Update and Cross Fingers

[billroper]

My primary home machine has been running Vista Ultimate since I built it. The Vista updating process has been getting uglier and uglier for months now and takes a long time to load anything that comes down from Windows Update.

I decided it was time to bite the bullet yesterday and pulled the upgrade copy of Windows 7 Ultimate off the shelf to update the machine. It took a while, but it installed.

Then it pulled 83 updates. Now it's pulling down Windows 7 SP1.

So far, so good.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed. (And it's damnably hard to type this way...)

Comments

[tollermom]

Win7 is sooooooo much better than Vista. You'll like it!

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Ditto over here. I'm still running Vista on my laptop, and I still hate it on my laptop. The main desk machine has been ever so much happier since it went directly from XP to Win7/64-bit.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

If there are 83 updates to Windows 7 Ultimate, then it's hardly very ultimate at all, is it?

[bedlamhouse]

Echo the thumbs-up on Win 7. It loads so fast compared to Vista and XP, with a drastically smaller services load, that I am contemplating the (expensive) move of my recording PC sooner rather than later.

[billroper]

I can understand that. Watch out for missing drivers for your sound card!

[bedlamhouse]

Yeah, I already know they don't exist for Win7 64, so I will need to upgrade my ADAT interface. I'm watching for either a good eBay used RME PCIe all-in-one or a Digiface with the PCIe interface, or I may move to a MOTU.

[billroper]

The little RayDAT card that I picked up seems good so far. Jeff Bohnhoff is also using it and seems to like it.

My long-term plan for when the d8b dies is to pick up an RME AES/EBU to ADAT converter and use it to interface my outboard gear to Cubase via the RayDAT card. I've already got a digital patchbay, so I can punch pretty much any piece of digital gear over to the RME converter and go.

Dave Ifversen recently picked up a MOTU unit used, so he might have some thoughts about those.

[bedlamhouse]

Specs for RayDAT don't show an ADAT SYNC, which I tend to end up using if things are too noisy to bring all tracks down at once - is it just not mentioned that the sync exists?

The good thing about the Digiface is it is external and has multiple interface types available so if/when I get beyond ADAT I can just switch.

[billroper]

It doesn't have an ADAT Sync input, but the claim is that it locks up well enough to the ADAT clock signal that it doesn't need one, if I understand correctly. I haven't tried a transfer from ADAT yet, so I can't speak definitively, but you might check in their forums and see what they have to say.

Of course, I also have an old DataSync2 unit that I use to translate between ADAT sync and MMC/MTC, so my mileage may vary a whole lot. :)

My thought is that ADAT lightpipe is going to be ubiquitous for a long time, so all I need to do is drop in whatever external converter that I need to get to the lightpipe format. Right now, that's a d8b, but it could be a different RME converter box at some future date.

And if I decided to go nuts and find a used Kurzweil KSP8 with an ADAT card, I could just plug it in now. :)

[bedlamhouse]

Of course, I also have an old DataSync2 unit that I use to translate between ADAT sync and MMC/MTC, so my mileage may vary a whole lot. :)

This. The purpose of the ADAT sync isn't for the sync of the individual digital streams (the first channel of the lightpipe does that), it's to keep the time code.

[billroper]

I'd just pick up a DataSync2 then. The things are dirt cheap on eBay.

Well, when they're on eBay. I see none there at the moment. *sigh* I put a spare away a couple of years ago, just in case mine decided to belly up.

But here's one on Craigslist for $50...

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

It's even harder to use the mouse with your fingers crossed.