Producing music on a PC involves at least four major concurrent applications: the Operating system, sound processor, sequencer and synthesizer. And more if you use more than one synthesizer.
Naturally to get the most out of the system we often push that combination to the limits and we experience system crashes on a regular basis.
In our case the operating system is XP with all the available updates. Hard restarts often require a second restart to get the mouse cursor moving but many music crashes will only respond to a hard restart. Our sound processor is Creamware both the software application and the DSP processors on the sound card - we have our ticks and moans about it but when it is up and running it is very very good - it can even handle a little bit of sound processing overload without throwing a hissy fit. When they occur these often they involve loosing the ASIO sound interface i.e. silence.
We use Cubase SE as our sequencer and that fits our needs very nicely but that too has hysterics from time to time on its own account. The interface with the synthesizers is called VST and is another one of the weaker links in this complex chain. It offers enormous flexibility but at a cost. This is definitely software where it pays to keep saving your work as you go along.
We use two main synthesizers the Arturia Moog Modular V which provides the Syn Marimba as well as the obvious and offers hundreds of others. We also use a ROM Player called Ravity which provides the steel drum sounds and some of the other pads we use. Our Harp sounds come from a NuSoft application which is a software emulation of the physical instruments and the Celtic harp is particularly lovely. Of these the Moog is the most complex and processor hungry and occasionally goes belly up. But it is the most wonderful sound source that we could wish for. I don't think we would have got into this business it if it had not existed.
But you can see that we have an unstable three legged stool standing on an uneven floor so we get used to accidents happening and we make haste slowly. We are getting fairly close to completing the More Bach collection of arrangements and should complete the recordings next week.
Naturally to get the most out of the system we often push that combination to the limits and we experience system crashes on a regular basis.
In our case the operating system is XP with all the available updates. Hard restarts often require a second restart to get the mouse cursor moving but many music crashes will only respond to a hard restart. Our sound processor is Creamware both the software application and the DSP processors on the sound card - we have our ticks and moans about it but when it is up and running it is very very good - it can even handle a little bit of sound processing overload without throwing a hissy fit. When they occur these often they involve loosing the ASIO sound interface i.e. silence.
We use Cubase SE as our sequencer and that fits our needs very nicely but that too has hysterics from time to time on its own account. The interface with the synthesizers is called VST and is another one of the weaker links in this complex chain. It offers enormous flexibility but at a cost. This is definitely software where it pays to keep saving your work as you go along.
We use two main synthesizers the Arturia Moog Modular V which provides the Syn Marimba as well as the obvious and offers hundreds of others. We also use a ROM Player called Ravity which provides the steel drum sounds and some of the other pads we use. Our Harp sounds come from a NuSoft application which is a software emulation of the physical instruments and the Celtic harp is particularly lovely. Of these the Moog is the most complex and processor hungry and occasionally goes belly up. But it is the most wonderful sound source that we could wish for. I don't think we would have got into this business it if it had not existed.
But you can see that we have an unstable three legged stool standing on an uneven floor so we get used to accidents happening and we make haste slowly. We are getting fairly close to completing the More Bach collection of arrangements and should complete the recordings next week.