Ableton Forum

Thinking of switching from OSX to Windows 7. I'm going to load up a copy on Bootcamp to test it out, but thought I'd ask you guys your experience with the OS so far.

Is it stable? Does it recognize all music plug-ins, USB drivers, etc. as well as OSX? Is it speedy, useable, etc.

Overall, I've been disappointed with my move to a Mac. For the price ($2300 for a macbook pro) I thought the machine would be a speed demon, stable, easy to use, etc. Other than the industrial design, and instant driver recognition, I cannot say it's performed enough to justify the price.

What's worse is now I'm considering upgrading to a desktop unit for the expansion (PCI slots, firewire, etc.), and processor capabilities. To stay on OSX I'd have to go Mac Pro and drop $3500 of money I don't have.

Thoughts overall?

Been on win 7 64 ultimate since Dec 2009 . Runs great couple of minor windows issues but nothing substantial. Was a mac exclusive owner for 10 years ( still currently using one for various projects) but bought a core duo 2.16 ghz 17 inch laptop dell 4 years ago which i used up until just before xmas when i bought a an i7 920 6 gb ddr 2 tb sata drives for £550 uk. They equivalent mac which i was specing up was nearly £5000. With the money i spared i bought 2 new mixing desks and 2 new sets of refrence monitors
So yes win 7 is good.
I will though be buying a 27 inch i7 imac in the next few months as i,m starting some new mulimedia work that requires Logic and 7.1 mixing. But i am enjoying the pc.

m.nash wrote:Thoughts overall?

My studio buddy has been running it for a while, and he says its good to go!

XP runs very well to me, so im not going to switch yet. Dont fix whats not broken, as they say. Id probably start using it on a net pc/second home pc first.
I have absolutely no problem with XP. As long as the music comp is a DAW only, it can be rock solid. But it requires maintaining the system with de-fragmenting, keeping the drives clean, and so on. It will make your life better anyway, forces you to be tidy.

Using a mac makes your digital life lazy and untidy IMHO

Hi, Using Win 7 at work and I recently bought a low end Compaq laptop for the wife to take away with her. I have been very impressed with its stability and am planning on doing some test runs with Live and Reason with a few plugs to see how it goes. I have been on macs for 4 years now, I like them, but when it comes to replacement time, bang for buck becomes a real reckoning if they both have stable OS. I don't actually care which one I work in as IMHO they are pretty much of a muchness as long as stability is ok.

Jacqueslacouth wrote:Hi, Using Win 7 at work and I recently bought a low end Compaq laptop for the wife to take away with her. I have been very impressed with its stability and am planning on doing some test runs with Live and Reason with a few plugs to see how it goes. I have been on macs for 4 years now, I like them, but when it comes to replacement time, bang for buck becomes a real reckoning if they both have stable OS. I don't actually care which one I work in as IMHO they are pretty much of a muchness as long as stability is ok.

Win 7 is also a lot more user friendly just like OSX. Xp always seemed kinda clunky and awkward for me

no problems here. instant driver recognition aswell.

I've been seriously considering a pc/win 7 laptop myself. The price difference between equivalent spec'd pc/mac laptops is ridiculous.

Anyone using RME fireface 800 on a PC laptop? What kind of latencies do you work on?

William wrote:I've been seriously considering a pc/win 7 laptop myself. The price difference between equivalent spec'd pc/mac laptops is ridiculous.

Yeah, I've come close to pulling the trigger on a MacBook Pro at least half a dozen times in the last few years, but have always looked at the final price in the shopping cart with a "you've got to be fucking kidding me" face and decided to do something else with the money.

At work ive been running windows 7 full tilt for a couple months now, on an 27" imac. It's been top-notch. No troubles whatsoever. Windows 7 is stable and quick, and we priced it out: the 27" imac is the best deal on the market we could find for a windows box i7 processor and a quality monitor. Just don't get your ram from apple ;]

if desktop then you may consider to make a hackintosh also known as osx86.
very cheap.
10.6.3 running fine here just like a mac
i dont recommend it for laptops especially for music apps

Even 64bit Win7 works fine with everything I've tried and CPU usage even seems to be lower than in Vista. Of course I don't know why anyone would go with the 32bit version these days anyway.

One tip relating Win7 and Vista is to never install VSTs in C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files(x86) like they want to by default. You will save yourself allot of trouble with VSTs when they're installed outside of a protected folder.
I make a folder called C:\VstPlugins and install everything there.

Also, make sure there are modern Win7 drivers for any hardware you want to use. Even my old-ish Mia MIDI has Win7 support.

awesome tips guys. D-Track whats you experiences been with OSX86? I have the usual cold feet about it. Does the software update as it would on any other system? Like what are the trade-offs other than piecing together the system and a somewhat tricky install?

Thanks again everyone,
J

No issues with Ableton Suite 8:

• Windows 7 Professional x64

• Lenovo ThinkPad T61p

• 4GB RAM

maybe I'm doing something wrong? I have a new Gateway NV59 with an i5 processor, 4gb ram. came with win 7 64 but i installed 32 cause I was getting issues with Ableton (suite 8.1.1)- a friend suggested it cause he thought Ableton might perform better on a 32bit platform but I'm still getting issues. Maybe its my interface? E-MU 0404 usb - they haven't released win 7 drivers, they said the most up to date one they have works fine in 7.

I'm recording my drummer and I with one input - using a condenser mic. My guitar is running into the other input, both outputs are being used to send different audio to different amps - I'm using up to four loopers on different tracks. Quite often ableton will freeze - audio will continue but the screen will freeze. And Ableton will crash often: "A serious error has occurred"

I'm seriously thinking of switching to Mac cause I hear its just better for this kind of shit. I've had enough. Too many problems.