Future of Windows in pro audio

[jamcat]

I’m actually not a big fan of techno at all. I’m more into styles like Shoegaze, Dreampop, Triphop, Indie, Ethereal, Post Rock, and Dub.

Cool! We’re actually pretty musically adjacent. I do post-punk. I’m all about real instruments and lots of effects.

[audiojunkie]

I’m actually not a big fan of techno at all. I’m more into styles like Shoegaze, Dreampop, Triphop, Indie, Ethereal, Post Rock, and Dub.

Cool! We’re actually pretty musically adjacent. I do post-punk. I’m all about real instruments and lots of effects.

I like Post Punk! I have a collection of 1600+ CDs (I never did albums), that cover everything from the 60s to today. But the majority of it all is 80s and 90s. And, a large chunk of that is post punk. I’ve just gotten a bit bored with it lately, but I still like it. I’ll give you an example: I’ve got over 40 CDs (including bootlegs, side projects, live, etc) of the artists behind Warsaw/Joy Division/New Order. They used to be my favorite artists. Side projects like Revenge, Monaco, Electronic, The Other Two, etc. While only Joy Division was Post Punk, I still have have tons of other obscure and forgotten favorites from that era.

[PAK]

Will things get better over time as I learn the OS?

Yes. Arturia installs a helper app, which should reduce the need to enter passwords (for its installers) once it’s added by their download manager. To do things you’re used to, with Windows, save a list of Mac OS keyboard shortcuts. EG Where’s the “show hidden files” option in Finder?! CMD+Shift+Full Stop toggles viewing hidden files. Get used to trying modifier keys (ctrl, alt, Windows key on a non-Mac keyboard) when selecting / right-clicking stuff to see extra options.

EG Selecting multiple files and right-clicking, you’d have to press “alt” to change “Get info” to “Show Inspector” on Mac OS IF you want it to behave like “Properties” on Windows. These are two quick examples to assure you that you can usually do the same things, it’s just there’s different ways to trigger them.

Finder has a few places to change settings. The top menu bar (Settings, along with the View Menu) being the main one. I’d recommend setting Toolbar, path bar, and status bar, to on at first, to help you navigate. If you select “View Options” from a folder, you can also set how individual folders appear. These should help you get Finder more towards something you’re ok with, and get folders under control. I suspect you had it set to "Hide Toolbar". Doing this causes Finder to constantly open new Windows when you click folders, which is annoying as hell IMO

For window management, as Jamcat said, the red circle doesn’t always close something. Try using Cmd+w and Cmd+q (Mac OS equivalent of Alt-f4) on apps to make better sense of the difference between each. With that you’ve got most of the basics..

Now it’s mostly a question of getting used to where the OS puts things (User Library Vs System Library folder etc) and the permissions system. For example, if you right-click your VST folder, select “Get info”, and add your user account with Read&Write permissions at the bottom of that Window, suddenly it’s going to bug you for passwords less if you mess with anything in your VST folder. Of course, that also reduces the security of that folder.

Any remaining weirdness is mostly because Mac OS can set extended flags on files where there’s no obvious way for you to see this info. The most common issue is a quarantine flag (AKA It won’t let you run something you’ve downloaded.) You can use an app, like Xattred, to see these extended properties, and strip attributes (like quarantine etc) if you don’t like command lines. https://eclecticlight.co/xattred-sandstrip-xattr-tools/

It will make more sense after a while. As soon as you stray from simple use Mac OS tends to show its Unix-like underbelly where Windows shields users more from permissions stuff (arguably at the expense of security.. ) But there’s lots of free / inexpensive apps to help make things more the way YOU want. EG I personally prefer “Find Any File” over the Macs own search system.

[legendCNCD]

the infinite fight of Windows vs OSX vs Linux and x86 vs Arm to me is me most stupid thing in the world, just only a chitchat for religious fanboys.

I use the 3 os (with Cubase, Protools and Logic) like i still using an Atari ST with Notator, an Amiga with Bars'n'Pipe and Protracker and... i have fun with all the computers

Damn I wish we had a third desktop among Win and Mac, that would be Amiga OS

[legendCNCD]

Doing this causes Finder to constantly open new Windows when you click folders, which is annoying as hell IMO

Finder IS annoying as hell IMHO too As said before, as long as Live is on the screen, the underlying OS if its Win or Mac does not matter. When it does matter is opening and saving files

[VladK]

Finder and Windows Explorer will never reach the level of convenience and sophistication Midnight Commander or Norton Commander had (and have).

[lfm]

Finder and Windows Explorer will never reach the level of convenience and sophistication Midnight Commander or Norton Commander had (and have).

..and MS degrade the tools with each major version they release almost.

On XP you could have desktop folders, even nested, that only had a frame as nice container for icons, too feel organized.
- later versions you always have navigation pane open, a global setting
- you can turn navigation pane off, but then it's off when using it browsing files on disk as well
- that was kept individuall in XP
- you always get this huge clumpsy Explorer covering entire screen for desktop folders

Paint on W11 compared to W10
- you have to use menu for regular stuff like Paste
- it was all layed out in W10
- you have to use menu more in W11

Games like Solitaire were now worse and only in Store and then full of ads from third party.
- they want you to be familiar with Store so you purchase more
- and you have settings that does not stick, like 3 cards at a time

Picture viewer, or what it is called, is now an app that is seriously slow so you don't want that.
- and worse options than XP had

Notepad in W11 does not produce a '*' on file name in caption bar as you modified content.
- they just had to make it worse
- not sure if fixed now, I stopped updates over a year ago

Taskmanager viewing cores and utilization graph
- in W11 you can hardly see one core's boundaries it's all washed out
- W10 you still had a nice frame fore each core

All from the top of my head, not sure about the decisions and why this is happening?
- if it's supposed to work better for Surface with touch screen or something

XP I had from 2003 to 2020, then power supply died, and I miss it still.....browsers were less and less compatible with internet, but still great OS.....

[PAK]

Finder IS annoying as hell IMHO too As said before, as long as Live is on the screen, the underlying OS if its Win or Mac does not matter. When it does matter is opening and saving files

Hehe. Well, even where they’re different, the point is they can usually be made to do the same stuff. The ideal is that the OS gets out of the way. But the real world tends to come with many annoying complications, meaning certain choices end up mattering more than they probably should.

Unfortunately, software lives in that imperfect world. A tool like Cubase, which should be the same regardless of platform, used to run better on the PC. Nowadays, for whatever reasons, it seems to have flipped a bit towards the Mac since the changes at version 12. The opposite might be true for another piece of software. Some of it depends on what a dev is using since, regardless of any “we test all platforms” assurances, they’re more likely to fix issues on what they daily drive themselves, and an awful lot of them seem to be on Macbooks lately.

Throwing more than one core type, into the mix, certainly complicated things for DAW’s. Added, to various legacy considerations, it does mean there’s more variables in getting low latency audio working smoothly on the PC side, regardless of OS. On the Mac side - for better or worse - there is (ultimately) but one main variable.. Apple.

Though Microsoft, IMO, haven’t treated audio users well. They’re only just starting to tackle a more reliable way to get low latency audio, without jumping through hoops, in 2026. Those hoops not just being all the power management crap, but also having to purchase certain brands (RME etc) just to get good performance! There IS quite a contrast to Mac OS here since, lately, trouble free 32 samples operation is kind of the default expectation for any class compliant device on Mac..

[BertKoor]

Finder and Windows Explorer will never reach the level of convenience and sophistication Midnight Commander or Norton Commander had (and have).

And hence we have the Windows Total Commander and for all other platforms the Double Commander

Code: Select all

~$ brew install double-commander

[Tiles]

Ok, I'm none the wiser.

So if I'm not online, I can't use my PC?

Probably not. Perhaps you will be able to pirate some version of Windows for the 3rd world.

Of course you can. No pirated version necessary. You can go through the whole installation without any internet connection and with a local user. I have made me a Rufus boot stick for exactly that. Activating Windows 11 then requires an internet connection, but still doesn't require an microsoft account.

However, you loose in the moment when you use any of their services with an account and log in. Logging in to Visual Studio then connected my Windows installation with my email and user name. Not that this really worries me. It's pretty common these days. Apple, Google ...

[dellboy]

So I have turned off automatic updates on my Mac Mini M4, I have unchecked everything I can about updates - restarted, and yet still it keeps pestering me to update to Tahoe. I want to stay on Sequoia, what next can I do?

[PAK]

So I have turned off automatic updates on my Mac Mini M4, I have unchecked everything I can about updates - restarted, and yet still it keeps pestering me to update to Tahoe. I want to stay on Sequoia, what next can I do?

This should turn off Tahoe notifications for 10 years. To set it back just change the date to 2026 (Might need to go to Settings / Privacy & Security / Full Disk Access and give Terminal permission so it can write the change). Then reboot. Note it will still allow Sequoia updates.

Code: Select all

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist MajorOSUserNotificationDate -date "2036-01-01 00:00:00 +0000”

Or you can do a 90 day policy deferral instead. See here.

[dellboy]

So I have turned off automatic updates on my Mac Mini M4, I have unchecked everything I can about updates - restarted, and yet still it keeps pestering me to update to Tahoe. I want to stay on Sequoia, what next can I do?

This should turn off Tahoe notifications for 10 years. To set it back just change the date to 2026 (Might need to go to Settings / Privacy & Security / Full Disk Access and give Terminal permission so it can write the change). Then reboot. Note it will still allow Sequoia updates.

Code: Select all

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist MajorOSUserNotificationDate -date "2036-01-01 00:00:00 +0000”

Or you can do a 90 day policy deferral instead. See here.

Thanks for your help.

[BertKoor]

Not sure anybody mentioned this before, but Windows has some changes in the works for better MIDI support.
viewtopic.php?t=627496

[dellboy]

Not sure anybody mentioned this before, but Windows has some changes in the works for better MIDI support.
viewtopic.php?t=627496

I have been using it on the beta channel, and it works well for multi-client MIDI - no audio improvements that I could detect though. It is some way off from what Apple Core Audio currently offers. Apple Core Audio works out of the box for midi and audio. Linux, can do multi-client MIDI and audio, but personally, I find it hard to set up. It's good that there is now a choice developing.