Can I add more RAM to the laptop? : depends on the motherboard, check on Gateway's website for options, it is usually simple to do unless the memory is hidden behind the keyboard but we rarely see that now a day.

32bit plugins on 64bit OS, many DAW will use 32bit and 64bit plugins at the same time. You just need to put the plugins at the right spot for your DAW to detect them. With sonar, you can ask the plugin manager to search many places, but I tend to create a vst folder where I put them all...

Vst, vsti, dx and dxi, 32bit and 64bit are all supported on a 64bit OS with a 64bit sonar version. if you install the 32bit version of sonar you won't be able to use any 64bit plugin.

As for windows xp, windows 7 had it's need for tweeking and audio optimisation, but there's a lot of guide online.
The multimedia options included in the home premium version is kind of the media center in xp flavors. You may want to consider a pro or standard home version, it will be cleaner for audio recording.

If needed a firewire port can be added in the xpress card slot, if I remember.

Good luck

Thanks PC. I went to a site called crucial.com which scanned my laptop with the intent of telling me what type of RAM I needed. Apparently, regardless of the OS, the Gateway laptop I have can't accept any more than 4 gigs of RAM, so I'm assuming that this is a physical limitation of the MB.

As of now, it appears as though a new PC is on the horizon, but at that point, if I bought from one of the big box stores like Best Buy, etc., it would likely come with Windows 8 loaded, and from everyone I've talked to on this end, they are all telling me to wait for Windows 8.1, that it will be far less traumatic - LOL - of an install and operation.

What are you using PC?

You should know that 4gigs of ram may be all you need, specially if you don't use many vsti in real time.

I'm currently using windows 8 pro with 16gigs of ram, with Sonar x3 on a seperate HDD from the audio files.
When I switched from windows 7, I was surprised not having to tweak the os too much for audio performance.

Note that if the builder install a lot of crap as they often do, you need to clean it up before starting to enjoy low latency ;)
I honestly did'nt check the version available but be carefull not to buy a lite version of windows 8. Microsoft tend to put out a limited fonctionnality version for budget pc/laptop.. (windows starter version was a pain)

hey Donny,

I'm on Windows 7 64 pro. Its real good. I have issues between 32bit and 64bit plugs. Can be a real pain if something conflicts and turns a session into a constant stalling PITA. I've tossed out most of my plug-ins .
For me, it looks like its a crap shoot on the plug and bridge of the daw.

Once I went MADI though, it seemed like my whole system woke up!

I'm about 90% 64bit.

I have a great i7 laptop but its nothing in comparison to my desktop. Laptops get hot and congested. I don't trust mine past 4 tracks at a time but thats not because I've had any issues (touch wood), I haven't.
I'm simply paranoid with laptops and always start sweating when I record on it. I want to get a madi card for it. I have a feeling that would be great.

Note that if the builder install a lot of crap as they often do, you need to clean it up before starting to enjoy low latency ;)
I honestly did'nt check the version available but be carefull not to buy a lite version of windows 8. Microsoft tend to put out a limited fonctionnality version for budget pc/laptop.. (windows starter version was a pain)

There's a small PC repair shop near me with really good service and prices, they sell seconds; used monitors, keyboards, HDD's, etc, but they also sell slightly used full machines too.

I'm thinking that instead of going to one of the big box stores, that maybe I'll talk to these guys first and see what may be available. From what I understand, they even build PC's for customers as well, so I might be able to get a good deal on a PC that isn't loaded with a lot of the crap that you normally get when you buy a new one. It may also be the best way to get a PC with W7 loaded instead of 8. I've done business with these guys before, my bet is that if I wanted a stripped down machine, that I could probably get one for a good deal. I don't need a monitor, keyboard or external drives... just the working guts in a tower with plenty of USB connections and 1 firewire.

You should know that 4gigs of ram may be all you need, specially if you don't use many vsti in real time.

But that's the thing. PC. I've started using more VSTi's on this particular project. Things like NI's B3, East-West Colossus, etc. There was a point two days ago where I couldn't even load an EW Grand Piano sample because I didn't have enough memory.

I'm simply paranoid with laptops and always start sweating when I record on it.

I know exactly how you feel, Chris. Let me ask you guys this... In a W7 environment, does the amount of RAM that is installed work more efficiently? In simpler terms, does 4 gig of RAM work more efficiently in W7 than 4 gigs of RAM in XP?

windows 7 works better period. I could never go back. But, my daw, the interface and basic software for my workflow is all part of why I suppose.

I use W7 64bit Ultimate. It is way better than XP. Simply by changing the OS to W7, my latency dropped tremendously with no hardware changes.

After tweaking the OS, it'll scream.

I have 8 Gig of RAM, but want to double that when funding permits. But I use a lot of MIDI and VST synth/library stuff.

I think I'm close to pulling the trigger on a new PC purchase. I'm looking at a machine with an Athlon AMD 6700 A10/4.0 ghz/quad core, with a 7200 rpm Terrabyte HDD, 16 gig of RAM, 8 USB slots (four 2.0/four 3.0 USB's), Windows 8.1 pre- installed, but they will roll it back to W7 64 Ultimate if I want for an extra $50.

Total price out the door new is $509 U.S.

Thoughts?

wow, I love AMD btw, my mastering DAW is AMD and it rocks. That is a crazy deal. I don't know much about the builds but a good PSU is important. 60 watts at least. You need a few slots for extra drives. One for your OS, One for Library, One for tracking.

It is a good deal... but I need to know that it's the right deal. ;)

Do these specs appear to be sufficient to efficiently run Sonar 7 using multiple VSTi's ( let's say 5 real time) plus 24 tracks of audio with 3-4 plugs per track?

Is there anything about the specs that raises a red flag with you guys?

DonnyThompson, post: 411015, member: 46114 wrote: using multiple VSTi's ( let's say 5 real time) plus 24 tracks of audio with 3-4 plugs per track?

I honestly don't know about all that. Your new CPU will be more powerful than my AMD Opteron, but I know mine will stutter a bit with that much unless I crank the latency up to 40ms. So I end up freezing tracks to unload instruments and free up resources. Then I can get 2ms latency and continue to perform MIDI stuff and track my clean guitars through Amplitube.

I'm looking to upgrade this year myself.

I have been able, thus far, to get through dense productions by using the track freeze function in Sonar, but it's getting to a point where even that isn't cutting it.

I guess I'm hoping that by upgrading the processor and RAM, along with stepping up from XP to either W7 or W8, that doing so will significantly increase the efficiency, especially during these heavy-load sessions. Normally, I don't use this number of track counts, processing plugs and soft synths on my own stuff - my own songs are much more organic - but, this new album I'm producing for my friend is turning out to be fairly taxing on my current rig, which as mentioned is an older Athlon II / dual core / 4 gig of RAM, running XP.

I'm still researching my best bet. Like anything else, I have to find the best bang for the bucks I have. ;)

Sorry. Been immersed in tuning pianos. There is NOTHING wrong with Win 8 or 8.1. I don't see an advantage over Win7 unless you have touchscreen. For mobo's the memory controller portion of the hardware is the limiting factor. That is why your older mobo was not up to the task for more ram. The bus just didn't have enough seats. Any i series Intel CPU and the equivalent AMD CPU will run circles around your old stuff. Not much tweaking of Win7 is needed at all.

Well, I did it. I bought a new PC yesterday:

HP machine
AMD 6700 A-10 processor/ 3.5 ghz / quad core
Radeon Graphics
16 gig of RAM, expandable up to 32
2 Terrabyte Internal HDD (7200 RPM)
8 USB - four 3.0 and four 2.0
Multi-Card Reader
CD/CDW Drive
4 open slots, so I could add things like FireWire, or even a UA DSP Card
27" LED Monitor, refresh rate is 4ms
Windows 8.1

Total price OTD for all of the above was $629 (U.S.). I'm sure it's not the best PC available for production work, but I did the best I could with the money I had to spend; and I'm sure it will, as you say, run circles around my old PC.

After I got it home, I also added another HDD; I had a 500 gig WD HD (7200 rpm) that I put into an open bay on the new machine... the PC recognized it right away, without any configuring by me.

Windows 8.1 is a very strange land for me. I believe it's going to take some time for me to get acclimated.

OK: here's what to do now:
1. Install and tweak to get things exactly like you want.
2. Use Partition Magic to split your primary drive into two partitions.
3. Use Windows Backup to create an "image" of your C: drive and put that image on the new partition.

Viola! Instant backup! Much better than System Restore. Every few months I simply use Windows Backup to re-do my C: drive with all my stuff freshly installed, and it works like a charm.

Apparently there are already a few partitions that exist on the Primary HD.. actually there seem to be two, or at least I think they are partitions, because they have different drive labels:

1. "Recovery Image ( D:)" ( size is around 14 GB)
2. "Factory Image (G:)" (size is around 8 GB)

Are these actual partitions? And if so, should I retain these when I partition the Primary HD into 2 large segments? And if so, on which segment of the newly partitioned drive should these current partitions reside? Or do they already reside where they are supposed to?

Sorry if these are stupid questions. I've never partitioned a drive before - I'm really not hip to how the whole process works.

Don't mess with either of those partitions. They are manufacturer-created partitions that allow your computer to be restored to its original setup should you ever have a full system crash.

If you want to add partitions to your system drive, you will need to reduce the size of your C partition and then create a partition from the newly-freed space.

Thank you Sir. That makes sense to me...and that's not an easy thing for someone to do...to make sense to me regarding computers. LOL

Donny,

You are going to be having fun now. :) Hope it all runs well for years on end now.

I am very happy with the computer and monitor, the machine is whisper quiet, fast, efficient, and the 27" monitor is a blessing for these old eyes - LOL - but... I am running into some issues with the importing of my 32 bit plugs and VSTi's. I don't even care so much about the FX plugs, because lately I've been using less of them, but... I have been relying on soft synths now for quite sometime.

I've used JBridge to convert these - VSTi's like Native Instruments B4 and Colossus - and in theory the conversion has worked because they are loading in Sonar, but ...they aren't working.

Perhaps my problems are with Sonar itself? I'm using 7.0.2

I've got a fair amount of money tied up in my soft synths, and I'm tapped out financially after the PC purchase, so buying the 64 bit versions of these plugs just isn't an option. I'd really like to get these 32 bit versions working in the 64 bit environment because I'm fairly reliant on these two synths, I use the Hammond sound on quite a bit of productions, as well as the Grand Piano patch and synth pads in Colossus.

I suppose I could could install the 32 bit version of Sonar, but at that point the 32 bit version will only ever see 4 gig of the 16 gigs I have installed, which kind of negates the whole point of getting the new PC.

Thoughts?

So you're using JBridge - did you try BitBridge? Did it not work for you?

If BitBridge didn't work for you, you're in a bit of a pickle. The early version of BitBridge (v1) didn't work as well as Bitbridge v2. You're using Sonar 7 and probably have v1. Additionally, Cakewalk added an accommodation for JBridge in Sonar, but not until Sonar 8.5. So basically, neither JBridge or BitBridge may work as well as you like in Sonar 7. :(

I don't own Colossus and my version of B4 works for me in Sonar X2, so I'm not much help there - you may need to keep searching the interwebs for solutions from guys who share your problems.

As far as using Sonar 7 32-bit, yes, it will not use all of your available RAM, but remember that you will still get the boost of the faster processor so performance will be improved. I assume that you are concerned about RAM for your soft synths, so if you used Sonar 32-bit for synth overdubs only by doing a pre-mix in Sonar x64 then using that as the guide track for overdubbing your 32-bit soft synths, you may be able to get the final result that you need. Yeah, a bit convoluted, but if you cannot upgrade your soft synths or Sonar, you may have to use a work around like this until you can do some upgrading.

Hey Donny, this is bummer but expected. One point for certain, just having this new PC puts you way ahead! You just need to start house cleaning, parting with the old code and moving on. Search for vsti that work with a common template and workflow and don't ever trust the next move.

Generally speaking,
This is why I don't like third party code. Why would any coder invest R&D , time and money downloading competitors code to see if it works great in their DAW system. Maybe there is some common rule when designing these plug-ins, I don't know? But, I do know, my mixes always sound better with less code running. So, I build a mix with as little of that stuff possible and pray every step I make when I go into uncharted water.

As an example, I was looking for a delay plugin a few months back so I started reading delay recommendations. I read members praise about EchoBoy Link removed . The moment I added it to my session (nothing tweaked yet) I heard nasty things happening. The plug-in destroyed the tightness of my stellar mix and added a noise that I could never live with.
I thought to myself, how could anyone use this crap. Do people not hear what this code is doing?
I imagine what all these plug-ins are doing to our mixes and people don't hear it. I removed that crap and wish I never loaded it into my box. I feel like I exposed my DAW to an altering infection.

I give up on ever expecting someone to share my experiences when it comes to digital recommendations. Software may be pure on its own and look pretty but when its expected to work with other code, don't expect it to work like the picture and never expect the designer or colleague to believe your opinion is accurate for the next guy. Unless you have the exact everything I have, including tweak for tweak, no plug-in or recommendation is worth trusting in my studio. Not because I don't trust the recommendation, I simply do not trust software to work with other software.

Enough said.

I don't trust any session with 32bit plug-ins when I'm on 64bit. Sooner or later (if the bridge even works with the plugin loaded) I know I will reach a level in a session where it will lock or become some evil crazy maker.
There will come a time where I have to go backwards to find where some conflict that occurred. The sad part is, its usually happens close to the finish line. Stick with 64bit and live safe(r), bridge and expect the worst.

Plug-ins are the sole reason why we all agree to disagree. You are only a stable as the last move.

It's not so much the plugs, as I also have lately become very particular about what I use and how much I use it. I agree that the use of many processors tend to cloud the mix.

My main issue is with the instruments. I rely pretty heavily on things like NI's B4 Hammond, EW Colossus, and Kontakt synths like Vintage Electric Pianos, etc.

As of right now, I'm not yet able, even using JBridge, to get these to work. They appear in the DAW, they just don't do anything.

Donny, you don't need to partition your main drive further. You already added an extra drive. Partitioning your main drive hinders you and does not help at all since the data can only go in or out one way. If you want an extra drive for samples or VST then buy a third hard drive to put in the box.

Thanks Jack. I don't know if the tower has room for a third drive where I could actually hard-mount it. I guess I could just place it on the bottom of the case; the PC isn't going anywhere, it's locked down in my studio, so it's not going to be moved for anything other than a serious service issue. Perhaps I could simply velcro it to the bottom of the case? I have two spare SATA connectors free on the MB, although... looking at it right now, I'm not seeing another power cable available...

You can get a splitter for the power cables. They are quite common. If there is no room in the case and you need a third drive just add an eSATA slot on the box and use an external. The internal part of the eSATA connector goes to those free SATA ports on the MOBO.

http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/StaplesProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogIdentifier=2&partNumber=IM1K37141&langid=-1&cid=PS:GooglePLAs:IM1K37141&srccode=cii_17588969&cpncode=34-159672339-2

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=sata+power+y&N=-1&isNodeId=1

Those are great suggestions Jack... and thanks for the links :) I'd never heard of the eSATA connector you mentioned. So it appears that I simply put the eSATA card into an available slot and just hook up the SATA cable to the MOBO. I'm wondering what to do about the power though, being that it's an internal cable.. so running the drive outside of the box as I would like it was an external drive, I'd still need to get power to it...

TBPlayer, post: 411117, member: 23638 wrote: So you're using JBridge - did you try BitBridge? Did it not work for you?

If BitBridge didn't work for you, you're in a bit of a pickle. The early version of BitBridge (v1) didn't work as well as Bitbridge v2. You're using Sonar 7 and probably have v1. Additionally, Cakewalk added an accommodation for JBridge in Sonar, but not until Sonar 8.5. So basically, neither JBridge or BitBridge may work as well as you like in Sonar 7. :(

As far as using Sonar 7 32-bit, yes, it will not use all of your available RAM, but remember that you will still get the boost of the faster processor so performance will be improved. I assume that you are concerned about RAM for your soft synths, so if you used Sonar 32-bit for synth overdubs only by doing a pre-mix in Sonar x64 then using that as the guide track for overdubbing your 32-bit soft synths, you may be able to get the final result that you need. Yeah, a bit convoluted, but if you cannot upgrade your soft synths or Sonar, you may have to use a work around like this until you can do some upgrading.

Sorry about the delay in responding to you TB...I've been in PC Configuration Land laterly and my brain hurts... LOL
You made some great suggestions there.

So far, JBridge has worked the best. And, I've already installed a separate 32 bit version of Sonar onto the new PC, so that if I have to, I can use it for the sort of "pre production" platform you mentioned, using the various VST/VSTi's that the 64 bit version of Sonar won't recognize. I could do this soft-synth tracking in the 32 bit platform, then convert those VST synths to audio, and then import them into Sonar 64. Yeah, it is a bit convoluted, as you said, but I can deal with that.

And, you brought up an interesting point - which I neglected to see - concerning the old RAM limitation and dual core vs the new RAM and quad core processor I'm working with... because when I was in XP, while I had 4 gig of RAM installed, Sonar sure wasn't able to use all of that. I would think a solid 2 gig of RAM was likely being used up just in running the XP OS - and that's before Sonar even got it's share of the 4 gig, so it's very likely that I only had 2 gig of RAM (maybe even less than that) available to use in Sonar on the old machine along with only a dual core. At least now I'll have the full 4, along with the benefit of the new quad core processor. I'm sure it will ease the stress on Sonar.

One thing I'm having some trouble with in 64 Sonar 7, is with Session Drummer. While I don't really use it all that much, other than for those quick 2 a.m. ideas, I'm curious as to why it doesn't work in Sonar 7 x64
(it works fine in x32). It goes as far as to recognize it, it allows me to insert it as a soft synth, it allows me to view the synth window to load and preview sounds, and it allows me to loud the sounds...
but when I preview the sounds I've chosen, by clicking on the instrument, it won't play anything. And then.... get this... the very second I close that synth menu window, I hear one note of the last instrument I'd loaded.
Very weird.

It works fine in x32, allows me to preview sounds, etc. But it won't do that in x64. Like I said I don't use it all that much, but it's nice to have for those late night ideas where I don't want to set up my kit of yamahas and have the cops knocking... ;)

Thoughts?

Interesting Session Drummer issue.

Is your version of Session Drummer 32-bit only? Perhaps it needs to go through JBridge?