Jim Roseberry

That's absolutely crazy... The whole idea is to discuss software/gear. If you bring to light that someone can get a good deal on tools-of-the-trade, good on you and them. KVR isn't what it once was...

We've been building custom audio/video machines for ~30 years. If I can be of assistance, shoot me a PM.

File this in the memory bank: Older HDMI cables won't work at 60Hz refresh-rates with 4k monitors.

Nvidia video cards aren't particularly problematic. It's more of it either works... or doesn't type scenario. Check cables first... If that doesn't resolve the issue, I'd swap out the Nvidia card.

Me too! Also have a pair of their Pultec clones.

Hi Max, I would do the clean install of Win10 on a separate physical drive. Much easier to "clean-up" (once you've fully migrated)...

Behringer gets a lot of flack for their past business practices (much of which is deserved). In the past decade, Behringer has absorbed some good companies, technology, and personnel (TC Electronic, Klark Teknic, Midas, etc). These days, Behringer is releasing original designs like the X32 series, Wing, etc... that are feature-packed decent quality pieces of gear. The Klark Teknic 1176 and LA-2A clones are both excellent (especially given the low cost). If you play live, the X32 series is used by many commercial sound companies. Was at a venue this past Friday night... and the FOH console was an X32. There's a trend recently to develop your own DAW application (UA, Behringer, Presonus, etc). Unless you're 101% committed, it's re-inventing the wheel. It's like trying to compete with Kontakt. It can be done, but it's a herculean task. Even if successful, it'll take years to catch-up to the competition. Behringer has the resources to develop a new DAW application, but is that the best use of their time/resources? They're admitting up front, that it's going to take a long while (18-months) for initial release. How long before it's able to compete head-to-head with the best DAW applications? From watching other DAW applications over the past 30 years, you're talking 4-5 years of sustained/committed development.

Max, if the upgrade install of Win10 is a "mess", I'd start with a clean install of Win10. Yes, it's a pain to go thru... but well worth it for a rock-solid foundation.

Max, I'm here if you need assistance. 😉 Nvidia video cards can work fine in a DAW. They can also cause high DPC Latency. ie: When the RTX-2xxx series were first released, they were causing high DPC Latency. BTW, This issue isn't limited to Nvidia. The latest v1909 Win10 update (with updated drivers for UHD-630 graphics) is causing high DPC Latency.

With "Noise-Print" style noise-reduction, you may achieve better results using several passes (at lower reduction settings)... than using a single pass with heavier reduction. If the noise is almost as loud as the desired audio, it's going to be tough to achieve significant artifact-free noise-reduction.

I have the UAD version of the Friedman BE-100. It's OK I've had a real BE-100 Deluxe. Running it thru something like a Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander or Suhr Reactive Load IR sounds/feels great. This combination sounds better than even the Axe-FX III. Only thing not great about the BE-100 Deluxe is the size/weight. I recently cycled back to tube amps. A few months later, I had "collected" three 50-60lb heads and numerous cabinets. They were starting to take up a lot of physical space... Finally came back around to the realization that the Axe-FX III (for me) is just a whole lot more practical. Neural DSP has released some top-tier plugins. They seem to have a bent for heavier gain. Their Quad Cortex (hardware) looks and sounds impressive. Release is on schedule for Sept of this year. From what I've seen/heard... it'll be right there with Helix, Axe-FX, and Kemper. Supposed to have a means of "Profiling"... in addition to modeling.

Hi Craig, Yes, send me a PM or Email if you'd like details.

I'm testing a new prototype. It's a "micro-tower" (mini-ITX) that has a handle (aluminum case). CPU is a i9-9900k with all 8 cores locked at 5GHz. Pair this with a 15.6" 10-point multi-touch monitor (essentially a laptop display with multi-touch capability). Put the multi-touch monitor and your audio interface in a 2U laptop rack case (rolling- easy transport and quick setup). Connect video and audio cables between the rack and micro-tower... and you're ready to go. All the power of a fast desktop... none of the limitations of a laptop... and runs near dead-silent. I use Ableton Live when playing gigs (trigger samples and to host virtual-instruments). I'm excited about this particular build... because I have all the speed of my studio DAW... in a form-factor that's practical for live use.

Not here to argue... 😉 You could choose not to optimize Win2000, Win7, or Win10. Can you still work, yes... Is it optimal? Not in my opinion. By default in Win10; there's a lot of power-management, performance throttling, phoning home to MS, background applications running, scheduled tasks, automatic updates (including notifications), Cortana, OneDrive, etc.

On the contrary, I'd say there FAR more to tweak with Win10 vs. Win7. Lots of extraneous "stuff" running in the background, automatic-updates, etc...

I like most of the guys at our local GC. I've been buying gear from them for years. Like Bat, I know what I'm looking for before I walk in. Recently wanted to check out a Spector Euro LX 5-string bass. These are normally ~$2650. Online, a white one was listed for ~$1700 (I assumed it was lightly used). Got there and the white Euro LX was marked at $2650. Since the serial number matched the listing on the website, I got it brand new for $1700 plus change.

Luna is reinventing the wheel. They'll be 5+ years playing catch-up to all the major DAW applications. The only advantage is slightly tighter integration with the Apollo series. In the live NAMM demo, the engineer claimed "zero-latency" for the monitoring of effects/processing. There's no such thing as zero latency... not even with hardware based DSP. Luna is using (re-purposing) UA's "Unison" technology from the Apollo series. Unison allows you to monitor any UAD plugin with ~2ms round-trip latency (which is excellent). Note that Luna and Unison won't do this (2ms round-trip latency) with non UAD (3rd-party) plugins. Lowest possible round-trip latency (with 3rd-party plugins) is not Apollo's forte'. RTL is on par with many of the better USB-2 audio interfaces. You can use an Apollo with any DAW application... and be able to monitor thru UAD plugins with ~2ms round-trip latency.

Note that mixing RAM with different memory chip config can cause issues. Having the same timing alone doesn't eliminate all compatibility issues.

You can try... FWIW, To eliminate compatibility issues (instability), you generally want ALL sticks of RAM to match 100%.

The drummer who launched a million drummers. I found out early Friday evening (from my wife). The radio station called her from their hotline. The band's publicist had confirmed the news. Neil Peart's influence will live on for generations. Rush my first concert when I was 15 years old. Walked into the arena as they were starting Spirit Of Radio. The performance, lights, and sound were amazing. Some one recently called Neil the Ultimate Rock Craftsman. I think that fits perfectly... RIP Neil Peart "Some are born to move the world..."

In your scenario, I'd go with the 9900k.

What types of projects are you running? Are you doing video editing/rendering? Do you need Thunderbolt-3? Are you running ProTools? There's zero risk running the 9900k with all cores locked at 5GHz.

If you're into extremely low round-trip latency, Presonus Quantum is hard to beat. It'll allow you to run a 32-sample ASIO buffer size at 96k (1ms total round-trip latency).

Patrick, we really aren't disagreeing about much. 😉 I'm "obsessed" with high clock-speed, because at that point, Threadripper (performance wise) is superior on all facets. Keep in mind that the 10980xe is going to be on shelves soon. 18-cores 4.8GHz max turbo $1000 or slightly under That's Intel's "stop-gap" until they release a 32-core model.

Unless you're wanting to compare IPC, who's going to slow the 9900k down? 😉 It'll happily run all 8 cores locked at 5GHz. It'll do so running near dead-silent. To get the 3970x to run anywhere close to stable at 4.2GHz (across all 32 cores), vCore would have to be thru the roof. I had it at 1.26v... and it was nowhere close to 100% stability. Even with amazing luck of the silicon draw, you're not going to achieve 4.5GHz across all 32 cores. If you could set vCore high-enough to achieve 100% stability (4.5GHz across all 32 cores), a 360mm water-cooler isn't going to keep it both cool... and quiet at that setting. At stock-speed, with quality 360mm water-cooler, quiet case/fans, etc... the 3970x isn't what I'd call extremely quiet. 😉 FWIW, I tested the 3970x myself. I've benchmarked it both with audio and standard tests. In standard tests, single-core performance of the 3970x does not best the 9900k. In heavily multi-threaded scenarios (both standard and audio tests), the 3970x smokes the 9900k.