Workaround Solution for Win7/8 software

[Jeff Scott]

Hey folks...thought I'd share a solution to keeping current with new Software while running an XP DAW system. Like many of you...my main DAW machine is running XP Pro as it's OS. For both SAC and SAW......its rock solid stable. Though I am tempted to upgrade to a newer MB and current OS in order to take advantage of ....let's say Thunderbolt or USB3 or 16 or 32meg of RAM... the cost is outweighing the neccesity as my current rig works great.

However...a lot of my plugins / Software add-ons are no longer supporting XP and we are forced to use a min. of a WIN7 operating system.

On the recommendations of MR es335 here on the forum...I purchased Vienna Ensemble Pro5 (VEP5) and loaded it onto a Win7 machine that I had left over from a work computer upgrade. VEP5 allows various computers to connect to each other via a Gigabyte LAN connection and allows audio and midi to flow between these computers. You can even connect Mac's and PC's in a seamless system. The latency is very, very low...around 1ms if i recall.

The great thing is I can now use several pieces of Software in the supported Win7 enviroment and record and playback the audio in my main SAW / XP DAW. The new EZ Drummer 2 works flawlessly this way. As well...the Win7 slave computer is running in 64 bit and utilizing a much higher RAM count than possible with my XP machine...a great way to implement Software and Orchestral that use a lot of memory for samples.

Great solution...paid around $250.00 if I recall. Again....much thanks to Mr. es335 for his help and advice in getting this all set up.

[bcorkery]

I echo your appreciation for Mr es335's help on this forum!

[mr_es335]

Hello,
Thank you both very much for your comments! They are very much appreciated. And the feelings are indeed mutual...

Note: One point that is worth mentioning is the low latency of this software. All that SAW/SAC see is the plugin - with all of the work being handled by the Slave. VEPRO has proven to more stable that other means that I have used - such as FXTeleport or jBridge. In fact, when I used it, I never had a crash!

VEPRO seemlessly handles either 32-bit or 64-bit plugins as well. What this means is that you can do ALL of your plugin installs on the Slave system - and then have SAW/SAC connect to the Slave via the VEPRO plugin. Pretty slick indeed!

[Carl G.]

Hello,
Thank you both very much for your comments! They are very much appreciated. And the feelings are indeed mutual...

Note: One point that is worth mentioning is the low latency of this software. All that SAW/SAC see is the plugin - with all of the work being handled by the Slave. VEPRO has proven to more stable that other means that I have used - such as FXTeleport or jBridge. In fact, when I used it, I never had a crash!

VEPRO seemlessly handles either 32-bit or 64-bit plugins as well. What this means is that you can do ALL of your plugin installs on the Slave system - and then have SAW/SAC connect to the Slave via the VEPRO plugin. Pretty slick indeed!
Already bought a new machine last year (mostly for video), and this opens up new ideas of keeping SAC/SAW on the XP machine.
Add my thanks too!

[Bruce Callaway]

FWIW, from another point of view. I just built a new DAW with an ASUS Z79-A motherboard with an Intel i7 4790K and the thing just flies along. I already had two SSD drives. I installed the new RME drivers and all good. The new HDSP setup is not the same as the previous so read the manual.

The good part was Win 8.1 recognised my existing C drive and all I had to do was reactivate Windows and Waves. All in all, a very quick and rather painless activity :)

It cut the SAC and SAW CPU loads in more than half from my previous system. I turned off hyperthreading but SAC/SAW were working ok with it on in my initial tests.

[mr_es335]

Brude,

It cut the SAC and SAW CPU loads in more than half from my previous system. I turned off hyperthreading but SAC/SAW were working ok with it on in my initial tests.....Great news Bruce!

PS: I thought though that CPU loads worked in reverse "'cause of being down south?" (Hee...Hee!!!)

[Bruce Callaway]

Brude,
....Great news Bruce!

PS: I thought though that CPU loads worked in reverse "'cause of being down south?" (Hee...Hee!!!)Yeah, when we produce an album down here, we have northern and southern hemisphere panning setups ;)

[dbarrow]

Using Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 could you have backing tracks running on another computer's DAW and have them show up in SAC? How does the audio come across the network to where it is accessible to SAC/SAW? Through a VST plugin?

[mr_es335]

Hello,

Using Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 could you have backing tracks running on another computer's DAW and have them show up in SAC? How does the audio come across the network to where it is accessible to SAC/SAW? Through a VST plugin?...I have not tried this personally...but this should be able to be accomplished. VEPRO is such a great piece of software!

[mr_es335]

Hello,

If you had a VST Wave/MP3 Player loaded on the host system, then you could have the backing tracking(s) on the host system - with the slave system seeing that plugin as if it were a local plugin and with the audio being streamed to the slave system.

Hope this helps?