Windows 7 in my Home Studio Update
A comment on the previous Windows 7 post made me realize I should probably post a quick blurb about the progress of producing music/audio projects within Windows 7.
I have moved 90% of my work into the Windows 7 environment and have been enjoying it qutie a bit. The memory management is top notch thus far, which is important since Ableton 8.0.3 still has some bugs for me and does not like handling my low-fi audio samples (crash, crash, crash s’more). The only time I need to boot into XP is when I need to adjust the programming of my Korg padKontrol.
Both Korg and M-Audio have not release appropriate drivers and software for Windows 7 support of the products I own. The midisport 2×2 is absolutely useelss at this point, and I have re-routed my keyboard through my padKontrol. The padKontrol works with the Vista 32-bit driver no sweat, but as mentioned before the Librarian software doesn’t work so you can’t program the unit from software. It’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t often change my layout of the padKontrol so it doesn’t affect me too much at the moment.
I am most interested in the viability of a Windows 7 laptop as a performance machine. I don’t have the money to pick up a laptop to play with yet, but thankfully my fiancee has an old laptop she has let me install Windows 7 on! I configured the system and installed Reason 4. It chugs along like a champ even with multiple songs open and playing at the same time (using the demo songs that came in the library as my test subjects). I’m going to hook up the padKontrol and work on some tunes soon to really give it a shot.
As a side note: The resolution of this laptop is 1280×768 or something but since Windows 7 won’t recognize the GPU or monitor and I can’t get the XP GeForce4 440 GO drivers to work, the max resolution is 1024×768 right now. I’ve been greatly concerned about the usability of lower resolutions so this should answer my questions and dispel or reenforce any of my concerns for future laptop purchaes.
Windows 7 has proven to be more reliable, faster, and all around a positive experience for my audio production needs. I will be sure to post more updates as I continue producing under this OS.
Silver Standard (The LP) & Late Summer into Fall Plans
Jeff and I have been doing some great work with the additional songs we are getting together to make “The Silver Standard EP” into a full 40+ minute self-titled LP.
The additional songs resonate with a lot of the feeling and production styles that the EP songs have. They are a welcomed addition to the collection of tracks that show some of the best (and most fun) work we’ve done in the past 2 years since forming the duo. Keep an eye on the Silver Standard website for updates as we get closer to finalizing the album!
Sliptide-wise, I’ve been mastering tracks on all fronts and reeling in project scopes to get some stuff out the door. There are some excellent plans coming together for music releases directly from Sliptide.com (taking full advantage of the awesomeness that is the WPAudio plugin, as seen on my remixes and project clips pages). Tech-house, trip-hop, and some trance tunes are all on the table.
I recently discovered the joy that is the Freemont Market. The wealth of ‘stuff’ to just see and take pictuers of is pretty sweet, along with a decent look-through of vinyl records. I scored some very good condition records of poetry well spoken by some great poets and speakers of previous generations (which I won’t directly say who so I don’t spoil any fun coming out of sample-smithing those records).
Windows 7 64 bit Enters My Studio
When Ableton 8 dropped I instantly had issues cropping up on my old XP computer in the studio. The computer is great on specs, however I’ve been running 32 bit Windows XP Professional since the get go and have broken one of my old school rules of formatting and installing the OS freshly every 2 years or so. The computer doubles as my main PC, so naturally I have everything under the sun installed to this box that I need to accomplish a multitude of tasks (web dev, coding, photography, movie ripping, games, and more) on top of my audio producing environment. It’s no wonder that Ableton Live!, Reason, and my audio hardware sometimes has issues with my system.
I decided that I was going to try Windows 7 64 bit and see if I could configure it to be a dedicated music production environment. Sure enough after an effortless registration, download, burn, and install of the OS, I had Windows 7 up and running. I was already impressed by the breath of life it gave to my computer. Fast, seemily less bloated than both Vista and XP, and thus far pretty stable, I have hope that Windows 7 will be a viable alternative for music production.
Installation and operation of Ableton Live! 8.0.3 and Reason 4 has been smooth sailing. I still encounter the ocassional problem with Ableton Live!, but the memory management and process management in Windows 7 is far superrior to that of XP so I don’t lose much time if Live! crashes on me (which has only happened once so far). It seems that Live! still has trouble with my Alesis iO 26 when initializing, but a reset of the iO 26 takes care of that.
It wasn’t all peaches and cream when it came to getting my music hardware to work, however. First off, not all of the music hardware vendors have Windows 7 64 bit drivers available. To my absolute dismay, Alesis was the only brand I have in my set up that had a beta Windows 7 driver available.
With some minor system configuraiton, the Alesis iO26 driver for Windows XP and Vista 64-bit worked along with the software and I haven’t had much issue with the unit at all. It works better in Windows 7 than it does in Windows XP (a lot less fussy). If it gives you trouble, try the following:
- Windows Key + Pause/Break for Computer Properties
- Click on Device Manager
- Expand Firewire Devices
- Click on the host controller and update the driver to, “1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy)”
My Korg padKontrol, sadly, it not 100% operational. While I was able to have the driver working in no time at all such that I can use the unit with Live! or Reason, the padKontrol’s librarian (which is used for programming the device) does not work. I continually get device communication errors even though the unit responds appropriately in music software.
My Midisport 2×2 by M-Audio does not work at all. I tried to use the Vista or XP compatability modes, as well as manually plucking the driver from the temporary folder during install, but it was all in vein. The device isn’t supported in Windows 7 and M-Audio does not appear to be turning out the drivers quickly. It’s a shame. Right now I have my old school MIDI keyboard plugged into my padKontrol’s MIDI-IN, and the WaveIdea Bitstream PRO is going to have to be plugged into the iO 26′s MIDI-IN. Thankfully I don’t intend on buying any new controllers or synths soon.
Playing around with some Silver Standard music in Live! has shown me that Windows 7 really does perform very well for my music production so far. It feels smoother, faster, and more stable. Jeff and I will give it a good test tomorrow night in our recording session and I’m crossing my fingers it shines.
I’m trying to leave this installation of Windows 7 alone and separate from a personal OS. XP will reside on the main partition for quite awhile since it has all of my personal stuff (or “clutter”) which probably gets in the way of my music production.
I’m not going to lie: I hope that Windows 7 is a viable, stable, stage performance alternative to Apple. As much as I pine for a Macbook PRO like every other ‘professional’ out there.. I firmly believe there should be alternatives. Besides.. not all of the VSTs I use are available for Mac. ;P
Project Plans
After talking with Ian today I realized I should maybe make a post about the project plans I have for Sliptide music.
There is a substantial amount of AWESOME material I need to knock out and publish this summer. Let’s start with the Trip-Hop and Downtempo flavors first that are most likely appearing on the same album:
-Torch (recording vocals)
-Grace (re-mastering)
-Aces High (recording guitar parts, lyrics/vox?)
-Envisioning the West (vocals, arrangement)
-You’re Surrounded (lyrics)
-This Modern Depression (lyrics, guitar)
-”Trip Hop Project” (lyrics, composition)
- “Thick Break Start” (lyrics, composition, instrumentation)
Next up is the tech-house/dance/trance stuff:
-Turn Around (vox)
-”Project 1″ (lyrics, vox, project with Jacqui Johnson)
-We Move Together (remixes, possible vocal version)
-We’ve Been On Our Way (lyrics, vox)
-This Desert Soul (vox)
-The Deep Trips (remixes)
-Horizons
-Arrest (tentative name, lyrics, vox)
Lastly, the songs that aren’t slated for an album/collection or various EPs. Some might make the cut, some might end up B-Sides on EPs.
-Four Days In (lyrics, vox, arrangement)
-”Project 16″ (lyrics, vox, arragnement)
-Just (lyrics, vox, arrangement)
-Blow Smoke (lyrics, vox, arrangement)
-A Cold Outing (lyrics, vox, arrangement)
-Down With Me (lyrics, vox)
-Forward (lyrics, vox)
-Space and Time (lyrics, vox)
-Equinox
-”House Start” (lyrics, name, vox, arrangement, composition)
-French Style (vox, remixes)
-Planet of the Squares (remixes)
I’m pretty much gearing towards 2 more albums I’m working on with my best works yet in Trip-Hop, Downtempo and Tech-House. I fully expect some one-off EPs with remixes and versions to be released as well, even with some of the funkier songs I’m working on (french tech-house anyone?). “The Deep Trips EP” is on my radar.
Ableton Live! Set Plans
One of my goals is not only to be a producer– not only to be a dj– but to be a music performer. I want to perform my electronic music live to audiences. One of the aspects of DJing I want to bring into a live performance is the continual movement, morphing, and transition of music.
Instead of DJing a bunch of records together I would like to mash up my own sounds in Ableton Live! and apply real-time tweaking of FX, mixing, live instrumentation and synthesis to produce the most live performance I can to an audience. In order to achieve this I have to re-think how I am producing music on a day to day level.
While I will continue to produce albums that contain separate songs in the tracklist, I am moving towards another artform that allows me to produce samples that I can then use in an Ableton Live! template to freestyle a production set.
Using the equipment I have now (which is one of the requirements for this exercise, since I don’t have much of a budget to work with at the moment), I am coming up with the plans to employ Ableton Live! as the center piece of my operations.
Here’s a rough Google Presentation translated from some sketches I made in my notebook over coffee this morning.
I am thinking about using my Korg padKontrol’s channels as triggers for samples in Ableton Live!. This will allow me to have start/stop abilities over numerous scenes. Add in my Bitstream PRO’s 8 sliders for volume on each lane, and knobs for sends to A/B/C and PAN effects and we have a lovely little set up here. I just realized, though, that I really would like to have my EQ kills available for use… hmmm.
That’s all for now.