If It Ain't Broke...Audio Recording and Windows Vista

Hola y escuchame

I do a fair amount of remote work (recording and editing). You know, live concerts and such, and recently working with Dr. Pat Carrington (author of books like The Book of Meditation: The Complete Guide to Modern Meditation) on some of her EFT Meditation audio products. So I need a laptop that ALWAYS works and works well without glitches. I don't need a top of the line machine, just something that can record 4 tracks simultaneous (I usually use Cubase for this) without problems and something to run Wavelab for editing sessions. So I've been getting by with a used Dell with a P3 (that's right, less than a gig of processing power). And that's been fine. But during a recent concert recording, it started giving me troubles and then shortly thereafter the power cable started disconnecting randomly and I decided I needed a new laptop, pronto.
I checked around briefly and found a good price on a Toshiba Satellite A135-S2386 with an Intel Dual-Core processor and everything else I need (sans firewire, but let's not get greedy) for only $479. Problem: Windows Vista.

But really, I didn't see one laptop during my succinct search that was running XP, so Vista it is. I'd heard horror stories already about it but I figured it looks kinda like Mac OSX so how bad can it be? The answer: BAD.
I started up my new workstation and it dragged and dragged. Every time I clicked on something I got multiple boxes popping up asking if I really wanted to do that (even just running a program!) and God knows what was running in the background that I couldn't see! Not to mention that most of my audio hardware is not yet compatible with Vista.

So after a short affair with the "latest and greatest" from Microsoft, it was back to Windows XP for me. It was a pain getting the correct drivers for everything, but an evening of frustration is better than a year of anger working on a Vista laptop.

My suggestion to anyone thinking about upgrading just to get the newest thing: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I've been very happy with XP since I started using it about 5 years ago. Until my hardware requires it, I'm staying right where I am. Sorry Mr. Gates.


Studio construction is halted right now while I wait for the electrician to come in. I found a great guy to do the work, Terry Conrad of TL Conrad Electric, but these electrician types are BUSY! So I've just been doing what I can with running my audio cables between rooms and strengthening the frame-work. I may even get to putting a new exterior door in this week...stay tuned.

Right now I'm listening to a great album, Badly Drawn Boy The Hour of Bewilderbeast. Great melodies and great DIY production.

Rock on

Ben
www.javboyrecords.com