Poll: What operating systems (OSes) run your music production systems (Dec 2024)?

[dellboy]

ADAT in the states was an 80's thing, not a soul was using it in the 90's,

I am confused, do you mean ADAT, as in Alesis ADAT? If so, it was not released until around 1991. Have you got your dates mixed up?

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/alesis-adat/9503

[IvyBirds]

ADAT in the states was an 80's thing, not a soul was using it in the 90's, people were using pro tools for digital and recording to 2" tape.

I was at NAMM when ADAT was announced in 1991, and waited until 1992 for them to hit stores. It was mind-blowing at the time and everyone was amazed by it

ADAT didn't exist in the 1980s, home studios were using multi track cassettes and reel to reel

Large Studios were using digital multi track recording technologies by Sony, Mitsubishi, and New England Digital in the 1980s, but most mere mortals couldn't afford that for home or project studios

In the 1990s ADAT was EVERYWHERE because it was relatively reliable and affordable. For $4,000 you could record 8 tracks of CD quality digital Audio in a small rackmountable unit that could easily be expanded by adding another unit or two so you could get 16, or 24 channels that used relatively cheap and easy to find SVHS tapes

ADAT and the Mackie 8 Bus Mixer to feed it owned the 1990s project studio scene globally. I really don't understand how anyone who pretends to know about music and studio technology could claim "not a soul was using it in the 1990s", that's just horse shit

For less than $25,000 a project studio could have a 24 channel Mackie 8 Bus and feed that into 24 channels of ADAT. Then flip a switch on the 8 Bus and send any or all of those 24 ADAT channels back through the 8 Bus for mix down or over dubs. You could then mix the whole thing down to standard 2 Channel DAT and have a CD quality release

That was a game changer and was everywhere in the 1990s. So many fantastic records were recorded that way, even big releases. 16x Platinum selling "Jagged Little Pill" album by Alanis Morissette was recorded this way for example

ADAT was so popular in the 1990s, that the 8 channel "LightPipe" format that it used is still being used on many digital devices like Audio Interfaces

Eventually it got killed off by the growth of harddisk based recorders both stand alone and computer based but that wasn't until the late 1990s and into the 2000s. Even then it wasn't until the wide acceptance of DVD burning where you could burn several GBs worth of digital audio to a DVD disc that made that transition happen

[trmupstage]

I'm on Windows 11 running Nuendo. Having been recording since the 1980's, I truly appreciate the advancements. If I never have to work on tape again, I'm happy. I used to work on Otari and Tascam 1" 16 track often.
BTW, the ADAT was not great but it was so much better than the Tascam DA88. That had to be the very worst recording medium ever. The transport was so fragile. I used to do repair work for Tascam. Wow, that piece was a nightmare. People who long for the days of tape probably didn't live through them.

[machinesworking]

ADAT in the states was an 80's thing, not a soul was using it in the 90's,

I am confused, do you mean ADAT, as in Alesis ADAT? If so, it was not released until around 1991. Have you got your dates mixed up?

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/alesis-adat/9503

OK yeah, my mistake, I was using ADAT like digital mastering via VCR style digital recording masters in the 80's, but I moved to Seattle Washington in the 90's and this area never really got into ADAT machines in recording studios anyway, it was all about 16-24 track 2" tape and Pro Tools for editing in the later part of the decade. one friend had an ADAT machine in around 98, but 4 years later everything was on the computer.

I was friends with a guy who worked for a modern at the time digital video and audio multimedia service that worked with big businesses around the Bay Area, he recorded our masters onto VCR style tape, and that was the first and last I had used anything that was related to ADAT type recording.
This would have been 1986, so his company was on the bleeding edge.
https://www.preservationsound.com/2013/ ... n-the-80s/

[BONES]

Looking at Cool edit, it's a two track recorder, I think this is definitely a case where you were working harder. By 2001 I was recording vocals, samplers, guitar and hardware synths into DP without having to transfer from my MIDI sequencing environment.

Yeah, I could do that with the Trinity, thanks to it's two track recorder/sampler add-on. The first thing we ever released as NOVAkILL was done exactly that way. But recording was a zero priority for us back then. In fact, if we hadn't got into working ITB, it's likely we'd never have got around to recording an album at all. So many of my favourite local bands from the 80s never released anything and, as you know, I f**king hate doing it so recording never mattered. Until it got us a slot on a festival overseas, then it kind of became a thing for us.

Cool Edit 95 had a 4-track plugin option that I'd bought and used through to our third album. We only started recording vocals directly into Orion about 8 or 9 years ago. Even now, I don't see much advantage in it, as recording is such a different and separate process anyway. I still record into a separate project, one optimised for a headphone mix that won't print through to the vocal takes, so doing it in a separate application only requires the extra step of rendering that special mix out.

I think probably because I had seen what Pro Tools could do with audio files in the 90's and already was using a computer for my sequencer it just wasn't much of a jump to going with a full DAW experience. I was already using a DAW in the 90's, I just wasn't recording the audio into it.

With the Z1 and recorder boards, the Korg Trinity was a full-fledged DAW in hardware. The external SCSI drive made it a bit unwieldy but it got the job done.

[machinesworking]

But recording was a zero priority for us back then. In fact, if we hadn't got into working ITB, it's likely we'd never have got around to recording an album at all. So many of my favourite local bands from the 80s never released anything and, as you know, I f**king hate doing it so recording never mattered.

Ugh, at least half the bands I was in over the years had this fate. So many great bands I loved from SF CA and Seattle that went unnoticed and let's be clear here, the main thing most famous bands had was PR and sales skills. To this day I do some contract work for one of the more famous managers of multiple bands from Seattle. IMO the whole Grunge thing was a shit show and the two best bands TAD and the Melvins didn't have attractive front men, that's the music industry in a nut shell.

With the Z1 and recorder boards, the Korg Trinity was a full-fledged DAW in hardware. The external SCSI drive made it a bit unwieldy but it got the job done.

In the end that's all that matters. I didn't record anything on my own until 2001, was using a DP as a MIDI sequencer and an Emaxx III, everything was in flppy disks and scuzzy when I got an E6400.

One thing that's really true, even mediocre bands have a Bandcamp and some physical evidence of their existence. Yes there's massive amounts of trash, but at least if you loved some local band from a few years ago there's some recordings.

[dellboy]

ADAT in the states was an 80's thing, not a soul was using it in the 90's,

I am confused, do you mean ADAT, as in Alesis ADAT? If so, it was not released until around 1991. Have you got your dates mixed up?

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/alesis-adat/9503

OK yeah, my mistake, I was using ADAT like digital mastering via VCR style digital recording masters in the 80's, but I moved to Seattle Washington in the 90's and this area never really got into ADAT machines in recording studios anyway, it was all about 16-24 track 2" tape and Pro Tools for editing in the later part of the decade. one friend had an ADAT machine in around 98, but 4 years later everything was on the computer.

I was friends with a guy who worked for a modern at the time digital video and audio multimedia service that worked with big businesses around the Bay Area, he recorded our masters onto VCR style tape, and that was the first and last I had used anything that was related to ADAT type recording.
This would have been 1986, so his company was on the bleeding edge.
https://www.preservationsound.com/2013/ ... n-the-80s/

Interesting, thanks.

I found this 1986 article in Sound on Sound (thanks muzines) about the Sony 501 ES, and seems you could buy two or more of these machines and bounce digital audio around without loss of quality.

https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/sony ... 1-es/11501

[audiojunkie]

Just great! Some admin moved my poll to the Everything Else section and deleted my posts requesting that people vote. I made sure I stayed in the relative topics. Now no one will see it here.

[audiojunkie]

I was hoping to get up to 500 participants. Can't they see that this is useful information? Can't they see that I've always tried to only do the poll once per year? It's not like I'm flooding KVRAudio year-round with this poll. Sad...

[EnGee]

I was hoping to get up to 500 participants. Can't they see that this is useful information? Can't they see that I've always tried to only do the poll once per year? It's not like I'm flooding KVRAudio year-round with this poll. Sad...

You can write a link to the thread with a concise description in your signature, so people see it whenever you post.

I think it belongs to computer setup more than everything else.

[BONES]

... let's be clear here, the main thing most famous bands had was PR and sales skills. To this day I do some contract work for one of the more famous managers of multiple bands from Seattle. IMO the whole Grunge thing was a shit show and the two best bands TAD and the Melvins didn't have attractive front men, that's the music industry in a nut shell.

Yep. I went to the same school as half the guys from INXS, who were a year above me or a year below. They were desperate nobodies, getting totally ignored supporting Midnight Oil at a local pub. Then they got management, who changed their name to INXS. Suddenly every telegraph pole in Sydney was plastered with posters and even though most people thought it was pronounced "inks", they were suddenly successful. But they were no better than a dozen other bands doing the rounds in Sydney at the time.

One thing that's really true, even mediocre bands have a Bandcamp and some physical evidence of their existence. Yes there's massive amounts of trash, but at least if you loved some local band from a few years ago there's some recordings.

There are also a lot of old songs that get posted to YouTube. Here are a couple from bands I used to love, who never released anything beyond a single or two. This first one isn't even the A side, which is strangely more frustrating that not having anything. At least I got hold of a bootleg recording of one of their gigs that's OK quality.


You can hear how good this sounds, somebody obviously spent a lot of money on production. I know they recorded an album but apparently it never got past the multi-track stage. So sad, these guys played 7 nights a week for several years and they were so good at what they did. That it all came to pretty much nothing is a travesty.



This one is a good example of the extent of the usefulness of an SH-101. The production quality ain't great, they obviously paid for it themselves.

[audiojunkie]

I was hoping to get up to 500 participants. Can't they see that this is useful information? Can't they see that I've always tried to only do the poll once per year? It's not like I'm flooding KVRAudio year-round with this poll. Sad...

You can write a link to the thread with a concise description in your signature, so people see it whenever you post.

I think it belongs to computer setup more than everything else.

Hehe! That's true. But that's my copy protection protest signature that I've had for a decade. It still rings as true today as it did then.

I wasn't happy about the change, but I don't want to piss off the mods either, so I'll just let it go and not worry about it. It still has provided some very interesting information!

[mjolnir]

I'm a long term Linux user since about Windows Vista (i used to be a long term windows user).
However, I really miss the Windows XP SP2 days and system. That was the most stable for my DAW use.
Ever since, I got suckered into doing too much system admin work when I just want to do music.

This year, I finally learned a different Linux and it's been stable, but most of my favorite plugins only run on Windows.

So I can say that I kinda wish that I hadn't switched to Linux. But every time I look at Windows it disgusts me and I usually delete it.

Probably the best solution would be dual boot.

[FranklyFlawless]

Depends on your tolerance.

[BONES]

I'm a long term Linux user since about Windows Vista (i used to be a long term windows user).
However, I really miss the Windows XP SP2 days and system. That was the most stable for my DAW use.
Ever since, I got suckered into doing too much system admin work when I just want to do music.

That's weird because I found XP required a lot more f**king about than any recent versions of Windows. To be fair, that's mostly about computing power, not the OS, but still, I don't miss the XP days one little bit. I haven't done the tiniest bit of tweaking of anything in Windows since about Windows 8, really. It all just works, so I leave it alone.

So I can say that I kinda wish that I hadn't switched to Linux. But every time I look at Windows it disgusts me and I usually delete it.

Don't you think that's a bit of the tail wagging the dog? My philosophy is to use the OS that supports all the applications I want to use. The OS is irrelevant, what matters is the software I want to run on it. The OS's job is to get out of the way and let me do my work and Windows does that well enough. I've been down the dual-booting path and it is a giant PITA that amplifies all your problems, rather than solving them.

Ultimately, it's what Churchill said about Democracy - Windows is the worst operating system ever, except for all the other operating systems.