Way past time to upgrade from XP

[ChadT]

Hello fellow keyboardists!

I've hung out as long as I could in upgrading my music PC from Windows XP to something newer because I cannot stand starting from scratch and reloading all of my software, drivers, etc. Although support for XP was dropped by MS years ago, my PC still works predominantly fine. However, in receiving the notice that DropBox is also going to drop XP support, I believe the dinosaur may finally be at the very brink of extinction.

My question is; do you suppose I could get away with a store bought PC running Windows 10 and still be able to run my prominent software and drivers for live recording and editing such as Sony Acid Pro 7, Sony Movie Maker, izotope OZone 5 Mastering software, Yamaha Steinberg driver for my MR 816X firewire device, etc. or is a custom PC recommended for exclusive audio & video production?

If I can get away with an off the shelf PC to support all of my needs rather than go down the technical and costly path of a custom PC, well, that would just make the transition a bit easier I would imagine. Your thoughts? Many thanks to all!

 

[happyrat1]

I can't say it's 100% compatible, but I run a lot of multimedia software just swimmingly under Linux and Wine Windows Emulator.

Vintage Windows programs in particular seem to thrive under wine as for instance I run Cakewalk 9.01 Home studio which I bought back in 1998 today under Linux. Likewise I picked up a more recent copy of Cakewalk Music Creator 5 which also functions perfectly under Wine.

Wine is also 100% compatible with Reaper if that's your cup of tea.

Native Linux sequencers, that I've tried to date have been buggy and disappointing for the most part.

Like I said, it's not a perfect substitute.

I have to be careful which devices I buy as anything with a Windows/Mac exclusive driver often won't function at all under Linux.

Case in point : MOTU 5X5 MIDI Interface. 100% useless without Windows drivers. Solution was to buy an M-Audio MIDIsport 4X4 interface instead.

If it's USB MIDI Class Compliant, guaranteed it will work with Linux.

If it's ASIO drivers, it's dicey. My M-Audio Venom uses ASIO USB which absolutely will not work with Linux. However a workaround is to use the MIDI ports to communicate with the MIDISport and otherwise my recording sessions are transparent and 100% usable.

Likewise I recently picked up a Roland JD-Xi which uses ASIO USB and in this case, while it does not respond with the audio functions, the MIDI functions of the USB port are 100% compatible and reliable.

My Kurzweil is fully compatible as well as Korg and Casio Keyboards. As I said, anything that brands itself as USB MIDI Class Compliant WILL work.

Latency is a non issue on any well configured Linux System running JACK Audio Connection Kit. A Distro worth considering is KXStudio which is fully preconfigured on installation for multimedia applications.

http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/index.php

Linux runs well and plays nicely with older slower hardware as well. On everything from a quad core Intel 8400 on my desktop to my i5 Lenovo Laptop I get equal audio and MIDI performance with no noticeable lag ever.

If Windows plugins are a must have, Carla is an audio integration tool designed to run Windows and Linux standard Audio Plugins in real time.

Should you decide to give KXstudio a try, I'd suggest simply installing it on an older machine with about a 500 gig HD simply to try it out.

I'd also recommend setting it up to dual boot with at least a legacy copy of Windows 7 just for the sake of being able to perform firmware updates and certain editing tasks which won't run under Wine.

Personally all of my systems dual boot to Windows 7. I've blocked the Windows 10 "upgrade" religiously at every attempt M$ has made to sneak it on there this past year.

I've been running an all Linux studio for the past 17 years now. I boot to Windows about once a month in order to install updates and otherwise, the only times I actually use Windows for anything productive is perhaps once every year or so.

Otherwise, if you have deep pockets and fear the learning curve, I'd suggest simply investing in some Apple products and be done with it.

Remember though, Linux is "FREE as in BEER!" software while Apple makes you pay thru the nose with a premium on all of their hardware and software.

Gary