Most of my audio software is cross platform for Mac and PC and available for download at no extra cost. Also many software programs allow for multiple computers installs,usually 2 or 3. The way it now the Mac version comes out almost a year after the PC version. The cost to purchase the Ultra pack for both platforms is not a cost effective solution for most of us users out there. I have no idea how the development team works on either version and what kind of resources that are available to them. Anyway this is what I would wish for. Brian
BIAB 2026 Ultrapack- Fender Studio Pro 8, Windows 11, Mac Mini M4 with Logic Pro 11, Melodyne Studio, Luna Pro
+1 "as well and the command, control,and option keys kind of mess with me going between the PC and Mac." You can also change the command, control, and option, alt, win keys around to suite using a Win keyboard on the Mac, System Prefs/Keyboard. You can also do a Crosgrade for just the app and if you convert the wma RT RD to wav (copy them first to a larger drive then use bb\data\decompress.exe or .zip) and they will work on Mac. The wma RT RD Style demos can be batch converted also to m4a. The folder structure is now the same so you can copy the contents of other folders over to the Mac. There's a free audio batch converter for Mac/Win MediaHuman Audio Converter https://www.mediahuman.com/audio-converter/ You can convert the wma to m4a but wav would be better.
Would be beneficial, and keep the Mac folk much happier. +1
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Must be nice running on Linux. You don't have to worry about disabling malware checkers.
I wouldn't know. This laptop uses Windows 7 and it appears me and a bunch of other laggards will shortly (January 20, 2020) be "upgrading" to Windows 10. I must admit I'm not looking forward to upgrarding at all.
While I admit Windows 10 is likely faster and more secure than Windows 7 two practices make me reluctant to update. One is the practice of major, build labeled updates resetting my preference settings back to default. The second is Microsoft considering a build out-of-date or obsolete 18 months after the release date.
Generally speaking it takes me anywhere from three to six months to get an operating system tweaked enough that it works the way I want it to. With the two practices above in place Windows management will be a constant task and irritant. I already feel the operating system requires too much maintenance, attention and is too intrusive. To me, the ideal computer operating system should be out of sight and out of mind. It should just work.
The Linux was half-joking. Does BIAB even run on Linux? And I wouldn't trust ANY operating system now to be immune from malware.
About the upgrade to Windows 10, I can give you some reassurance.
It's been many years now, but yes, Windows 10 did give me a performance boost, better than just a fresh install of anything would have caused.
It's also been many years since I fretted much about tweaks. Sure, there are a few like power options that any audio PC needs, but gone are the days of Black Viper tweaks. Windows 10 just works.
And you are correct about updates resetting some settings, but for all the griping, it's only in a couple of areas. For me, my HD audio driver keeps getting turned back for my video monitor (how stupid is that, when I have really good audio powered speakers), and sometimes I have to go back in and reexamine the Power Settings in Control Panel, such as making sure USB ports are not powered down to save power. It's annoying, sure, but not a massive task. Just something to gripe about, which is why you hear about it a lot. Overall, Windows 10 is by far the best operating I've used, and I go back to MS-DOS, UNIX, and IBM mainframes.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Just like some Apple users have workarounds to use Windows software programs on an Apple platform there are workarounds to use Windows software programs on the Linux operating system. In fact in some cases even hardware drivers can be used.
Another music forum I belonged to (today, Nov. 1 the forum moved to Facebook so my membership is now past tense)has numerous members with computers that use a Linux operating system. They constantly post about experiments they try so I had a good overview about what works and don't work.
Just like there are multiple ways to get Windows stuff to work on Apple and some ways work better than others the same holds true for Linux. There are numerous distributions of Linux and Linux with Wine seems to be the most friendly to music applications.
As with many things computer Linux has some geek element to it. Considering that I was just mouthing off in my last posting about the maintenance, care and attention Windows requires rest assured I've no desire to "geek out" with Linux.
I know I've said it before. I am not looking forward to upgrading my laptop to Windows 10; I've already tried twice and while it worked well for awhile, it started doing weird things as time went on. And there aren't proper drivers for everything on the laptop and HP won't provide them (because they want me to buy a new laptop).
While a new laptop would be wonderful, it's an expense I don't want to incur right now, so I may just have to live with the Win10 limitations on that particular machine. I know it's an old machine, but it's still solid...Intel i5 processor, 8GB RAM, dual 2TB hard drives. When I load Win10, I lose HDMI capability, so I can't connect it to the TV anymore (again, no driver).
My equally old desktop machines run Win10 fine, but laptops are just different creatures.
Alas!
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
John, you are absolutely right. As much as I evangelize Windows 10 over 7 & 8, it's a much different question with a name-brand laptop. Mine is a Toshiba. Those companies load their own drivers and it's difficult to overcome that.
Good luck.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
In most cases mainstream manufacturers like Lenovo, Toshiba, Dell and HP use off-the-shelf parts that are packaged to their specifications. The circuit boards maybe designed by the manufacturer but the chips used on the boards are off-the-shelf.
A utility application like +++ CPU ID +++ scans the circuit boards and identifies the chips. The application can display its findings or compile it into a report.
Once you know who makes the chips you can visit the chip manufacturer's website and download drivers that are specific to the chips.
My main (but not only) problem is that I have a dual video interface (high performance when running on AC and low power interface when running on battery) that auto switches. I bought the computer right when ATI Radeon became rebranded as AMD Radeon (which is the high performance driver) along with an Intel video interface for the lower power. And a year or so later, Windows 8 was released. Neither ATI/AMD nor Intel released new drivers, and HP flat out stated on their web site that they would not be providing updated drivers for Windows 8 (which also carried over into Windows 10), even though the laptop was only a little over a year old at the time.
There were a lot of folks unhappy at the time. There was even a developer in Russia who tried to create his own version of the dual driver, which worked for some models, but not for mine. I spent months trying to get Windows 8 to work properly on the machine. I later loaded Windows 10 when it came out (the free upgrade), but discovered similar issues with the video drivers as I had with Windows 8.
So when I load Windows 10, I get a somewhat new AMD driver, but it's not the right one and continuously has issues that force reboots, and in on case, I had to completely reload the OS. Similarly, I don't have a new driver for the HDMI interface as well.
HP's stated solution was, hey just spend another $1000 or so for a new machine.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
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