***The Sonar x64/Windows 7 x64 Install, Tweaks & Compatibility Thread***

Note: The following tweaks are used on my system and may not apply to yours do to software/hardware/workflow differences.  Most of these tweaks are harmless and can be reverted back to their original state at any time.  However, you assume all risks involved in performing them, as I will not be held responsible for any harm they may cause.  Hope this is not the case though, so good luck!
 
Before we begin though, I want to clarify that these tweaks are not limited to the 64 bit version of either Sonar nor Windows 7.  The purpose of this thread is mainly to aid those of you who want/plan to make the transition to a 64 bit system on Windows 7 in the near future, as well as to make this transition as painless as possible.  At the very least, it should serve to warn you about possible plugin incompatibility issues that you may encounter along the way.  Additionally, I wanted to conglomerate all of the tweaks that apply to the way we work in a DAW environment into one thread.  That way you get the whole story instead of just bits & pieces here and there.  Just skip to the end of this thread for a list of incompatible plugins in case the tweaks don't interest you.  Anyways, let's get started, shall we?
 
1- Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor:
Please, make sure you have the appropriate drivers for all you hardware before venturing into the 64 bit world.  Otherwise, your hardware will NOT work, and this includes everything from your audio interface all the way to your integrated network card.  This is why the best place to start is by installing the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor found here:
 
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx
 
With this tool, you'll find out if your PC is ready for Windows 7 or not.  It does this by pointing out which drivers are compatible with Windows 7 and which ones need to be upgraded.  Sometimes it may even tell you that Windows 7 drivers are available at the hardware manufacture's website if they're not already installed in your system.  In the cases where it does not find a compatible driver, you may have to either find them yourself by visiting the appropriate website to get them, or use Vista drivers for your hardware.  Usually, the latter case should work without any issues.  But, in cases where the Vista driver doesn't install properly, you'll need to install them in Vista compatibility mode by right-clicking on the driver's installer file and selecting "Properties".  In the "Compatibility" tab, put a check mark on "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and choose "Windows Vista". Click "OK" and run the installer.  Also, it is a good idea to save all of your system drivers in either a thumb drive or an external HDD (Hard Disk Drive) before installing the OS.  That way you'll have everything needed in case you are later not able to log online to find them.
 
2- Backup All Your Data:
This should be a given by now, but always back-up all of your data before installing an OS.  This includes Project Files, Audio files, Plugins presets, Color presets, MIDI Tool presets, Key Bindings, Track Templates, Project Templates and anything that applies.  In these cases is good to have an imaging tool like Acronis True Image so you can always go back to a previous state or even a previous OS in a flash.  By the way, you should ALWAYS do a fresh Operating Systems install, no upgrades.  This prevents having to reinstall the OS in case of file or system corruption.  A good reason why an imaging software is your friend :-)
 
3- System Reserved Partition:
Windows 7 creates a 100MB System Reserved partition on the main drive when it installs.  It does this whenever you're installing the OS into an unallocated disk space, or when you create a new partition out of an empty HDD.  You probably don't have this System Reserved partition if you already had partitions in your main drive, or if you formated the HDD before installing Windows 7.  Just go to Disk Management (Right-click "My Computer" and select "Manage") to verify if you have it.  Don't get me wrong though, this is actually a nice feature since it lets you troubleshoot the OS using a recovery environment called (WinRE) in case there is no OS disk available.  But some people may not want/need it.  If you already have Windows 7 installed in your system and didn't notice anything wrong, then don't worry about this.  I'm a very, VERY picky guy, which is why I insisted on getting rid of this System Reserved partition.  However, if you are about to install Windows 7 and don't want this partition to show up on your system drive then here's what to do:
 
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/08/20/hack-to-remove-100-mb-system-reserved-partition-when-installing-windows-7/
 
There are a few methods outlined in that link that can get rid of it after installation, but the easiest and most reliable way is the 3rd method before installing Windows 7.  Selecting "Cancel" when asked if you want to create a System Reserved partition does NOT avoid it.  Windows 7 still creates the System Reserved partition anyways.  The only way to avoid it is as outlines in the above link.  My advice is to do it before installing Windows 7.  I personally wouldn't try it after the fact.
 
Warning:  It has been reported that the System Partition will install on another of your drives if the main HDD is already partitioned.  You can avoid this by disabling all other drives from the BIOS before installing Windows 7.  Also, if you have a HDD docking station, the "System Reserved" partition will steal the drive letter normally associated with the docking station and move the partition with the content on it out to the next drive letter!  So be aware of that.
[Thanks to Fret Wiz for providing this info!]
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4- Driver Installation:
 
Now that Windows 7 has been installed in your system, we proceed to install all the drivers.  Remember to always start with the chipset drivers first before installing the rest.  After the chipset is installed, I personally follow with the video drivers, and go from there in no particular order.  However, and this is very important for those of you using FireWire interfaces. If you're experiencing any performance issues with your FireWire interface after installing Windows 7, then the following tweak may help you.  Before installing your interface's driver though, you'll need to enable the Windows Legacy FW driver first.  To do this, follow these steps (paraphrased from the RME website):
 
    * In Device Manager, double-click the 'IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers'
    * Right-click your FW 1394 controller and select 'Update Driver Software...'
    * Choose "Browse my Computer for driver software"
    * Choose "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer".  A list pops up that shows three entries:
 
............OHCI-compliant 1394 Host controller
............OHCI-compliant 1394 Host controller (legacy)
............OHCI-compliant Texas Instruments 1394-Host controller
 
    * From these three select: 'OHCI-compliant 1394 Host controller (legacy)'
    * Proceed to install the latest FW drivers for your audio interface 
 
In some cases, there are performance issues when using the new Windows 7 native FW driver, which is why it is recommened to use the old (legacy) one.  This issue is NOT present in any flavor of Windows Vista.
 
Note to FireFace 400/800 users:  This tweak is no longer necessary with the latest FireFace drivers v.2.998.  You'll also need the latest firmware for your device.  For more information, please go to the RME website and read post #26 of this thread: http://www.rme-audio.de/f...lt;/a></font>
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5- Black Viper's Windows 7 Super Tweaks: 
This is one of the best website for Windows tweaks on the net.  However, being that it is a general tweak site, there are some tweaks that don't apply to our way of working.  For example, I find that most of the Service Configuration tweaks don't apply to modern DAWs.  If you want to go for it, that's cool.  There is a comprehensive list of all the Windows Services that can be shut down, including profiles for "Safe", Tweaked and Bare-bones service tweaks here:  
  
www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm%3C/a%3E]http://www.blackviper.com...servicecfg.htm%3C/a%3E
 
But, again, I really didn't notice any difference in performance when I tried them.  On the contrary, I thought it made the system unstable (at least in my experience).  Plus, sometimes there's an application that you may use which may need a specific service (or services) to be ON.  Then you have to go back to enable it (them) again.
 
However, the ones that I do recommend are the following tweaks, with the exceptions of turning off the Aero Themes.  Number Five is basically covered above and Number Eight is a "do at your own risk" type of deal.  Here are the tweaks: 
  
http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/supertweaks.htm
 
UAC or User Account Control is an optional tweak.  Actually, all of these tweaks are optional.  But some people find UAC useful.  I personally don't.  I don't put my DAW at risk and only go online to places I know such as the Cakewalk forum or to update my drivers and register software.  I've never had any problems having this feature OFF the entire year I was using Vista, so I just turn it OFF.  Just read what Viper says about what you're actually doing to your system and then make a decision based on that.  You may actually want to keep some of these features.
 
6- Other tweaks:
Besides the tweaks outlined in the Viper site, I also perform some extra ones and I'll go through them one by one:
- Disk Write-Caching:  You can improve disk write speeds by enabling the write-caching policy in Windows.  This is actually already enabled by default, but I suggest disabling it unless you have proper battery back-up, a.k.a. UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply).  The reason is you may lose data or get data corruption if you lose power while information is being written to the disk (i.e. during tracking/recording).  
 
To enable/disable write-caching, right-click "My Computer" and select "Manage". Click on "Device Manager" on the left.  Now double-click where it says "Disk drives".  Right-click the first drive and choose "Properties".  You'll see the option to enable/disable write caching under the "Policies" tab.  Notice there's another option below to "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device".  This will further improve disk write speeds at the cost of further data loss.  This is why it is very important to use a UPS if you want to use this feature.  A UPS is a required device if you use computers for serious work.  Repeat the above steps for all other disk drives in the system.
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- Disk Allocation Unit Size:  I set this to 64K for my Audio/Video/Sample drives while the system drive is left at the default setting of 4K.  Note that you only do this before putting any data in the HDD since this usually requires reformatting the disk, thus you will lose all your data.  This tweak is used to minimize disk head movements on your HDD, which improves performance.  This tweak obviously does not apply to Solid State drives.
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- Disk Indexing:  This feature slows down disk performance since it runs continuously in the background, degrading disk speeds.  The Viper site showed you how to remove it from the Add/Remove Windows Component Panel applet, but you'll still need to disable it directly from the HDD by clicking on "My Computer" and going to Disk Properties.  Uncheck "Allow files on this device to have contents indexed in addition to file properties".  Click "OK" and then click on "Ignore All".  Repeat for all HDD in the system.
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- Power Schemes:  Windows 7 is set to default to a Balanced power setting that automatically manages power consumption on your PC.  However, this detriments performance by shutting down system components when idle in order to save power.  To disable this, you'll need to go to the Control Panel and click on "System and Security".  Then go to "Power Options" and select "High Performance" (you may need to unhide additional plans to see it).
 
But, we're not done yet.  Now you need to click on "Change plan settings", make sure everything is set to "Never", and then click on "Change advanced power settings".  In here you'll see all the options included in this plan.  However, notice that under "Hard disk" it is still programmed to shut down after some time.  You'll want to set this to "0", which turns to "Never" when you click on an empty space.  Make sure everything else is set the way you want it to be.  I believe the "Display" is the other thing that's set to turn off after a while.  When you're done, click the "Save Changes" button.
 
- Core Parking:  Is a new features in Windows 7 that may be very handy for laptop computers, but not very convenient for systems where high performance is needed at all times.  You can google it if you want to learn more about it.  But, to disable it, you'll need to do the following (skip this if you're not comfortable editing the Registry):
 
Go to Regedit and find the following key (use the "Find..." command under "Edit" to make this easier):
 
0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583
 
Within this key, change the values called "Value Min" and "ValueMax" to 0.  You'll have to find the key a few times (press F3) and adjust the values each time.  The number of instances depends on the number of power profiles in your system.  When you're done, do a cold shutdown/power on.
  
[Thanks to TomG and sky60234 for providing this awesome tweak] 
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- Windows Fault Tolerant Heap:
 
This is another new feature in Windows 7.  More information can be found in Post #37 of this thread: http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=1878539
  
These are the steps to turn it OFF:
 
* Set the registry key value HKLM\Software\Microsoft\FTH\Enabled to 0
 
* After changing this value, restart the system.
 
[Big thanks to jamescarter for this tip!]
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- Custome Page File Size:  I don't like Windows managing this dynamically by allocating HDD space for the Page File as it pleases, so I just set this to a custome size.  You do this by right-clicking on "My Computer" and choosing "Properties".  Click the "Advanced system settings" option on the left.  In the "Advanced" tab, click the "Settings" button under "Performance".  Now go to the "Advanced" tab and click "Change..." under "Virtual memory".  Uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives".  Select the "No paging file" on all drives except the main drive where the OS is installed.  You want to set the OS drive to a "Custome size" and enter the value shown below under "Recommended".  Click the "Set" button and then click "OK".  You'll be required to restart the computer for the changes to take effect.  If you're not asked to restart the computer, then the changes were not applied, so go back to make sure.
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- Remote Assistance:  I never ever use this, so I disable it completely (including the services which I'll get to later).  Again, go to "My Computer", "Properties" and click the "Advanced system settings" option on the left.  This time, click on the "Remote" tab and uncheck "Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer".  Also make sure that "Don't allow connections to this computer" is selected, and then click "OK". 
. 
- No Sounds:  This one is probably one of the most important tweaks for an audio recording workstation.  What makes it so important is that Windows' sounds may interfere with the sample rate of your audio interface by changing at will whenever it plays a windows sound.  This is because Windows' sounds playback at a lower sample rate (around 11KHz), so it is important to change this setting.  To do this, go to the Control Panel and click on "Hardware and Sound".  Go to "Sound" and then the "Sound" tab.  Here, change the "Sound Scheme:" to "No Sounds" and click "OK".  You'll get a warning about saving the previous sound scheme, just continue without saving it.  Now go to the "Communications" tab and select the "Do nothing" radio button.  While in here, might as well make sure that you have the correct playback device by going into the "Playback" tab, selecting the device you Windows to use with Windows Media Player (or other player) and then selecting the "Set Default" button below. Now click "OK".
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- Video Card: Although this is NVIDIA based, it goes without saying that you can do the same for ATI based cards also:
 
1. Right-Click on the desktop > NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D settings > program settings
2. Add sonar if it's not already in the list.
3. basically set everything to off and these are the important ones...
 
Threaded optimization = on
texture filtering quality = high performance
vertical sync = force off
 
[Tweak provided by Buddy110, thanks!]
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7- Turning OFF Windows Services: 
I only shut down the services I know I will never use, so make sure you know what you're turning OFF before attempting this.  Please keep in mind that the following method completely shuts down a service.  Though it can be turned back on, doing this may prevent you from performing some tasks.  Usually Windows lets you know which service(s) you need to turn back on, but sometimes it doesn't (i.e. if it's a 3rd party application that needs such service).  You may also skip this step if you don't feel comfortable doing this.
 
Go to "Run..." and type "msconfig". There are some services you may wish to disable in the "Startup" tab, but I usually need all of them so I leave it alone.  Now go to the "Services" tab and uncheck the following (notice some of these may not apply to the version of Windows 7 you have):
[font=""ms mincho""]　
* Bluetooth Support Service
* Windows Media Center Receiver Service
* Windows Media Center Scheduler Service
* Windows CardSpace
* Peer Networking Identity Manager
* Peer Networking Grouping
* Remote access Auto Connection Manager
* Remote Access Connection Manager
* Remote Registry
* Smart Card  
* Smart Card Removal Policy
* Remote Desktop Configuration
* Print Spooler
* Tablet PC Input Service
* Telephony
* Remote Desktop Services
* Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector
* Windows Defender
* Windows Remote Management (WS-Management)
* Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
* Parental Controls
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8- HDD Assingments: 
Preferably, you'll want to have separate HDD for different types of files (i.e. Audio, Video, etc).  By doing this, you minimize disk head movements which prolongs HDD life and overall disk performance.  For example, writing recorded audio to disk while the OS searches for files is one scenario that decreases disk performance.  For this reason, I have set up my HDD the following way:
 
1- OS/Program Files
 
2- Sonar Projects (including respective Audio folder).
 
3- Sample Data Drive
 
4- Video Drive
 
You may have a different setup, but the idea still applies.  Adding a RAID 0 array is a good idea if you were planning on playing back +100 tracks, or when working with HD video editing in the same system.  Sometimes you can get away with storing your sample data in the OS/Program Files drive.  But I wouldn't recommend doing this if you use big sample libraries such as PLAY, Kontakt/Kompakt based libraries or VSL where samples are being streamed through the hard drive.  In this case, a dedicated HDD for samples is a must.  Some people go as far as using multiple HDD, each for a section of the orchestra, to store their samples.  Again, it just depends on your needs and your setup.
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9- Sonar Tweaks: 
* Improved Multi-Core load balancing  [From Noel's SONAR 8.3 Log]
 
Since all systems are not made equal we decided to make this new scheduling mode configurable.
From the help file, the new aud.ini option to control this is:
 
ThreadSchedulingModel=<0 - 2> 
Type Integer 
Default 1
 
This variable goes in the [Wave] section and controls the interaction of the main audio thread and worker threads on multiprocessor systems when the Use Multiprocessing Engine option is enabled. Depending on the system, a particular model may result in less glitching and better overall performance. The values are as follows:
 
............0 = Same as previous versions of SONAR.
............1 = (default) Better thread balance. Model is more efficient and can provide cycles for other tasks.
............2 = Additional worker thread is created. This may result in improvement with Quad processor systems or higher. Not recommended for Dual processor systems. 
 
To change this go to Options::Audio::Advanced Tab in Sonar and click on the "Edit Config File" button.  This opens up the AUD.INI file in NotePad where you'll find the above entry (ThreadSchedulingModel) under the [WAVE] section.  Change it to a value of 2 (for Quad Core CPUs and higher only) and then Save the file.  Now close it and click on the "Reload Config Settings" button, click "OK" and restart Sonar.  Now enjoy even core loadings :-)
 
NOTE:  Sometimes you may not find this variable even though you're using Sonar v.8.3 or higher.  In this case, you'll need to manually delete the AUD.INI file so that Sonar can recreate it and include all the new entries.  Just navigate to the Sonar folder (usually found under Program Files/Cakewalk/[inser your version of Sonar here] and you'll see a shortcut to the "Cakewalk User Data" folder.  Double-click it and then go to the Sonar folder.  There you will see the file named AUD, which you can delete.  Obviously, you want to do this will Sonar is closed.  The next time you open Sonar, all the new variables will now show up.
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10- Incompatible Plugins in Sonar x64/Windows 7 x64: 
This portion of the thread is dedicated to listing the plugins that are known to be incompatible in Sonar 8.5 under Windows 7 x64.  This may include work-arounds that shall be pointed out when applicable.  As a reminder, note that 32 bit DX and DXi plugins/synths are not supported in the 64 bit version of Sonar.  Moreover, Rewire devices such as Reason and Project 5 are not capable of Rewiring to Sonar, or any other 64 bit software for that matter.  MPEX timestretching and the native REX file support introduced in Sonar 8.5 are also not supported in the 64 bit version.  Lastly, for those working with video, QuickTime formats such as .mov and H.264 cannot be imported into Sonar 64 bit.  
 
Here are the one's we know about so far:
 
* Timeworks and old Cakewalk FX plugins with the exception of FX2 Tape Simulator and Amp Simulator plugs
* Cakewalk Studioverb 2.0
* Cakewalk Dreamstation
* Cakewalk Rapture Full/LE 64 bit (many crashes)
* FabFilter plugins/all (requires a special JBridge build)
* Arturia MiniMoog
* Tootrack Superior Drummer 2.2 (64 bit beta version available now)
* Toontrack EZDrummer (64 bit beta version available now)
* Garritan Jazz and Big Band
* Garritan Personal Orchestra
* Kontakt Player 2 (version 3 works)
* Korg Legacy Cell (various issues) 
* Submersible Music KitCore (works w/JBridge)
   
    
 [I will keep updating the list as we go]

I'll add that with my two Garritan VSTi products (Jazz and Big Band and Personal Orchestra), I needed to install Native Instruments Kontakt player 3 because Kontakt player 2 (that came with those VSTi's) would not work under a 64-bit environment.

You can get the Kontakt player 3 for free from Native Instruments here: http://co.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=kontaktplayerdl

It installs both a 32-bit and 64-bit player.  You will need to ensure the the plug-in for the 64-bit version is in your Sonar plug-in path for it to be found.  Once found, it works fine and load much faster than version 2 used to for these VSTi's.

Tom

Add the KORG Legacy Cell to the list. It will load in SONAR 64, but if Aero is enabled  the GUI will not display properly. Without Aero you can use it fine through Bitbridge, but it wont freeze, bounce or allow you to save the project without crashing.


Also Drumagog isn't stable in SONAR 64. If you try to browse your GOG files it will hang the program as well. Wave Machine Labs has Drumagog 5 (look for it at NAMM) on the horizon, but not sure if they're developing a 64 bit version yet.

Not that this a big deal anymore, but soundfonts also don't work.

tyacko


I'll add that with my two Garritan VSTi products (Jazz and Big Band and Personal Orchestra), I needed to install Native Instruments Kontakt player 3 because Kontakt player 2 (that came with those VSTi's) would not work under a 64-bit environment.

You can get the Kontakt player 3 for free from Native Instruments here: http://co.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=kontaktplayerdl

It installs both a 32-bit and 64-bit player.  You will need to ensure the the plug-in for the 64-bit version is in your Sonar plug-in path for it to be found.  Once found, it works fine and load much faster than version 2 used to for these VSTi's.

Tom

Kontakt Player 3 recognized my GPO library but it had some issues.  Many instruments no longer seemed to use multi-samples based on velocity.  For example, even playing the timpani "soft" would result in the "ff" sample being played.  Essentially it seemed to remove all velocity control.  But then it seemed to work on some instruments.

I went ahead and paid the $49 to upgrade to GPO4, with the ARIA player, and it works flawlessly under Sonar x64 on Windows 7.

Kontakt Player 3 does work fine for the East/West libraries that ship with Kompakt.

Thud

Kontakt Player 3 does work fine for the East/West libraries that ship with Kompakt.

Really?!  I heard that it didn't in the NI forums.  How did you make it work?

Only wanted to mention that I'll keep updating this thread in the coming days.

Not just the compatibility list, but also the tweak section.  There are still a few tweaks I haven't gotten to.

But I'll keep you guys posted :-)


Take care!

Just be careful. Some services you think you would never need like help and support and windows firewall actually need to be on for some updates and certain software installs if you using your DAW for other things.

Jose, thanks for this superb list of things to consider.  Question: Is your system connected to the Internet, running wireless maybe, or has other "non-music-making-related" apps loaded ?

soundtweaker


Just be careful. Some services you think you would never need like help and support and windows firewall actually need to be on for some updates and certain software installs if you using your DAW for other things.

 
I know.  Been there already :-)
 
That's why I don't believe in turning too many services OFF.  Even switching them to "Manual" doesn't always make 'em start again.
 
The ones I've listed here are services that I've never used, but it doesn't mean it applies to you.  Thus the reason why there is a warning in the beginning of this thread.  Sometimes these things take some testing before one is able to know for sure what works or not.
 
 
 
@ SONARist,
 
Yes, I have my DAW connected to the Internet.  However, I don't stray from the known sites as I mentioned earlier.
 
I'm using an intergrated netwrok card, no wireless (it's bad news for a DAW).
 
I also use Adobe Premier but haven't gotten to install it yet.  However, I try to keep installations to a bare minimum on my DAW.
 
 
HTH
 
 
 

Thanks for the answer Jose.  I was curious because I have a totally standalone system (which is a pain to keep up to date, upgrades, authorisations etc.) and dedicated for music production. No AV, no Office, and only a few good tweak tools, and I still have latency issues ... but that's OT here. Cheers. 

This may have changed with the new version 7 release, but none of the Waves stuff works in 64-bit yet either.  Its not just that the plugs are 32-bit; I'm pretty sure the installer won't even run on an x64 OS.

Thanks, Jose, for the tweaks! One note: I am using Windows7 64bit and SONAR 8.5.1 64- and 32-bit versions and Drumagog v4 works fine for me on both platforms. Granted, I only used it on one track to give depth to a kick drum. 

Interesting stuff, but I stopped tweaking my system: I have an i7 920 CPU and all those services for instance don't bother me at ALL on Windows 7, even less than they did on Vista. Last year I tried all kinds of tweaks on Vista 64 bit and I ended up with a CLEAN system that was less responsive and had weird problems every now and then. The ONLY thing I do now when I install a fresh OS (Windows 7 in my case) is turn off UAC and also some power saving stuff (I don't want my monitor to go to sleep nor my hard disk, unless it's been idle for an hour or so). That's it. I even don't bother about indexing anymore, which I always used to do. And with Windows 7 and my i7 920 I have never had a more snappy computer. I can run Sonar 8.5 PE with ease and it has never run any better than this. Sonar starts ultra quick, everything is responsive, CPU load is loooooooow, it's a dream come true, without any tweaks. ;)

So unless you have a very old computer (and even then...) I don't believe tweaking (specially those black viper ones, which can ruin a system, if you ask me) are going to make your computer any faster. Certainly with a CPU like i7 920 you've got enough power to run W7 with a default install and no problems at all. And it saves you a lot of time too. ;)

I'll try it again Oscar, I was running the regular version Drumagog and I normally have better luck with the "Fixed Latency" version on my machine. I also neglected to install the Drumagog updates (forgot...ya know it's been a while since a new build!)

soundtweaker


Just be careful. Some services you think you would never need like help and support and windows firewall actually need to be on for some updates and certain software installs if you using your DAW for other things.

I hope to get around this by having a totally different
drive for music creation.
Actually, with Win 7 I'm making a multiple drive setup.
I'm not dual booting.
I have a removable drive bay assigned to C:\.

So I just swap drives depending on what I want to do.

So far I have 2 drives with Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit installed.

I've been setting one of those drives up for general use,
Internet, Media Player, TV etc etc etc

The other will be my "Content Creation" drive.
Music, Video, Web pages etc etc

The 3rd will be for experimenting with Win7 when I want to
test something but don't want to risk upsetting the set up on
the other drives.

I also plan to have a 4th drive with Ubuntu installed.

That's just the "boot" drives!

I will need at least 1 other drive for Samples and Loops
and possibly another (as in Jose's example above) for the
Cakewalk project files folder etc etc

I also use Fl Studio a lot for loopy doopy dance music
so it will probably need a drive or 2 or maybe even
a whole 'nother boot drive.. possibly even a 32 bit version of the OS
as FL Studio looks like never going 64 bit in it's current incarnation.
Which is a pity because it's the best looping sequencer out there IMHO.

I'm having to really focus to remember which drive is which.
All drives are labeled and I'm developing a system for using the various
drives and cataloging what's on them.

It's a lot of work but hopefully. once it's all set up it will save me a lot of trouble.

@ OscarLaun,

I just went with what Emwhy said, but if it works for you then I guess I'll remove it from the list.

Thanks for letting me know :-)


@ Hellogoodbye,

I agree with you, for the most part, which is why you don't see that many services in this list I provided.  Those are ususally the ones you can turn off safely without any issues unless you use such features like remote desktop, parental controls, bluetooth devices, etc.  I repeat, these are the tweaks I use for my system and they may not apply to yours.  Use whatever works for you :-)


Take care!

I'd like to know if Oscar has any tweak ideas. I can get it to load fine, however when I try to get Drumagog to load samples by pointing it to my GOG files folder it doesn't respond, at least it stopped crashing the program.

hellogoodbye


Interesting stuff, but I stopped tweaking my system: I have an i7 920 CPU and all those services for instance don't bother me at ALL on Windows 7, even less than they did on Vista. Last year I tried all kinds of tweaks on Vista 64 bit and I ended up with a CLEAN system that was less responsive and had weird problems every now and then. The ONLY thing I do now when I install a fresh OS (Windows 7 in my case) is turn off UAC and also some power saving stuff (I don't want my monitor to go to sleep nor my hard disk, unless it's been idle for an hour or so). That's it. I even don't bother about indexing anymore, which I always used to do. And with Windows 7 and my i7 920 I have never had a more snappy computer. I can run Sonar 8.5 PE with ease and it has never run any better than this. Sonar starts ultra quick, everything is responsive, CPU load is loooooooow, it's a dream come true, without any tweaks. ;)

So unless you have a very old computer (and even then...) I don't believe tweaking (specially those black viper ones, which can ruin a system, if you ask me) are going to make your computer any faster. Certainly with a CPU like i7 920 you've got enough power to run W7 with a default install and no problems at all. And it saves you a lot of time too. ;)

+1 Same deal here.

@emwhy. 
I haven't had to do any real tweaks to the system other than turning off all the Windows sounds. Also, instead of clean-installing Win7 over Vista I chose the upgrade path (which causes a driver to cause a BSOD and restart on shutdown for some reason- but not during operation...so far).

I use the standard and not the fixed-latency version of Drumagog (always had problems with the fixed latency version). And it works for multiple tracks (toms, snare, etc) in the session in question. One annoyance is that there is no indication of which track is being tweaked in the bit-bridge/Drumagog window (32 bit version gives the track number and name, with the 64 bit I only get "Drumagog") so when I am tweaking/setting up multiple toms I have to see which sounds I'm using as opposed to looking at the window title.

The one problem I had originally is I forgot to get a new license/ unlock code for my new computer (the unlock is keyed to the processor so the old code didn't work) so the trial period timed out. A request for a new code and everything worked fine.

My system is thus, btw:

SONAR 8.5.1 64-bit (sometimes use the 32-bit for some plugins)
Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
12 GB RAM
2 daisy chained Presonus Firepods using the Presonus ASIO drivers (not that this should effect a plug-in)

OscarLaun


One annoyance is that there is no indication of which track is being tweaked in the bit-bridge/Drumagog window (32 bit version gives the track number and name, with the 64 bit I only get "Drumagog") so when I am tweaking/setting up multiple toms I have to see which sounds I'm using as opposed to looking at the window title.

You can open up any plugin that's using Bitbridge by holding the 'SHIFT' key and a window with the normal title bar should appear.
 
From this new title window, it is also possible to toggle the plugin's GUI to show it or minimize it.
 
 
HTH
 
 

Just wanted to bump this thread since I see a few people could benefit from the information provided (especially points 3, 4 and 9). 
 
If you have a FireWire interface, point (4) will be of GREAT benefit.

HTH

Updated driver information on point (4) of the OP for RME FireFace 400/800 users.

HTH

RME have now patched their software and say it's no longer necessary to use the legacy firewire drivers

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=32541

Of course RME may have worked around the bugs in the new Windows 7 firewire driver so it may still be advisable to use the legacy drivers if you are not an RME user.  


P.S. Great thread by the way.

 
Another tweak worth considering for windows 7 is to disable the hibernation system
 
To disable hibernation....
 
search for cmd program in the start menu
 
     right click on the cmd.exe and "run as administrator"
 
At the command prompt type in the following....
 
     powercfg -h off
 
 
 

Hey James,

Thanks for the update, however I was already ahead of you there and already included this information las night :-)

By the way, there's no need to turn off Hibernation the way you describe.  Setting the power scheme to "High Performance" already takes care of that as explained above under 6- Other Tweaks.


Take care!

any word on Sound Forge in 64bit Win 7 ??

Here's a very annoying Windows 7 bug.

I've been going nuts trying to work out why
all the users on my Win 7 HDDs were taking
so long to log on. 

Did a bit of Googling and found the answer
on this page on the Windows 7 Forums web
site.

The "Win 7 Desktop Background Solid Color" bug! 

I prefer my desktop (and the Welcome Screen)
to be solid black.

Setting the desktop background to a solid color
using  Win 7 Personalize, will cause that user to 
take approx 20 seconds to log on!
And all the while the boot drive will whir away
like a blender!

The workaround if, like me, you prefer a solid
one color background, is to make an image file
of just that color and use that as a desktop
background.

I used MS paint to make a solid black png exactly
the same size as my desktop, then used
"Personalize" to switch the background  to that
 picture and I'm back to almost instant log on
on all users.

Weird, frustrating little bug!

Nice find Fret! 

This is what we get for being early adopters and ridding on the bleeding edge.

Thankfully, this is just a minor bug :-)

Take care!

Jose7822


Nice find Fret! 

This is what we get for being early adopters and riding on the bleeding edge.

Thankfully, this is just a minor bug :-)

Take care!

I love the bleeding edge Jose.

It's where I live!

Now I can get back to installing 8.5.

That bug cost me 2 days!

Damn, that must've suck.  Good thing there was an easy workaround.

By the way, I love the bleeding edge too (I guess everyone knows this :-P).  It's not so bad if you know how to troubleshoot your system :-)

But 64 bit is here baby!  You don't know how long I've been waiting for this day.  But I'm still not 32 bit free (maybe one more year till then).

Take care!

I installed SONAR 8.5 and most of my plugins today on my new StudioCat I7 DAW and I was able to get most everything working with either BitBridge 2.0 or JBridge.  The only one I've had issues with so far is BFD 1.5 which I'll only need if I open up one of my Legacy projects.  Of course it works fine in SONAR x86, so I can always get to those old projects that way.  BFD 2.1 is working fine under JBridge. 

I was worried that Voxengo's Analog Flux Suite might not work because I read a post on here that there were issues with it, but it seems OK... at least the TapeBus plugin is working fine.

I'm really loving the low latency performance of this new setup under Windows 7 x64.  I'm able to keep the buffers at 48 or 64 for most anything I throw at it.

Damn, spoke to soon.  It looks like I'm having problems with Rapture of all things.  I've tried 32 and 64 bit both in SONAR and with the Micro-Hosts and I always get the same issue. When I try to load a program it says Error Uncompressing Program Data - Program Load Failed.  I've read of other issues with Rapture, but I think if I can't even get a patch to load this is a new one.

Edit... Figured out the problem.  I copied everything from the Programs folder of my old DAW to the Programs folder of the new DAW, including the Programs.lst file.  Fixed that and I now have all of my patches again.  Now I'll have to see if I have any of the crashes others have reported with Rapture.

Hey Genghis,

If you get a crash with Rapture (most likely the case), please send Cakewalk the MiniDump file the crash creates.

This gets stored inside the Sonar folder.  You'll see a MiniDump folder with the crash file in there.

The more people let them know about this problem, the better and faster they'll work on it.


Thanks a lot! :-)

Thanks Jose... I already got it to crash.  To make sure it was only Rapture causing it, I created a new empty project with a single instance of Rapture and it crashed it just as quickly as the old project I was working on.  I filled in the error reporting form and uploaded the project and mini-dump files.

I sure hope they can figure it out quickly as it has to be affecting a whole lot of people.

Genghis,

Thanks a million!  Like I said, the more people report this, the better.

It is actually a shame one cannot work with such a great synth.  I have several old projects that use it and now I can't work on them because of this (and also because I refuse to install Sonar x86 :-P).  But, in the mean time, I believe you can use Rapture in Sonar 32 bit and it should work fine.  I can't tell you for sure though because it's been a while since I use Rapture in my projects, due to this problem.  So I just avoid it for now.  I thought Cakewalk solved this with the new update (v1.2.1), but it is still there.  Anyways, thanks again for your time.  Hope Cakewalk can find a solution soon.


Take care!

How to really become the administrator?? (hidden admin account)

Run CMD under "Run as administrator" (or press CTR+SHIFT+ENTER)
write: net user administrator /activate - this will activate the hidden admin account
write: net user administrator password - replace "password" for any password you want to have for the Administrator account

log off and there will be the Administrator account on the logon screen. use it to run and instal your DAW related SW...

 
Windows 7 Fault Tolerant Heap
 
This new Windows 7 "feature" which is on by default should be disabled.
 
The feature tries to be clever with applications that crash a few times by chaning the memory manager behind the scenes to make the application more fault tollerant. Nice idea you think, except that the application is likely to run 15% slower.
 
So if you get a few Sonar crashes then the system may decide to slow the application down significantly to try to stop the crashes.
 
Here's an explanation of what it does....
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/18/windows_7_heart/page2.html
 
 
And here's Microsoft's page on the matter (with instructions on how to diable it)
 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744764(VS.85).aspx
 
 
To disable the "Fault Tollerant Heap" entirely on a system you need to do the following ....
 
Set the registry key value HKLM\Software\Microsoft\FTH\Enabled to 0
 
After changing this value, restart the system. FTH will no longer activate for new applications.
 

Nice find James!

Thanks for sharing this tip :-)

Summary: Frontier Tranzport causing BSOD only on shutdown

I did a clean install of Win7 x64 and everything else. (I get a free day, and what do I do? Reload and backup my computer...sigh) The reason I did this, however, is because of the BSOD on shutdown and I wanted to pinpoint the problem as my Presonus, Digidesign, and other peripheral drivers are still in beta stage. And it's just nice to know thee things, isn't it?
So, it turns out it's the x64 beta driver for the Frontier Tranzport. It works great up until I decide to shut down, so I just kill the process in the Task Manager before finishing. Hopefully it'll get fixed but at least now I have a simple workaround.

That is all.

Cheers.

Oscar,

Use msconfig or autoruns and disable the tranzport system tray app.  This will prevent the BSOD.  The other option is to unplug the device before shutdown.

If you have a Frontier Tranzport, they now have a Win 7 driver and it will not "blue screen" the system when you shut down.  The older Vista driver will install in compatibility mode and work but you must manually do some file renaming and remove the startup item in the msconfig or you will get a "blue screen' when shutting down. 

I had to change the T.I. 1394 drivers to the "legacy" (got that from the Focusrite web site) for my Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 interface unit, to fix a dropout problem.

Other than the fact that some of  Sonar 8.5 Producer's advertised list of plug-ins are not 64 bit compatible and I had problems finding Sonitus presents until I found out they are accessed differently than 32 bit,  I haven't had any DAW problems (or for that matter Win 7 problems as I did a new install on a new 1TB hard drive - I have Win 7 64 bit Professional).  I have Vista 32 bit on a separate hard drive and Sonar installed on it and plan on keeping it since not all the plug ins are available in 64 bit.

Very nice thread Jose! kudos for putting it all together. Any other info, such as device manager tweaks, etc?

Buddy110


Very nice thread Jose! kudos for putting it all together. Any other info, such as device manager tweaks, etc?

 
Thanks Buddy!
 
Not really, that's pretty much it. :-)
 
 
 

Jose7822Since all systems are not made equal we decided to make this new scheduling mode configurable.
From the help file, the new aud.ini option to control this is:

[=<0 - 2>
Type Integer
Default 1

Hi Jose, I was just checking over this thread....shouldn't this be
ThreadSchedulingModel=<0 - 2>

just to let you know...

Yes, you're right Buddy.  Thanks for pointing this out.

I need to make some other changes to the OP too.  There are a few things that aren't really necessary anymore.  But I'll get to those later.


Take care!

Hi Jose,

I thought this would be a good addition to your list (and for any windows operating system).

A lot of people probably already know this but one thing that REALLY helped playback/recording with 64 samples per buffer for me (as I have a decent nvidia graphics card) was to make the GPU do most of the work and taking the strain from the CPU. Although they are labelled as "3D" settings...they affect everything that runs through your GPU (including Sonar):

Although this is NVIDIA based, it goes without saying that you can do the same for ATI based cards also.

1. Right-Click on the desktop > NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D settings > program settings
2. Add sonar if it's not already in the list.
3. basically set everything to off and these are the important ones...

Threaded optimization = on
texture filtering quality = high performance
vertical sync = force off

NB: As with all things your mileage may vary. I'm enjoying SMOOTH playback/recording at 64 samples per buffer with my MOTU ultralite.

Jose,
 
If you are updating the original list there are some corrections to the incompatible plugins.
 
Yellow Tools Independence, including Independence Free is now available as native 64 bit. The free 64 bit version works very well in Sonar.
 
And of course Toontrack have released their 64 bit public betas.

Hi Buddy and Glyn,

Thanks for your suggestions.  I will add them to the OP ASAP.

Take care guys!

Made a mistake, sorry :-P
 
 

OMFG, are you serious???

This freaking forum software deleted half of my OP and changed the formatting out of nowhere.  What the hell?

All I did was add some lines to it (and I'm positive I did NOT delete anything).  Screw it, I'm not fixing that crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate when that happens. I mean, I really hate when that happens.

You've my sympathy, J.

Jose7822


OMFG, are you serious???

This freaking forum software deleted half of my OP and changed the formatting out of nowhere.  What the hell?

All I did was add some lines to it (and I'm positive I did NOT delete anything).  Screw it, I'm not fixing that crap!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jose I have never seen you so upset. I can't blame you in this case either. I took a look at what you are talking about and it is not your normal way of presenting information. I am very sympathetic to what has happened and am very sorry that the OP is so screwed up. However I am hoping you will reconsider and fix this mess so I can get the latest info from you. Heck I count on you so please don't let this forum software get to you. I have come to a sort of peace with it. I can't say I have learned to like it but I can work with it most of the time.  What you might consider is use a WP to format and save your thoughts then simply paste them in the post. I have done this on occasion but only when I had a long post or needed time to gather my thoughts.

Jose please keep on keeping on if not for you then for the rest of us. We need you here.

K dub, John,

Thanks for the sympathy and words of encouragement.  I really appreciate that :-)

I just can't believe that it (the forum software) would do that though.  It's never happened to me before and I should've picked up on it when I first made the mistake of quoting myself.  That's what post #49 was (the mistake of quoting myself instead of editing the OP), and it showed the same kind of erratic formatting that is displayed in the OP.  However, I didn't think it would also delete part of the thread, which is what really got me mad.  The crazy formatting I could have dealt with, but now everything that was written in the first half is gone forever. 

I wrote all of that from memory and kept on updating it as I went, and with you guys' help.  So I don't think I'll be able to write all that again.  To be honest, I don't feel like witting all that again.  I spent a lot of time getting it to where it was, but I don't feel like going through that anymore.  Hope you guys understand.  But I don't know, we'll see.  I may fix it one day, but I don't promise anything.  At least most of the important stuff is still there -_-.

Anyways, thanks for your support guys.  It was a great OP while it lasted, thanks to you all.


Take care!

Has anyone been able to run the (Rundll32.exe fthsvc.dll,FthSysprepSpecialize) Command to clear the list of apps that FTH tracks??

I cannot get this to run at all, it claims Rundll32. is not a valid 32 bit command? I am running 64 bit btw...?

jamescater


 
Windows 7 Fault Tolerant Heap
 
This new Windows 7 "feature" which is on by default should be disabled.
 
The feature tries to be clever with applications that crash a few times by chaning the memory manager behind the scenes to make the application more fault tollerant. Nice idea you think, except that the application is likely to run 15% slower.
 
So if you get a few Sonar crashes then the system may decide to slow the application down significantly to try to stop the crashes.
 
Here's an explanation of what it does....
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/18/windows_7_heart/page2.html
 
 
And here's Microsoft's page on the matter (with instructions on how to diable it)
 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744764(VS.85).aspx
 
 
To disable the "Fault Tollerant Heap" entirely on a system you need to do the following ....
 
Set the registry key value HKLM\Software\Microsoft\FTH\Enabled to 0
 
After changing this value, restart the system. FTH will no longer activate for new applications.
 

By following

Viewing Fault Tolerant Heap activity
Fault Tolerant Heap logs information when the service starts, stops, or starts mitigating problems for a new application. To view this information, follow these steps:

1. Click on the start menu
2. Right-click Computer and choose Manage
3. Click Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > Fault-Tolerant-Heap
4. View FTH Events

I see an option to disable FTH. Is it really necessary  to set the registry key value HKLM\Software\Microsoft\FTH\Enabled to 0? I dont even know how to do that anyway.

VigilantSound


Has anyone been able to run the (Rundll32.exe fthsvc.dll,FthSysprepSpecialize) Command to clear the list of apps that FTH tracks??

I cannot get this to run at all, it claims Rundll32. is not a valid 32 bit command? I am running 64 bit btw...?

I am on W7 64-bit and ran the command. I didn't get an error but I didn't get any kind of confirmation or pop up message afterwards.

By the way, does anyone remember the first part of Jose's post about the Firewire tweak and setting it to Legacy? I have a MOTU 896 HD and wondered if I would gain anything from trying out that tip.

Thanks!

xLeviathanx

VigilantSound


Has anyone been able to run the (Rundll32.exe fthsvc.dll,FthSysprepSpecialize) Command to clear the list of apps that FTH tracks??

I cannot get this to run at all, it claims Rundll32. is not a valid 32 bit command? I am running 64 bit btw...?

I am on W7 64-bit and ran the command. I didn't get an error but I didn't get any kind of confirmation or pop up message afterwards.

By the way, does anyone remember the first part of Jose's post about the Firewire tweak and setting it to Legacy? I have a MOTU 896 HD and wondered if I would gain anything from trying out that tip.

Thanks!

Could these be the missing instructions?

1- Click the Start Button, type devmgmt.msc in the “Start Search” box and press Enter.
2- Expand the "IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controllers" node in the device tree on the right hand pane
3- Right click the host controller node select "Update driver software ..."
4- Select "Browse my computer for driver software"
5- Select "let me pick from a list of device driver on my computer ..." and Check the box before “Show compatible hardware”.
6. Choose the second option---1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy), and click next to update the driver.

Hey Leviathan,

Yes, those were more or less the instructions I had in the OP.  Note that some manufacturers (i.e. RME) have found a work-around to the Microsoft FW problem and thus do NOT require this tweak anymore.  Check with your audio interface's manufacturer first before trying it.

Take care!

Hi Folks,

Is there any workaround for the old Cakewalk FX suite?
I just installed Windows7 64bit. Everything works just fine, including older VST plugins. But I am using the older Cakewalk effects in existing projects... I still have the old Vista harddisk in my computer, and the boot manager is working fine. Yet, I don't want to go back.

Thanks,

Wilko

There's a DX to VST wrapper somewhere (sorry, don't have the link for it). 

It's been mentioned several times in the forum so you should be able to find it through a search.