I agree with Herb and Jeff. I've just recently upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10 into an All in One desktop with 16 gig of ram. One thing I did before hand and knowing I would soon be migrating is I began to purchase software that was incompatible with running smoothly on my old machine, that would work on my upgraded system once I did purchase it. I purchased several software programs and upgrades catching them on sale when they were drastically discounted for short periods of time. These purchases included SampleTank Max suite and Studio One 4 Professional saving a considerable sum of money in the process as well as spreading the cost of the upgrade over a period of time rather than all at once.


My setup is much better than the old. I only have two complaints with Win 10 and those issues are likely to my inexperience with the OS but the Realtek audio sucks big time, is unstable and the OS keeps 'stealing' it and changing settings and the other complaint is I detest all of the commercials and sales offer popping up on my screen randomly.

I took the opportunity of the computer upgrade to also upgrade my hardware. I purchased a Presonus 192 audio interface and a Presonus Faderport 8. They integrate very tightly with S1-4 pro but after installing them, testing to make sure everything was working, I re-boxed them and off to the garage they went until I recently sent them on long term loan to a friend that also has a home studio and uses Studio One.

It's a great setup but I could never get comfortable with it. My workflow with Studio One has been so ingrained using the keyboard and mouse, I could not get use to working with the Faderport 8. While it will do almost everything, I had trouble with thinking about what it would do after I had already completed the task with the mouse or keyboard.

For others that may consider an interface and controller upgrade, consider a mixer/interface as well. I also have a Soundcraft Signature 22mtk mixer/interface and it is much easier to setup, more stable, provides more than adequate routing options, 5 monitor mixes, 4 subgroups, true analog summing, true latency free monitoring, Pro quality, on board Fx's and is a 24/22 audio interface that is simple to route back and forth between the device and DAW.

In my case, I prefer the mixer/interface to the interface/DAW workflow and the superior connection reliability. For me, I have the benefit of familiarity of previously using analog boards but also appreciate that although I'll never likely need them, I've gained the benefit of having 24 inputs versus the Presonus 192's 8 inputs at 2/3's savings in purchase price. Although the Presonus 192 has converters that capture at higher resolution, that is a feature I would never have need for in my studio. 48K is more than adequate for anything I'll ever do. The preamps are comparable between the two as is the interface.

BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.