<<Keeping your main PC until it 'dies', and making it a lower priority than musical 'toys' seems like a bad idea to me Bob. Don't you make your living from PC based music?>>

True, but perhaps I haven't made myself clear enough. I sometimes don't type exactly what I should in the way that is easy for everyone to understand - I'm too close to the subject

My main computer is much newer, multi-core Intel, and lots of RAM. It has made for Win7 on it, but Win7 was brand new then and ThinkPads gave me an option to boot either in Win7 or XP, so I chose XP because after the Vista problems, I wasn't about to try Win7 since it had no reputation yet. The trade magazines were saying it was much better than Vista, but when things are pretty new, the trades are often overly enthusiastic. Sometimes the cutting edge is the bleeding edge. I'd like to wait at least until the first service pack has been released before I go with a new OS.

So while I will keep this computer until it goes belly-up, it won't be my main computer for that long. By the time it's time to 'meet its maker' it will be demoted to a function that my iPod can do, simply play mp3 files. And all those mp3 files will be backed up in multiple places, including 'the cloud' to be sure that if something happens, I can still make my living playing music.

My computers go from main, then get demoted to secondary status, the things that are more play than work and apps that I don't want on my main work computer. After that they get demoted again to a mp3 player for my backing tracks on stage, and for the last years of their life, they get demoted as a backup computer on stage. With the average life of a ThinkPad to be 8 years, that gives me about 2 years of life as a main computer.

As far as being a mp3 player on stage, my 2002 ThinkPad will still do that just fine, but it started to develop horizontal lines on the screen when moving the lid, so I retired that one years ago. High quality and high bit-rate MP3 files played through a good MP3-Audio interface and then into a nice PA system doesn't take much processing power. I suppose my old Win98 computer would do that well if I still had it (stripped everything but the OS and gave it to a nephew).

I have a feeling it's time to buy another one and make the chain of demotions. But since the 'secondary' computer is giving me that kind of trouble, I might not demote it and take a chance since the stage computer and the stage computer backup are not giving me any problems at all. Perhaps I'll play with Linux on it, that could be fun.

So I'm looking on the Lenovo site and doing some research to make sure I will be getting what I need. Win7 has been out long enough and has proven itself. I may as well get it before the brand new Win8 comes out. I hate brand new OS's because they are often buggy until they get the second or third service pack.

And actually, my main source of income is as a gigging musician http://www.s-cats.com. The BiaB aftermarket line is my 'moonlighting' job ("daylighting"??). And I love it. It brings in enough so that during the slow summer season I don't have to travel to keep making the mortgage payments. And I must say I've become a bit dependent on the "extra" income it brings in. If I wasn't moonlighting on BiaB I'd be doing something else musical to keep me here in the summer (I love Florida summers). If BiaB was my primary source of income, I'd probably have 100 style disks and 100 fake disks out by now.

Besides, the age of the computer should not affect the sound of the Real Tracks anyway. Audio is audio, I use a USB-Audio interface and play them back through a small pro PA set, and I admit they sound great. The small PA system is my back-up system in case the one for gigging fails. Samson Mixer, BBE Sonic Maximizer, QSC Power Amp, 3 way speakers.

The only problem I have with Real Tracks, Fruity Loops and other pre-recorded audio software is that it doesn't give me the ability to edit the instruments as much as I like to. Say if I wanted to change a couple of notes in the middle of a guitar part to insert a song-specific lick, it would be difficult if I had a similar guitar, similar amp, similar FX, similar recording studio, similar playing style and darn near impossible without all those things.

Perhaps I'm a minority, but I like to play with my musical software tools. And I like to play with them a lot. Audio loops allow some playing, but mostly cut and paste. I can't customize them to express my own artistic ideas (for better or for worse).

So RTs are a feature I don't use. There are other BiaB features I don't use, and that's OK, others enjoy them. I don't use the melodist, soloist, lyrics, Juke Box, and a few others. I mainly use it because it is the best audio-accompaniment program currently out here (and has been for decades), I use the harmony feature a lot, the piano roll from time to time and although I don't use it as a notation editor (I have Encore) I do refer to the notation windows a lot.

To me the features I don't use are like stations on the radio dial I don't care to listen to. They are for other ears. The features in BiaB that are not for me, are enjoyed by other people, and that's fine with me. I like BiaB for the features that I use, and I use them quite a bit.

And I show BiaB to a lot of people and send them to pgmusic.com. I do one-nighters mostly for yacht clubs, country clubs, and the retirement communities here in Florida (best pay, shortest hours) and often the person who is now retired and wants to start playing music again comes up and wants to know about computer music. I keep a copy of BiaB on my stage computers, and after the show will give them a tour and send them to you. I never tell them about real vs. midi track or anything else, I leave it up to them to decide what they are going to use.

As long as you don't abandon the MIDI part, I'm a happy camper.

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks