My last music computer DAW has been running for a long time. And like everybody else I added bits and pieces, trials, bought software, hardware, tried free instruments and fx and twiddled around until everything ran in more or less perfect harmony to my need. Unfortunately a production system costs money – and, frankly, it really sums up through the years.
I am a PC user, and regarding my music system I was perfectly happy with running XP in 32bit. Surely 32bit has its limitations, like not being able to address more than 4Gb of memory. But I could live with it, having it tweaked to the max through the years.
When Vista came out there was a first temptation to change to 64bit but the music production market was slow in developing software and drivers then, and so you could read all the horror stories about not working software and endless tuning session. I refrained. It simply was not worth the effort. Vista came and went and Win7 seemed to be the better alternative. Was it time to change to 64bit? I calculated thoroughly and decided to wait, because it still meant to abandon quite a lot of hard- and software I like(d). Yes, I know, I could have left it in 32bit but that counters the whole idea, doesn’t it?
Anyway, around Christmas 2011 my fortress crumbled. I took the time again and surfed the internet for blogs, opinions, advice and reports of the brave who had done it before me.