Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Don’t fear the Reaper

You might remember my series of posts about Windows 7 ruining my life. If not, that’s okay, you don’t have to read them. Just know that there were a lot of them because I was angry and bitter (which is a bad combination when you have a blog).

ThatWhiteGirl - Windows 7 is okay - you wronged me

The gist of the issue was that I was unable to record music in real time on a brand new laptop because of latency problem associated with Windows 7. I returned the laptop and several months later, returned to the store and purchased it again, content with the fact that I would keep my suffocatingly slow desktop for my music projects.

In that time, because I was never really content, I tried different interfaces and work-arounds but nothing seemed to work. One day, I had my friend Brian over and we ended up messing about on my desktop for recording. We ended up installing a better program called Reaper and then it promptly lost all recording capabilities.

ThatWhiteGirl - Windows 7 is okay - what the fuck happened

We quickly uninstalled the “better” program and restored everything to it’s previous functioning state.

A few weeks later, I brought my laptop over to Brian’s house in order to figure out the recording issue once and for all. He suggested installing Reaper. Even though this would have been immediately rejected had he suggested it at my house a couple weeks earlier, I accepted his suggestion because the worst that could happen was that I still wouldn’t be able to record music on my laptop.

After a quick installation and a quick plug in of a microphone, we did a test.

ThatWhiteGirl - Windows 7 is okay - I can hear me talking

I was recording in real time. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. I was astounded that it could be so easy when it had caused so much strife over the years. Seriously years. It’s been nearly 3 years.

So, what changed? In order to try and make a certain interface work, I had installed a generic audio driver, ASIO4all. As the name suggests it’s supposed to be compatible with everything.

Reaper is a more advanced recording program than the program I was previously using, Audacity, and has the ability to select different drivers for the program to function. Instead of selecting the audio driver in my computer (the one that causes the blasted latency issue I loathe), I selected ASIO. And it fixed all my problems.

ThatWhiteGirl - Windows 7 is okay - hooray

Well, all my problems relating to recording on my laptop anyway…

7 comments:

  1. I hate hate hate stupid driver issues and no across platform support! Glad this one is finally sorted out tho!

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  2. Did you unplug it, wait 15 seconds, then plug it back in? Sorry, that's the only technical advice I know. But it looks like you don't need advice because you solved the problem yourself. Well done!

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  3. Someone with a surprise soon!June 5, 2013 at 8:44 AM

    it's about time you got around to telling this important tale! And Brian's hair is way more blonde than that drawing!

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  4. I've been having this exact problem with just trying to hook up my mic. The drivers are not happy about it and not letting me select my mic over the laptop's crappy internal mic. Also, Reaper you say? I've always used Audacity. I'm gonna have to check this out...

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  5. A tech entry that didn't end in disastears - this is one for the books!

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  6. Without sounding like a bastard, I would say that it's these times that warrant for a Macbook. I have a PC too, and it gives me all sorts of problems. I have a lot of programming work for college, and installing all the things is such a pain on a PC. My friend has a Macbook, and everything for her is a simple one-click installation. Whereas I have to find all sorts of work arounds.

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  7. Poke - me too!!

    Pickle - I tried unplugging it and waiting three years. That did the trick!

    Surprise - what's the surprise?!!?!?

    Beer - give it a go and let me know how it works out for you - it worked out great for me!!

    Gorm - I know... so unlike me!

    Flippy - I looked into Mac but they changed the design of their small laptops (only one port for audio in/out - so it can only do one thing at a time) - in order to get both ports, I would need to buy the 20" bad boy (which costs >$2000). Not. Worth. It.

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