It’s been almost a year since Windows Vista was released to consumers. We know that nearly half of our readers use Windows, so the future of the OS is something we take very seriously — even if many of you, for now, are staying cautious and working (happily, in many cases) on XP. We’ll be examining Vista from various angles over the coming weeks, both measuring the OS and telling you how to make the most of it if for music you are giving it a go.

To start out, we’ve again caught up with Noel Borthwick. Noel CTO of Cakewalk, and one of the most knowledgeable experts on Windows technical details. (He’s also a veteran Linux developer, so his perspective on operating systems goes beyond those from Redmond.)

When we talked to Noel this time last year, a lot of what was new still hadn’t been tested in the real world. Now, Vista has been in the hand of users, and there’s both some good news and bad. A year of Vista has meant a year of improvements, both from Microsoft and third parties. In my own testing, for instance, what began as a disastrous experience running Vista earlier in the year has now become more comparable to XP. (I’m currently on Vista SP1 release candidate on a modest PC desktop.) But there are still areas that could use improvement — and while general Vista improvements were welcome, I think there’s still the real question of whether Vista offers enough that’s unique to compete with its real rival, XP.

We’ll revisit some of those broad issues, but first let’s actually get the technical story, and clear up some misconceptions.

Wavosaur is a free audio editor for Windows that just hit version 1.0. It’s really good stuff: not only is it free, but the whole app is tiny (488kb), it’s designed to fit on a portable USB key, it hosts VSTs, and it’s an elegant waveform editor reminiscent of early versions of SoundForge. Even if you’ve got a wave editor of choice, might be worth sticking this on your USB key when you’re on the go — especially since it supports Windows 98, XP, and Vista. And it doesn’t have an installer or touch the Registry.

I just gave it a spin on my Vista install, and really enjoy it — clean interface, lots of features.

Basic features:

• Multiple file editing
• All the editing and processing you need (convert channels, normalize, cut and paste, trim, fade in / out, the usual)
• Pitch shift, vocal removal (karaoke, whoo!), loop points and markers
• ASIO, VST support
• Support for MP3, Akai, Amiga, and many other file formats
• Analysis features (2D, 3D)

Hmmm, look out — some more popular wave editors might get a run for their money. Thanks to Art from Russia for the tip!

Wavosaur Site

Shiny graphics, desktop widgets, a redesigned Start menu … most of what you’ve likely heard about Windows Vista means little to making music. So, we’ve grilled the senior technical expert and CTO at long-time Windows developer Cakewalk in a CDM exclusive on the guts of the new Windows and what it really means for audio production.

Cakewalk’s Noel Borthwick should know the answers. He’s not only worked on getting SONAR 6.2 to work on Vista; he’s also worked with Microsoft to make sure music customers get features they need. Rather than water this down, we’ll get all the way into the technical details, but here’s the brief summary of some of the most interesting benefits, as I see it:

1. More stability and security should help keep misbehaved drivers and malware from taking down your system.
2. Better, more “glitch-resistent” low-latency driver functionality will improve audio performance, particularly if using the new WaveRT driver model.


3. Better performance from the built-in audio included on Vista-ready computers and other supported built-in hardware will make your computer’s sound hardware more useful for day-to-day work. Or, in other words, you won’t always have to lug around an extra interface to fill in for your laptop’s headphone jack. (Interestingly, I’ll bet this could extend to Apple’s Intel MacBooks and MacBook Pros, which use the common Realtek audio chipset — perfect if you’re dual-booting to run SONAR and FL Studio. We should know soon.)

Later this month or early next, I’ll be ready to throw my full arsenal of favorite Windows music tools at the new OS (SONAR, Ableton Live, Max/MSP, Audition Pro, and others). In the meantime, we can get to know the OS’ core better.

Noel Borthwick is Cakewalk’s CTO and Vista expert; he has played a key role in collaborating with Microsoft on the specification of the WaveRT architecture for professional audio applications.

If you’re wondering how your audio interface is performing on Windows with ASIO drivers, CEntrance has released a free utility that measures latency. Latency is the delay in transit as an audio signal performs a trip through your interface. Looks handy, and you know what this means: time to post some Windows driver/interface benchmarks! Measure away, and let us know how it goes! Keep in mind, you can take advantage of everyone’s favorite Windows driver, ASIO4ALL, to provide higher performance for even audio devices (like an internal laptop card) that don’t have ASIO drivers.

I’d love to measure WDM/DirectX Windows driver latency, which is where problems usually occur, though I’m not sure I’d like the results. For those of you not in the know, ASIO is generally the way to go.

Let us know how much latency you get; reply here.

CEntrance Latency Test Utility, via Sonic State