Had inspiration this morning. Fired up powerful Win 7 PC with Cubase 7. Windows had some updates to install. OK. After updates installed I started Cubase 7. It took 8 minutes to load, then another 4 minutes to load a recording template. 20 minutes after inspiration struck I could finally record in Cubase. No I have lost my inspiration. It’s so exasperating I can’t even process it. I remember the days of flicking on my MPC and having a song idea captured in a minute or two. Computers are still very overrated
I’ve suggested here before that Steinberg could add a ‘big red instant record’ button somewhere. They can’t control boot-up of course, but for instance, a Record Button app which starts v.quickly and monitors every audio channel and every midi channel to record everything we instantly play would be a good step towards capturing instant creativity. Then when we press stop it could dump anything that’s been recorded into our choice of project (template or existing). At which point it spends the usual 0-10 mins loading up etc.
Currently I tend to use retrospective record like this in that I play along randomly with an open project and if anything springs out then I’ll grab it using retrospective record. But of course, you’ve got to have an open project…
The additional upside of an instant recording method is that newbie people can get going really quick too! Therefore it’s a great marketing USP, e.g. plug in, press the big red record button, play your music, it appears in a new project, simple as that…
maybe I am the luckiest man in the world but my mac takes ~10/12 sec to boot, C7 takes ~10 sec to display the hub and ~5 sec to open my usual template with 6 audio tracks, 4 VSTi and a couple of FX tracks. So I am ready to go in less than 1 min…
This is the (expensive) magic of using only SSD (Samsung 840 Pro).
Yer, you probably are lucky there! My SSD Win7 PC takes about 40 seconds to boot, and then into Cubase in 17 seconds, and a few more for a template to open. Probably over a minute.
Another creativity killer is that you can’t rescan the USB midi devices to get new ones to appear, you have to close and re-open Cubase… And I’ve got about 5 USB keyboards which I keep turned off to save power but when I need them I’d like them available quickly before the moment passes.
Sorry, but you don’t update your OS while feeling inspired. If you are recording (insert instrument) and are 1/2-way done with the song, and you get a message saying Windows has updates available, do you stop the recording process and do the updates?
My not-so-powerful Win 7 PC with Cubase 5 & 7 (what is a “powerful Win 7 PC”, anyway???) boots Cubase (5 & 7) in under 20 sec. Hardly like “firing up the Enterprise”
From pushbutton to work-ready my PC takes 15 secs. I can be ready to record in a couple of minutes assuming the necessary gear is setup up, but even so, if you have to use the other half of your brain for even a couple of minutes, this can be an inspiration-flow killer.
For this reason I installed a boom mic in the studio connected to a cassette recorder which I use as a session recorder - usually in loop (double cassette for’d and bac’d). I can come into the studio doodle around with some ideas and have a recording if anything comes out of it. Granted it is not digitally recorded and not generally useable qualitywise, but the idea is laid down complete with any commentary.
This goes to show that the OS manufacturers are really putting a lot of effort into reducing boot time! And it’s working… Good for me because sometimes I lose midi connections or MOTU PCI connection so a reboot is necessary. It used to take 2-4 minutes in XP and now it’s well under a minute in Win7.
