JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum Windows 7 recording issues

Something about windows 7 that causes problems with daws, at least for me.

If I record a midi track for example, I cant hear the source. In previous windows versions, there was something called microsoft wave synth, I no longer seem to have that. All I have is the volume control for my sound card, but nothing else.

I presume the problem is the sound card is playing the system sounds and cant play the midi sounds at the same time, and therefore, I cant hear the midi sounds. so what is the default wave player for windows 7? I dont seem to have any on my new laptap

Maybe not related to your problem Rock Star:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/193255

Best, John

I looked on my wife's Windows 7 machine and saw no MIDI sequencer. She has Realtek as her sound card, but there is no mention of MIDI in the control panel. That's all i know!

Thanks John. I think that is for windows 98. I think windows 7 simply does not have one.

Thanks Colin,

Yes that was the conclusion I drew too. I also have the reatek.

I think im suppose to use a synth in the daw itself, butbthe one I have in sonar is roland tts, which delays like crazy when it plays.

I dont know why MS messes with some of their good functions. Like for example, if you have a video made in windows movie player of previous versions, you cant reopen and edit in the new one.

I guess they have to justify charging for a new version every few years. Never had this problem anywhere

Well, I have windows 7 and Sonar X1 Producer.
In edit - preferences - midi output there is an option to enable
Microsoft GS wavetable synth. However, I don't have any midi keyboards so I don't know if it works. Good luck.
Vic

I bought a Hewlett Packard Elite Tower, and despite it's performance, many DAW's do not interface well with windows 7 and even worse with windows 8. Microsoft is chasing Apple's vision, but has not zeroed in on what their users are craving. For music, nothing can beat mac. I went on ebay and bought an Imac 27" with Intel I7, 2.93 GHZ, 2TB hard drive, and 16 GB of ram for 1250.00 delivered. The abilities of this machine pays for itself after 3 demos, costing 100 for vocals. This machine works super quickly and flawlessly. The future is here, but unfortunately, the vision of Bill Gates has not kept pace. For music, nothing is better than Mac.....

I use Sonar Producer in my PC and I find it works flawlessly. I have also modified my PC with a new soundcard with up to 24/96 and an Echo 12 firewire with 24/192 quality. And I have used them both together @24/48. I also have a high end video card added and it renders movies very quickly. I get very few crashes and the ones I do get are always from third party apps mostly when editing video.

There is a big difference between windows 7 and 8 though. The audio engine has been modified and not for the best. If I do upgrade to Win 8 I will have to move up from sonar X1 to X2 just to compensate. But Windows is always a problem till they service pack it. Then it usually runs stellar.

My next computer is going to be a Rain with Windows 7. They will do the bios tuning which is very important to make a PC into a audio/video monster.

I know some guys who have a dedicated PC or laptop for music production and use it for nothing else. MIDI can be a whole can of worms. The standard soundcards supplied with most computers cannot handle top end music production especially MIDI. Latency is also a problem so some guys install a specially stripped down version of good old Windows XP where the rubbish not needed has been removed or disabled which reduces any background programs running and is more friendly towards a daw. I have a copy if anyones wants it. I have no experience with Macs but am of the opinion that they are no better than PCs spec wise and cost a heck of a lot more. Most folk I know do NOT use Macs for that very reason. Get a good spec PC and a high grade external soundcard and interface then most of the problems are solved.