reason to do so yet (Of course you SHOULD put 8 or 16GB if you plan to use virtual machines)
- I was surprised how user-friendly Logic Pro has become, making me want to use it more and more
- Not being able to use 32bit plugins is a little limiting, but nothing that keeps me from writing music
- Audio latency has never been noticeable, and included (mostly class compliant) audio drivers are working perfectly. This was a nightmare under Windows. Sometimes Asio4all helped, but sometimes at the cost of higher latency.
- Frequent plugging/unplugging of audio and midi interfaces didn't mess up the OS's or driver's USB stack.

Mac OSX:
- Still hate the Mac finder, got the free Double Commander instead ;-)
- FAT32 drives are mounted read/write, NTFS drives readonly (Mac has its own native file system).
- Dunno if Mavericks (Mac OS 10.9) is already solid for audio, today I would personally stick or go back to 10.8.x
- Sleep mode works better than on any Win PC I had, even after 2 months of 100's of sleeps (Yes Catalyst, Mac loves to sleep too ;-)
- While there's by far more software available for Win, some Mac apps seem simplistic at first but often are more sophisticated than most Win apps in that they have one or two unique but essential features on board. I see this again and again, and it looks like Mac programmers have a somewhat different philosophy.
- File copy speeds over USB are consistently faster than under Win. I have a hard time to understand this.

Hardware:
Man, this tiny thing is silent. Never heard it, but maybe I would have to play more than 15 VSTi at the same time to give the idle 3 of 8 virtual cpu cores some work.
Ah yes, and there is even room for a second drive internally, so if you are willing to take the challenge of opening the little beast, for around $20 you'll get a second SATA cable to add, let's say, a 256GB SSD for quickly loading selected huge sample banks.

Oh, and you can still install Windows on it natively if you like!

Just my take on the hot debate

Please let us know how you decide and how you get along with your new hardware!

 

then its been answered ...it works!

also win8.1 metro gui is somewhat different from 8 in a better way. i dont know whats the issue with the start button, i use my keyboard a lot more than my mouse!

 

xoso
Is gaming really that much worse because I like a good game. I did some research and most people said it was good in that area. Certainly a big one for me.

fiction
I don't want to support Evil Inc. and PCs are a lot better for music production in an overwhelming majority of DAWs. They also cost a lot less for what you get and you can customize them. Thanks for your input though, maybe it could help someone that was considering their options and was open to Macs.

lysergk
Are you sure because Dokx is right that when moving to Windows 7 there were some cracks that didn't work, or so I've heard from the community. I know for example Sylenth had an issue but maybe that was solved with the last release by IDON'TKNOWWHO.

Everyone
Whatever happens if I move to Windows 8 and decide to stick with it I will post my experience with different plug-ins and cracks for you guys. This is actually a subset of an idea I had for the forums but it would take a lot of time and effort to implement and it might have to be a community effort because of the sheer scope...my idea I mean.

 

Of course that's true, but if you read carefully the first post, Catalyst explicitly asked: "What warez DAWs and plug-ins have issues that I might miss out on if I take the leap?"

Just saying...

 

Is there anything in 8 that actually makes it worth the new hassles that Windows 7 doesn't create? Seems like the only reason anyone has it is because it came preloaded on their computer.

Microsoft decides to allow the continued sale of Windows 7 PCs after all

 

Win8 should have better performance values, but maybe those studies were forged by MS.