Windows 7 – taking music back from the Mac?
| Posted in Music Technology
Windows 7 has arrived in shops today to great fanfare, and PC devotees everywhere are looking on to see if this OS release will prove more successful than the launch of Vista. But among the IT experts, the gamers and the developers is a group of PC users for whom Windows is much more than a simple operating system – it’s the software that makes their music tick. They are the musicians who use a PC for their recording, and according to Ben Scully of Synergy, the release of Windows 7 means that there’s about be a whole lot more of them.
What’s more, Ben should know. As Technical and Marketing Manager for Synergy, whose music PCs are renowned among professional engineers, he has a unique perspective on the way that musicians use computers to record and create music. While in the past many musicians naturally gravitated towards the Mac platform, the sheer popularity and affordability of PCs has meant that Windows users have been well catered for. With the release of Windows 7, however, Ben believes that the PC platform is about to vault ahead of its old rival once and for all.
“Everything that works on XP will work with windows 7, whereas Snow Leopard on the Mac is still struggling with support from many leading manufacturers,” Ben explains. “This is the first time that Microsoft has been so open with its development. There have been two massive RC (release candidate) releases with a user forum that was read by Microsoft and then listened to. As a result, Windows 7 is a very light operating system, with all the enhanced performance features introduced in Vista. It consciously has far less background services running, freeing up even the most underpowered system to do some serious work.”
In preparing Synergy’s dedicated music computers for the release of Windows 7, Ben has been in the privileged position of studying the new operating system in depth, and he believes that by losing some of its old limitations, Windows is now far friendlier to musicians than ever before.
“For a start, it offers faster hard drive read and write than XP, plus multi-core processing that’s far more enhanced than XP, meaning users can reap the full benefits of the latest i7 and i5 processors out there. Then there’s the User Account Control (UAC), which has been improved from Vista so that it now offers four levels of security ranging from the least secure ‘never notify’ setting, to ‘always notify me and wait for my response’. User Account Control was one of the major issues in Vista because with UAC turned on, programs like Cubase 5 were unable to update their own preference files, meaning that every time someone booted up Cubase, none of their preferences would be there from last time. That won’t be an issue now, but the security will still stop naughty hackers and viruses installing things on your computer without you knowing. It’ll be just like when you have to put your password in to install something on a Mac.”
Even better, says Ben, is a giant leap forward in processing power. “Finally Windows 7 offers 64-bit that’s reliable. It’s picking up where Vista 64 left off. PC users should now expect a massive escalation in 64-bit, where people will be able to install up to 192GB RAM. That means VSL, Omnisphere, BFD and more can all run on one computer, loading up a whole world of instruments.”
With so much potential for music making in the new operating system, Ben is expecting today’s in-store arrival of the software to make a big step forward for Microsoft, and for music computers. While it’s always wise to wait a little while before migrating to a new OS, Ben Scully at least is convinced that anyone who uses a computer for recording music should watch Windows 7 very closely indeed.
About Barney Jameson
A contributor, editor and in some cases creator of more music and pro audio magazines than he cares to remember, Barney Jameson is a veteran of writing about gear, and a pretty keen singer songwriter to boot.
Having started his musical education reading old copies of the Melody Maker while riding the tube to University in the mid-nineties, Barney once sang in a band called Sugarstone, troubling record company chequebooks not quite enough to make it a career option. Instead, he achieved his goal of starting a music magazine of his own when he founded Playmusic in the early noughties. Later on, having exploited VIP access to as many festivals as possible, he wrote about the pro audio industry throughout Europe and the Middle East, travelling to far-flung destinations such as Dubai, Doha and Muscat (nice mountains).
As the latest addition to the DV247 team, Barney has big plans. But when he’s not plotting online domination of the musical instrument world, he keeps himself busy writing songs on a battered old acoustic guitar and playing them to audiences in his home town.
Tags: computer recording, Music Computers, synergy, windows 7
Have you seen this alternative view from Paul Dakeyne’s blog on this very site?
(Freemasons interviewed by PD)
We believe you’ve recently upgraded your computer to a Mac Pro and installed Snow Leopard. How has the transition been with regards to stability and plug-in migration?
(FM)
Yeah, new Mac Pro, blank installation of Snow Leopard… Everything works, absolutely everything. The only things that don’t are the small esoteric plug-ins from smaller manufacturers, but everything else went in beautifully smoothly. And it’s chalk and cheese compared to the old computer – even some of the old installers going back years, like some of the Arturia stuff.
(FM)
Apple has really done well to hone everyone down on this audio unit protocol because everything that seems to have gone in is now working. With the new version of Logic 9 – especially with the Bounce in Place function – we’re finding our workflow has gone through the roof. Logic’s certainly not behaving like a cantankerous old aunt these days…
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