Jim Roseberry

Yes, project data on the boot drive is a bad idea for several reasons. For backup purposes, you want to keep the boot drive clean/lean. Otherwise, backup is slow/tedious... and consumes a lot of additional (redundant) space. For top performance, you want the audio files streaming from a separate drive. If the boot drive were to die prematurely, your project data is still intact on the data drive/s.

It's completely safe to delete all contents of the picture cache. The files will be recreated as needed...

Also wanted to chime in on the multiple DAW applications vs. CbB With what I do for a living, I have all the major DAW applications. Each has incredible strengths... and head-scratching weaknesses For straight up audio work, both Reaper and Samplitude are incredibly powerful (both having Item/Object based editing/processing). For more advanced MIDI, it's hard to beat Cubase. Almost all of our professional composer clients are running Cubase. Studio One is extremely easy to use... and has a nice balance of features/performance. However, it lacks in more esoteric MIDI features. ie: Percentage Quantize is limited to 50%. Why not let the user choose the desired percentage??? ProTools 2018 offers a well balanced feature set, but CPU efficiency (especially when working at the smallest ASIO buffer size) isn't as good as Reaper/StudioOne/CbB. When it comes to CPU efficiency, Reaper is the top performer. What's Reaper's weakness? It's configurable almost to a fault. Initial configuration can be daunting... especially for less tech-savvy users. More esoteric MIDI features are lacking compared to Cubase. Ableton Live is fantastic for working with samples, triggering virtual-instruments/samples (especially live on stage), etc. It's weakness is on the editing side (lacks many advanced audio editing features found in Reaper/Samplitude, SO4, CbB, Cubase, ProTools). Even with numerous (good) options available, I'm not 100% settled on which application will be my main DAW software. Of late, most of my time has been spent with Studio One. There's a lot to like about SO4, but there's also a lot to like about CbB. Truth be told, most of us could make do with any of the above. That's when it starts to feel like we're spoiled by so many quality choices.

Wanted to chime in on "Dropped Buffers" Dropped buffers aren't because of your audio interface or the A/D D/A. If buffers are lost/dropped, it's because the machine can't keep up with the sustained data-flow. High DPC Latency is often a culprit

+1 on that advice, scook!

Companies like Fractal Audio and Kemper raised the bar for guitar (amp-sim) processors. This caused other companies like Line-6, Atomic Amps, HeadRush (InMusic), UA, etc to step-up their modeling. Line-6 (IMO) nailed a great UI with Helix. Super easy to use. They also released Helix Native (software only version of Helix), which is extremely convenient. I've owned/used all the major guitar modeling/profiling processors... and compared most side-by-side. In short, ALL are capable of good/excellent results. All are also capable of sounding bad. The more familiar you are with your chosen modeler/profiler (and the original gear), the better your end result.

A clean install means reinstalling all software/plugins (reauthorizing everything). This is one case where using dongles is actually more convenient. Your license is on the dongle, so there's no re-authorization when reinstalling.

By today's standards, 16GB RAM for a DAW isn't a "stretch"... it's common place. If you're running 8GB RAM (especially using virtual-instruments), that's running pretty lean (even with Win7). The OS itself is going to take some of that 8GB (Win10 with Chrome open to write this message is using about 2.8GB). So, even in your Win7 scenario, say the OS is taking 2GB of the 8GB total RAM. That leaves ~6GB before the machine starts to hit the VM swapfile in lieu of real physical RAM (which will absolutely kill performance). If you're running something like Superior Drummer (where the samples are loaded/streamed from RAM), that can consume another 2+GB. You're now down to ~4GB for your DAW software and any remaining plugins. Even if it's working fine, that's definitely running lean. It's not about doubling/quadrupling your RAM for Win10, it's about having enough RAM for your largest projects (to avoid hitting the VM swapfile). The doubling/quadrupling is the reality of having to install dual-channel (two matching sticks) for maximum performance. With each OS release, the OS is slightly larger... and the system requirements creep up. Been the case with Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2k, Vista, Win7, and Win10 One could say each OS becomes slightly more "bloated" compared to the previous version. Hardware speed/capacity increases... and the OS/Applications/Plugins are developed to use this increase in speed/capacity. If you were transitioning from Win98 to Vista or Win7, you'd be feeling exactly the same. Win10 is a fine DAW platform. Increase your RAM to 16GB and tweak the OS for maximum DAW performance. If you want the option to run Thunderbolt, you have to be running Win10. If you want to run the latest generation of hardware (ie: Z390 chipset motherboards), you have to run Win10. If you want to run the latest DAW software/plugins (smoothly), it makes sense to run the latest OS (not one that's a decade old). Some software developers have stopped official support for Win7 (more will follow). That's a reality of finite development resources.

In the context of a dense Rock mix, a typical DI electric bass (especially a passive bass) is going to sound a bit anemic. If you have access to something like a Neve preamp, that can help immensely. The sound is larger/smoother (without sounding compressed). I struggled for many years to get a good DI electric bass recording (especially with passive basses). I used the Avalon U5, Reddi Box, UA-610... and all were OK sounding (to my ears)... but not great. Ultimately got a Neve Portico-II channel-strip... and it was what I'd been looking for all those years. Though it has a great 4-band EQ and nice dynamics processor, the sound of the bass straight off the preamp sounds great. At mix, a very slight amount of compression and a very small bit of high-pass filter to roll-out the very deepest sub-bass The sound is there from the very beginning... If going DI with electric bass, keep in mind that a mic'd bass amp isn't going to reproduce sound all the way down to 20Hz. Use a high-pass filter to roll-out the deepest sub-bass (20-50Hz)... and the bass will sit better in the mix. If forced to use a "plain-jane" (for lack of a better word) type DI to record electric-bass, I'd use an Amp-Sim plugin to "toughen up" the signal. If you have a nice bass-amp and decent mic, consider mic'ing the amp. Sometimes it's quicker/easier to just record the real thing. If you have a great bass amp (Ampeg, Mesa, MarkBass, etc), I'd definitely try recording it.

Not so much Metal... but definitely a Rock guy. Used to be more into Prog Rock when I was younger. Now, I prefer simpler... well-crafted songs.

8GB RAM is a bit lean to run Win10. Get that up to 16GB (or 32GB - especially if using virtual-instruments)... and you won't risk hitting the VM swap-file (in lieu of enough physical RAM)... which kills performance.

BTW, If you dual-boot using Win10, make sure you disable "Turn On Fast Startup". When enabled, we've seen cases of lost data, etc.

FWIW, An upgrade install (if you choose to Save/Migrate nothing), is essentially a clean install of Win10. An upgrade install (where you migrate) does leave the Registry a mess (by comparison to a clean install). In a perfect world, you want to start with a clean install... as that's the most rock-solid foundation.

Do not use any type of RAM "enhancement" or optimization applications. Those will do nothing positive for DAW performance. As long as you have your RAM timing set properly, you're good-to-go. DAW optimizations are much more about performance throttling (disabling)... and power-management (disabling)

Happy New Year from Columbus, OH! I too go back to the CompuServe days... Hard to believe it's actually been that long. Things have certainly come a long way over the past 20+ years! Glad to see the official CbB Forums up-and-running!