Jim Roseberry

The noise issue is ground related. The noise isn't "from" the new machine. A ground-loop can cause hum/buzz/whine/etc. A bad USB cable can cause this type of issue. Been thru this type of scenario many times over the past 30 years. It's ALWAYS ground related. Changing Firewire driver to "Legacy" will have no affect on the noise. Start by powering your entire studio from a single outlet Use balanced cables Connect headphones directly to your Firewire audio interface (nothing else connected to the audio interface). I'm 99.9% sure the noise will not be preset. That tells you the noise doesn't originate in the machine or audio interface. Connect one device at a time until you find the culprit. If you're using balanced cables... and otherwise done everything you can to eliminate ground-loops, the solution is something like this: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MHumX--morley-hum-exterminator-ground-loop-hum-exterminator?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organicpla If you're connecting a device that doesn't offer balanced cable connections, you can use a DI box (or pair of DI boxes for stereo) to safely lift the ground. The DI box will provide balanced output.

FWIW, You can build a properly working DAW with higher-end Nvidia RTX video cards. I'm typing this message on a machine running a 12900ks with RTX-3070. This machine can run Helix Native at 96k using a 32-sample ASIO buffer size (completely glitch-free). With my Orion Studio Synergy Core (audio interface), that yields 1ms total round-trip latency. DPC Latency comes down to hardware/drivers. It certainly helps if the motherboard provides advanced settings/options (which can affect DPC Latency). Many off-the-shelf machines limit BIOS settings that presented to the end-user (to keep novice users from fouling-up their machine). That's fine for general-purpose use (where ultimate performance isn't necessary), but it's a major disadvantage for a high-performance DAW. If you're building a "12th Gen" machine and you're looking for high-performance, you want to be using a Z-690 chipset. If you can't get DPC Latency "in-check" with Motherboard tweaks and hardware driver changes, it's time for a new motherboard.

Sounds like classic burn-out to me. Take some time to do other things. Get away from music for a while. The record business of the 70s-80s no longer exists. There are no huge signing bonuses. There are no $500k recording budgets. FWIW, There are other avenues for composers/etc. We have clients who score video games. May not seem like a big deal, but some of those games make many millions of dollars (equal to multi-Platinum records). I'm 55, so I can relate to feeling the time ticking. I still manage to play live... and would like to write/record more. I'm so involved in the technical side of music... there's not a lot of time/energy left. I used to talk to the owner of Above Records every week (Rolling Stones, Neville Brothers, etc)... and he'd always ask if I had any music he should hear. Pained me to have to say... no. Thinking out loud, we're all involved in music because we love it. If you love music, I doubt that feeling will permanently go away. I have a friend who toured opening for Tesla (few years back). Got back from the tour... $60k in dept. Sometimes all that glitters isn't gold. That jaded my friends attitude... and he stepped away from music for several years. Now, he's starting to get back out there... If music is what you do... and who you are... that's not going to change. You know... after playing a four hour show, on the way home... the last thing I want to do is listen to music. 🤪 That feeling passes...

My sales-engineer for ~25 years was Stewart Hisey. He recently retired... I feel like an abandoned gear-addict. 😁 Sweetwater is ~6-hours round-trip for me. I've made the trek numerous times the past couple of years. If you're going to make the journey any time soon, check to make sure the desired gear is in-stock.

I've got a pair of them. They're pretty decent (not exactly a LA-2A... but close). Out of the KT clones, I like the KT-76 the best.

If at all possible, you need to play the controller... so you can feel the key-bed. The NI controllers are pretty decent quality... especially when compared to other MIDI controller keyboards. If you compare the S88 to something like a Korg Kronos, to me the Kronos keyboard feels significantly better. Of course, the Korg is far more expensive and heavier. I'd also check out the Arturia KeyLab 88 mkII.

You'll achieve better performance using multiple Samples drives... vs. using a single larger Samples drive. I'd try to us M.2 NVMe drives strategically... for those scenarios where it'll yield the most significant benefit. ie: If you've got a library like the Yamaha C7 Grand from Keyscape (which loads S_L_O_W), putting it on a fast M.2 drive helps mitigate the load time.

That was like saying, "I'll never do xxxxxxxx." I knew when I read that comment... that there was absolutely no way.

Yeah, I'm quaking in my boots (and have been for nearly 30 years). So... you want to add another M.2 SSD for your 3rd Samples drive? PC user: Adds first, second, and 3rd M.2 SSD internally. Mac user: Yeah, I'm gonna need three Thunderbolt enclosures for my M.2 SSDs. 🤣 "Taking The Creative World By Storm... one tether at a time... and with amazing performance... until you compare it to a real workstation."

M1 Ultra... 🤣 Like playing tetherball with dangling peripherals. AMD and Intel are slugging it out for "workstation" superiority.

5950x and 12900k based DAWs can run both cool and extremely quiet. All down to who's building/configuring... 12900k based machine (from which I'm writing this post) is currently running in the low 30s degrees Celcius.

Remember early claims that the M1 would blow all other CPUs out of the water... including the 5950x and 12900k. 12900k and 5950x smoke the M1.

Unless you're running a mess of a machine, Windows 10 does not crash constantly. Why in the world would one choose to move to Linux as a serious DAW platform? It's like taking a 20-year step backward in time. What advantage would it offer? Running Windows 10, we have machines capable of yielding 1ms total round-trip latency. Running Windows 10, we have machines capable of delivering 4000 simultaneous stereo voices of disk-streaming polyphony. We currently reap the benefits of ~30 years of PC DAW development. I put Linux based DAWs in the same light as building a Hackintosh. Sure... it's a "technical-puzzle" that can be fun to solve... but it's not a real Mac. A Linux based DAW is decades behind in infrastructure/development/support/etc. It's just not worth a developer's time/effort... to develop something that's lacking from the start... and has limited profitability.

Oberheim, Moog, and Linn created some amazing musical tools. Never met Oberheim or Moog... Got to meet Roger Linn at GearFest several years back. Roger himself demonstrated the Linnstrument. It was great to be able thank him for all he's done.

LOL! I see what you did there.

FWIW, Some motherboards forfeit SATA port/s... others don't. You can also put a M.2 NVMe SSD on a PCIe host controller card. That PCIe host card has be be placed in a slot with at least 4 PCIe lanes. You can get PCIe host cards that hold two or four M.2 NVMe drives. If two, then the card needs 8 PCIe lanes. If four, then the card needs 16 PCIe lanes. (Each NVMe drive requires 4 PCIe lanes for maximum performance)

You'll be glad you got the version with EQ. Just enabling the inductor EQ will give a small bump in the upper-mids (even with EQ completely flat).

NVMe now comes in two flavors: PCIe 3.0 (good drives sustain ~3500MB/Sec) PCIe 4.0 (good drives sustain ~7000MB/Sec) Only recent make machines support PCIe 4.0. If you have something like Spectrasonics Keyscape, the C7 Yamaha Grand loads ***REALLY*** slow. Using a fast m.2 SSD helps mitigate this.

FWIW, I was just using my channels strips as a point of reference. I actually meant between the two choices you listed (ISA Two and WA273). 😉 I'd go with the ISA Two as it's $100 less than the WA273. Everything has gone up in cost. Got the Shelford channel at GearFest (several years back) and I want to say it was under $3000. Still not cheap... but not what it is currently.

FWIW, I've got Neve Shelford, Neve Portico-II, and two Warm Audio WA273-EQ channels strips. The Warm units aren't quite the same level as a real Neve... but they're pretty good. QC isn't as tight as with a real Neve. One of my WA273-EQ units, developed an issue that sounded like ground noise... but it was the unit itself (not a ground loop). Had to get it swapped out. Haven't had any issues since. Comparing side-by-side with my Neve preamps and a Neve 8816 Summing mixer, the WA273-EQ has similar character (round/full, detailed, not harsh in the upper mids). The ISA Two is a nice preamp. It's not going to impart as much character as something like the Shelford... but it's a lot more affordable. Focusrite QC is tighter than Warm Audio. Can't go too far wrong with either choice. If you're not wanting the 1073 type inductive EQ (WA273-EQ), I'd opt for the ISA Two. It's $100 less...

I'm not re-framing / railroading anything. I said that professional composers for TV/Film (meaning high level professionals) are almost all using custom PCs. That hasn't changed. Someone mentioned they could name 40 (TV/Film composers) who don't. I'm saying... name them.

I have to buy Macs because we support clients running VE Pro "Slave" machines (connected to their Mac). I like some things about OSX (lean and networking is more straight forward). Can't stand the lack of internal expansion... and lack of speed (relative to what's otherwise available).

I'm not talking bedroom composers. I mean high level professional composers for TV/Film. Name those 40.

LOL! Have fun being a part of the "LA scene". If I were to name-drop, it would be an extensive list from ~30-years. Composers Rock-Stars Mix Engineers Mastering Engineers Label Executives I've had the pleasure of working with many great individuals (famous and not)... including the CTO from Cakewalk. If you're actually running Cakewalk By Bandlab, it was compiled on 10980xe based machine (that I built). 😉

Neither... 😁 PRS all day long