@badbass I’m a fan of this solution. I have one of the early Mac Pro towers that I use for recording. I run Reaper on it and it is rock solid. And it’s 15 years old. The thing that I like about it, and I’m trying to wrap my head around this for the rest of my music production equipment, is that it takes me out of the arms race of new equipment, constant updates, GAS, etc.
Never needed any of that prior to windows10, don’t need it now, whilst I’m not hugely into computers I know how to set them up, I bet my computers have far less on than most - no games, no office suite, barely any internet aside from essential stuff like downloading updates, drivers etc, no general web browsing, no social media, no video watching etc.
I always keep around 50% free on my main drive, plenty of ram, and I only install software that I think I will use, if it turns out that I don’t like it, I uninstall it then remove any remnants not removed by uninstalling.
I hate bloat and inefficiency, and I hate unreliability, so I do my utmost to avoid that by ensuring the system is optimised.
Forced obsolescence is the only reason I change a computer/OS.
Stupid annoying shit like numlock status not always being correct once booted, the D-Link wifi dongle not always working after boot, the fact that if you have an explorer window open and try to open another it replaces the one you had open, I could go on but hopefully the point is made. Yeah older versions of windows had problems too, but XP and 7 were far more stable and reliable generally, and they allowed a greater level of customisation and let you remove crap you had absolutely no use for - fucking candy crush saga ffs - on pro edition? WTF
3 Likes
I have found the problem
Huh? I just unplug it then plug it back in then it works. Point is on other computers it works flawlessly all the time, on w10 it works flawlessly only some of the time after boot.
DLink is garbage and if it’s old it’s even worse. Upgrade the WiFi dongle for cheap. That’ll fix that headache.
1 Like
You windows folks should join the LTSC club. It’s essentially windows 10 but for kiosks and stuff, so minimal updates and zero bloat. I run Malwarebytes every couple of months but no issues yet.
UI is still annoying but it’s honestly been more stable than 7 on my old laptop.
That said, after a lifetime of dealing with windows my next computer is going to be an M1 macbook. I expect that’ll have its own set of annoyances, but I need a change. And all the new windows laptops look like garbage.
1 Like
I keep one of these in stock as a quick fix. I wouldn’t run my business off of it but it’s fine for simple browsing and what not.
1 Like
It is less than a year old, and works fine on my win7 laptop. I’ll probably just connect via ethernet when I can be bothered to run the cable.
1 Like
MBP 2012 fully upgraded and whilst i looked at getting a new MBP Pro, there always seemed like issues or new big changes on the horizon so have just stuck with it and bought more hardware instead to get away from VST’s.
On Sierra still.
1 Like
Check this out, a engineer in Poland still using a C64 to balance drive shafts:
4 Likes
Don’t think I’ll ever go back to Windows.
Got a surface pro and it was rubbish though had few pc machines in last ten years and they were great value for the money. Hp elitebooks being one
No interest in new macs until these m1 released recently. Next time I replace my 2012 mbp it will probably be a next gen m1
1 Like
If it was in the early Win 10 days, it was misery. Microsoft OS wasn’t compatible with Microsoft hardware. Laughable really. They’ve since ironed it out (from what I’ve heard) but it was ugly.
Was a pro 6
Soon as I added few vsts in ableton CPU was spiking. Far more than my old mbp so sold it went back to the older Mac.
Got it to use touchscreen with apps and it was sluggish at best. Sold it and got an ipad pro with drambo, mirack etc and blew it out of the water. Night and day in performance
2 Likes
Sounds about right from my experience.
This is a nice talk about the topic: https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko
Lately I really feel like we still live in a weird loady world. spinning wheels while the computer figures out what to do.
Maybe this is the fault of the software programming, but maybe it’s also the fault of the way the hardware is designed. In the end it’s as if the processing is often being pushed to the limit by the software, so we always live in a laggy world where sure, you’re getting great performance and also impressively spec’d software, but at the extreme where the computer can’t always keep up.
SoC stuff seems promising. I like that Apple is pushing this and from all reports software is zippier and in some cases insanely responsive. This hardware though shouldn’t be an excuse for sloppy programming, or we just end up back in the same space.
It’s sort of my wish for whatever the next gen of computers is, if there was a feature to wish for. It’s just instantaneous computing. No loading, no waiting, everything in real-time. as it stands at the moment, as a human I often feel faster than the computer in my thinking in terms of what I can achieve, and I am constantly waiting for the computer to catch-up. It shouldn’t be that way, you’d think.
In general I don’t have any real massive gripes with UI or aesthetics or stuff like that. It’d just be nice to see computers become more transparent and do what they’re supposed to, to never encumber human thought or the creative process with troubleshooting drudgery.
1 Like
I have been using windows seriously since 95 and regularly have to educate myself and learn new things.
The problem of num lock and usb network are probably problems of drivers, maybe you have one or more programs in auto start which are priority, the wifi I never appreciated.
The behavior of your explorer is either an option or a not very cool symptom, exploring is obviously a fundamental part.
For instability, Memtest, a lot of ram is statistically a source of concern, two or four strips? Motherboard bios up to date? SSD? Machine a little old? Windows upgrade or clean installation?
I have family windows, am in ethernet and no candy ***** Flawless stability.
LTSC may be a solution but may require more research and work to make it all work because of its deliberate “pullback”.
Otherwise, waiting for updates on a standard version and finding a well-documented dedicated info site is already not bad.
A lot of windows bloat also can come from what manufacturer you bought you PC from/ the bios… it really does end up meaning brand matters windows 10 is not just windows 10, often a cheaper brand is gonna force a lot more bloat on you. Unfortunately when buying PCs these days you really should be heavily researching what your brand is gonna try forcing down your throat and to my knowledge none of the brands are perfect about this stuff. Companies selling a windows 10 computer with out an decent SSD these days is border line criminal imo and just as asking for all sorts of problems, windows 10 really really feels like it needs to run on an SSD these days preferably something directly on the board like M.2.
Personally I think windows 10 is the best windows has been in a long time, possibly ever but if you don’t buy the right hardware from the right manufacturer you are going to have a bad time. You can open multiple file explorer windows, so there might be a degree of needing to learn a new work flow there. Personally don’t think I have had a single crash except when using alpha or beta software after about 5 years of using my machine basically daily.
I honestly fell off the Mac OS band wagon after being a user since a Mac Classic, the M1 mac mini might tempt me back but there laptops hardware build quality has been terrible for too long now, they look slick but are designed for looks first. Obviously you don’t need to be nearly as technical when it comes to using macs and if you baby them the hardware can last.
2 Likes
I was running Mavericks on my 2012 until like a week ago I took the plunge to Mojave, there was a stack of features piling up for both my software and hardware that finally was enough for me to jump. Was nervous but it seems to be running great. I didn’t have the nerve to go Catalina but I’m going to make a separate partition and test it out… I think what I’ll actually do is format the drive and make 2 partitions with 2 clean installs one Mojave and one Catalina and leave it like that for the rest of its days…
More surprising is at the same time I updated my original iPad Air that was still on iOS 8 to its final operational os iOS 12. Amazingly it seems faster and utilizes memory better not reloading things near as often…
1 Like
I think that modern computers are jack of all trades master of none, people who had computers in the early days of home computing will agree that modern software is very inefficient with memory usage etc.
For example, if I want to monitor midi it is quicker to use my Commodore 64 than my 2020 Lenovo desktop, I can turn on and the C64 launch a midi monitor and be seeing the data on screen in less time than it will take to launch midiox on the already booted up Lenovo.
Of course there are lots of things the Lenovo can do that the C64 can’t but that is to be expected given the age difference, but the point is a simple task takes far too long most of the time, because of inefficiency, bloat, overhead.
I said it before but I think that a dedicated multimedia computer, efficient and fast, with a proprietary OS, designed specifically for creative uses rather than a general purpose desktop OS would be my dream. Built in audio inputs and outputs, built in multi port midi interface, built in gpio for CV, gate etc, boot up ready to use instantly, no need for drivers for anything because it is a “closed” system, written from the ground up.
2 Likes
There’s some interesting movement in this direction lately with things like Norns and Pisound. I think there’s still a lot of potential as SBCs come down in price and ideas about focus and usability in music making become more refined.
2 Likes