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Program Priorities:What Would YOU Re-install After a Crash?


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So I finally bit the bullet and started re-constructing my C: drive. I was amazed it lasted as long as it did, being a W10 overlay on a W7 install, with a power failure during a "Don't turn off your computer" update when my UPS battery gave up after 5 minutes...and then a graphics card hardware problem that for some reason, caused various corruptions. Over the years, I'd accumulated so much stuff that it really made me think about what was an essential install to do what I do. So here's what got installed, which brings up the bigger question of what your "desert island" programs would be if you had to start over...

 

Magix Vegas

Presonus Studio One

Ableton Live

Cakewalk by BandLab

Waves Diamond plug-in bundle

IK Total Studio MAX 2

Native Instruments Komplete whatever-version-I-have

Selected Universal Audio plugs

A lot of PSP Audioware plug-ins

Line 6 Helix

Rapture Pro

PRS Amps

Hypercam 2

 

I realized that really covers most of my needs. There are more installs to come, but it's kind of mind-boggling how much I can do with that collection.

 

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Hurmph....

 

Ableton Live

iZotope RX 7

DSP-Quattro

Audio Hijack/Looper

Plug-ins from Valhalla DSP, Wave Arts, and U-He (and PSP, yeh)

Virtual instruments from GForce, U-He, UVI, Tone2, Rob Papen

 

And I could narrow that down pretty tightly if I had to.

 

mike

 

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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Well, having built up a lot of computers from carcasses in migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 (Maybe to Windows 12 in 20 years if I'm still alive), I start with the things I use every day, which, believe it or not, is not recording. But all of my computers, whatever their primary use, are equipped to do at least 2-channel recording and editing.

 

So, usually the first day, I install

 

Thunderbird for e-mail, and that usually works right off if I copy the Profile folder from a currently working installation into the new installation

Firefox for Internet - ditto with the Profile folder transplant - so I have all my bookmarked web sites and passwords

Microsoft Office 2000 (because I have an installable copy), and copy all my currently stored-on-computer Word, Excel, and Power Point files

 

Then we get to the audio stuff:

 

Sound Forge ('cause that's what I use most of the time)

Audacity ('cause that's what I suggest to people who want to record or digitize their tapes or records and don't want to spend any $)

Reaper

Mixbus

Winamp

Room EQ Wizard

 

ASIO4ALL and whatever drivers and support software I need to support the audio interfaces I have around at the time

 

I hardly ever use plug-ins, so I wait to install those until I find a need. The one exception is Voxengo SPAN to turn Sound Forge into a real time spectrum analyzer so I can tell what's wrong with things that aren't right.

 

That's enough to take on a desert island, as long as I don't forget the batteries.

 

 

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Kind of a dual approach. I have monthly image backups of every computer (Win & Mac). So, if there is a crash, I can restore rather quickly (also have a few new spare hard drives).

 

Software itself can be a problem. I almost always figure out a way to get the actual executable install file for anything I purchase or download; and keep them all in a patches directory (which is backed up on three different machines in addition to the image backups). Right now, that is about 190GB of files (this also includes additional stuff like PDF manuals, drivers, etc.)

 

Idea being that I just might want to install the exact same version (or that the software is no longer available).

 

New machines start with a basic build of everyday stuff that lives on all the machines, then moves on to more specialized software for the purpose of the particular computer. One computer is setup for both myself and wife with the most frequently used programs for each user, but no data. All of the data is available from monthly backups on a large flash drive, or from the NAS unit.

 

Specially nice on the Mac - I use Super Duper to make a clone of the SSD on an external SSD. Serves both as backup and also can be plugged into any Mac (with enough RAM and recent enough processor) to boot from so that the "any" Mac becomes "my" Mac. Slower than normal, but all my stuff is there. All of the important data also lives in iCloud and OneDrive.

 

Howard Grand|Hamm SK1-73|Kurz PC2|PC2X|PC3|PC3X|PC361; QSC K10's

HP DAW|Epi Les Paul & LP 5-str bass|iPad mini2

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Jim

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I jumped ship to the Mac and found that recovery is far less painful than Windows. I can re-install anything I bought from the App Store right from there. For the apps I downloaded, I archived them on a backup hard drive. The backup holds everything and is safe in my safety deposit box.
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Reaper

NI Komplete - I use mostly Kontakt, Guitar Rig, Battery, Abysnth, Reaktor (including Monark)

East-West Quantum Leap Pianos

East-West Fab Four

All the Waves stuff - I own about 20 of their plugins, and use at least a dozen of them every project.

VST synths - Diva, Oddity2, Repro-1, Repro-5. These are so good I'm considering selling my analog synths.

Amplitude, MODO Bass, VB3

BFD3, Addictive Drums

Melodyne

 

nat

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1) Master Tracks Pro - my go-to MIDI sequencer

2) Band-in-a-Box - It brings in a share of my household income and it's fun to use too

3) Encore - it's not the best notation app anymore, but it serves my purposes - if it ever gets orphaned I'll use the free one

4) Audacity

5) Power Tracks Pro Audio

6) Cakewalk

7) C-Dex

8) Internet stuff like browser, VPN, etc.

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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Kind of a dual approach. I have monthly image backups of every computer (Win & Mac). So, if there is a crash, I can restore rather quickly (also have a few new spare hard drives).

 

Yeah, images are great...mostly. I was able to keep going for a couple months by loading an older image, and be back where I started. Then one day, the image wouldn't load because a poison update had been downloaded but not installed, so as soon as the computer booted, the update tried to install and I got the BSOD. That's when I figured I should take a hint :)

 

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Hurmph....

 

Ableton Live

iZotope RX 7

DSP-Quattro

Audio Hijack/Looper

Plug-ins from Valhalla DSP, Wave Arts, and U-He (and PSP, yeh)

Virtual instruments from GForce, U-He, UVI, Tone2, Rob Papen

 

And I could narrow that down pretty tightly if I had to.

 

mike

 

RX 7 is the first one for batch #2. Can't live without the mouth click remover for narration :)

 

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If I had to, I could make music the rest of my life with just Reaktor and a midi-only DAW.

 

nat

 

Well, I could make music with a lot less than the programs I listed. But, I do a lot of compatibility and beta testing, video work, narration (hence RX7), etc. I also write regular articles about the software, so it's a matter of necessity...like having a car if you're going to be an Uber driver :)

 

That said, I am amazed at how much I can do with software that costs about the same as my TEAC A3340S and the mixer I built for it, in today's dollars. We've come a long way, baby.

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Great timing for this thread!

Mac user here, just made a bootable external hard drive (Samsung SSD) by following the procedures on this page:

https://www.howtogeek.com/399058/how-to-make-a-bootable-clone-of-your-macs-hard-drive/

 

I will leave that disc offline, unplug the internet when using it (I put quick song sketches and such on there too).

It's all muy stuff, all in one place. I plan on making another one fairly soon, a redundant system is a reliable system.

 

If and when I have a disaster on the main drive, I'll boot from the backup disk, open Disk Utility and restore it.

Really simple, a few clicks and then just wait for everything to transfer - about 80 gigs of stuffs.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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If and when I have a disaster on the main drive, I'll boot from the backup disk, open Disk Utility and restore it.

 

Great tip! I have a Time Machine for my Mac Pro in my office. Just got the iMac for my studio and was looking into a good backup/restore system and will be looking into the SSD external drive!

 

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A USB cloned drive on a Mac can be useful as a complete backup; and also can be plugged into any Mac that meets the hardware spec needed to run the particular OS and programs, booted from, and then "any" Mac becomes "your" Mac temporarily. Will be slower, especially on older Macs that have USB2 ports.

Howard Grand|Hamm SK1-73|Kurz PC2|PC2X|PC3|PC3X|PC361; QSC K10's

HP DAW|Epi Les Paul & LP 5-str bass|iPad mini2

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Jim

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