Korg Forums

Korg Zero 8 Mixer NO DRIVERS FOR VISTA 64 YET?
Ok it's been a little over a year and Korg haven't announced any support
for Vista 64 bit yet. Sept, 19 2008.
Shame Shame Shame....how much longer will this be?
The new PC's are giving you Vista 64 bit as a standard OS now.
We need to keep an eye on the company's that support us and keep advancing in technology.

Only Korg can answerer when, if ever.

I have a Korg Zero 4 and am unfortunately running Vista 64-bit too. I purchased my laptop with all specs maxed out to have the most power and later picked up my Zero 4 only to be disappointed finding out that after so long there is still no driver support. Seriously??? To at least get some use out of my Zero 4 with Traktor I've been using my desktop with XP but really had plans to use my laptop with the portability.

I've contacted Korg towards the end of January and was given the same answer I'm sure everyone has received stating that the rep has no idea of when if at all the driver support will be available for Vista 64-bit. He told me that Vista 32-bit drivers have been released in the not so distant past so tech's are still working on the Zero series at least but gave me no details if 64-bit drivers are to come.

the latest drivers install on vista 64 just fine and software recognizes the audio interface however, status reads as "error" on streaming and no audio passes through. so i guess i'll just have to use it as a midi only controller are keep on using my vista 32 dual boot. i'm getting sick of this crappy service. is this typical for korg or have they been bought out by m-audio?

There are a lot of drivers for a lot of devices that will not run on XP64, Vista 64, or in some cases, some devices are not supported in vista at all.

it takes time to develop drivers, if the company even has the time or money to put into developing drivers for new operating systems. the biggest problem I would expect is that you can't reliably produce drivers for a computer architecture or operating system you don't actually run.
A lot of businesses are avoiding vista still (and if you have business edition of vista, you can get a free downgrade to XP Pro).
even less businesses will be adopting 64 bit platforms purely because no one has made any drivers for them.... I think one of the requirements for a driver to be signed with vista now is that it has to be 64 bit compatible but we know already from XP (The number of 'this driver is not digitally signed) warnings we get that it does not encourage development of compatible drivers..

its simply catch 22 - people won't develop drivers for 64 bit platforms because people haven't already developed drivers for 64 bit platforms... the organisation would also have to invest in a number of 64 bit computers in order to test and write these drivers in the first place...

i hope u don't actually represent Korg. because that sounds like a bullshit excuse from a lazy company, if you do. it's 2009... you can't use the excuse that vista sucks anymore. i've never had any issues with vista other than the fact that lazy companies didn't develop drivers fast enough. if you don't want to support advances in OS technology, then get the hell out of the computer hardware business. and what about windows 7? are they not going to support that OS either? one that is going to be far superior to XP and vista.

McQ714 wrote:. you can't use the excuse that vista sucks anymore. i've never had any issues with vista other than the fact that lazy companies didn't develop drivers fast enough. if you don't want to support advances in OS technology, then get the hell out of the computer hardware business.

i fully agree,if some korg users are running vista64 then korg should write the damn drivers for it,end of story, so in 10 years time when xp and vista are gone by the wayside will the zero mixers only be useable wit turntables?? i use xp so dont have to worry but feel sorry for those wit vista.

larger companies like Korg should realize that most of the people that continually buy and use their gear aren't large studios. it's the average consumer. and seeing how most computers advertised today are running vista and a big percentage of those have 4 gb or more of ram and are running vista 64, you would think that korg would try to please it's customers rather than fall behind and disappoint. i, for one, will not buy another piece of Korg gear until i get my vista 64 drivers because i just can't trust that the gear i buy will work the way it's suppose to. i will definitely be upgrading to windows 7 when it gets released and i highly doubt korg is even working on those drivers yet.. even though it's beta has been out for a couple months now. it's not that i couldn't use xp, it's that i didn't want to and shouldn't have to. if i was in the hardware business, i think i would invest money in keeping my products up-to-date with the rest of technology, better yet.. ahead of the competition. it's a great mixer with great features, and i have used it with success on my dual boot laptop running vista 32, but my DAW, for obvious reasons, is running a 64-bit OS. dammit, Korg, get with the program!!! screw that pink kaossilator and give me my software updates.

I don't represent korg.

I just know that a lot of businesses are struggling with new operating systems and hardware architecture.
remember a lot of businesses only invest in new computers every two or three years, sometimes longer than that.

most businesses are still using 32 bit computers, and making drivers for a 64 bit operating system doesn't just require installing it on a computer, they actually have to buy a brand new computer with a 64-bit compatible motherboard and a 64 bit processor. vista64 won't run on a 32 bit computer.

whilst it IS the future of computing, there are still very few end user or business systems beyond servers that are fully using 64 bit processing power. most end users with 64 bit processors are still using vista or XP 32 bit.

I'm not defending korg at all, I want 64 bit drivers for my stuff too, but you have to understand that the uptake on 64 bit processing is going to be a long process, because people aren't making drivers for it because drivers aren't available for other types of peripherals. Microsoft are trying to push it, but many businesses can't afford to go out and equip their entire workforce with brand new 64 bit computers.

I'm still waiting for 64 bit drivers for my Alesis firewire mixer, and they're not forthcoming either. I can't say i'm happy about it, but then thats computers. its not necessarily just korg's fault.

mainstream computer processors and motherboards have been 64-bit for at least 5 years. AMD introduced the athlon 64 in 2003. server processors have been 64-bit for longer than that. and nintendo 64 and playstation 2 both had 64-bit processors. 64-bit is not new technology. all of my peripherals work with vista 64 except the zero4. and that's not a short list of equipment. novation zero sl, novation xio, evolution x-session uc-17, korg padkontrol, edirol m-16dx, rme multiface 2 with hdspe card, NI kore 2, lexicon mx400, numark icdx, numark ttxusb. there are plenty of companies that have completely stable 64-bit firewire drivers... rme, presonus, m-audio...finally, and even motu.. a company that's very much in favor of macs, it seems, now has wave rt 64-bit drivers, which is windows newest driver model. so again... wtf Korg!!!

Plus Microsoft has already declared that Vista-64 architecture (and its dedicated drivers) will be compatible with i7.

Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Windows specifically said: “We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same,”
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37639/140/

This is something that the Redmont based Company had never declared before and that aims to encourage third part Companies (Korg) to not delay their development of new drivers since compatible with Vista means compatible with i7, already...

The last Native Instruments Traktor Pro supports Vista-64.
Details may be seen here.
But of course going this route leaves Zero 8 out of your DJ rig, until Korg releases its 64 bit Vista drivers update.

Talking of integration of Zero8 and this popular DJ Software... Have in mind that in order to adequately setup Traktor you need to assign enough dedicated system RAM to each virtual deck and that easily amounts to 2 Gigabytes for an stable configuration if you use .wav files. This RAM setting -has to be said- cannot be made via pagefile.sys (Hard disk virtual RAM). Therefore for such a common configuration you NEED vista 64 compatibility, which is the ONLY way to allow 4G Ram or more on a PC.

Uptodate users and we (prospective buyers) surely keep an attentive eye into Korg's Zero 8 driver updates.

I managed to get my Zero8 working fine (and far more reliably than vista ever did) on Windows 7 beta using the Vista drivers on the 32bit version - see my previous post on this.

I haven't used Vista 64 or W7 64, but you might want to give the same steps a try to see if it works - change your firewire interface drivers to 'legacy' (I was receiving the same Streaming State: Error message until I did this).

Hope this helps,
Fus

Rufuswhite

Good to know you were able to migrate your system from Vista to Win 7 Beta already (32bits) working with Zero 8, though you still needed to replace firewire drivers.

However this good new does not solve the RAM limit that Traktor PRO + Zero users still face because Korg's Zeros are still not compatible with 64 bit OS'.
Why? As mentioned, 32 bit systems -whatever the name XP, Vista or Win7- cannot accept much more than 3 Giga of RAM, and since Traktor needs to reserve 2 Gigas of RAM if you want it to sync 4 layers of good quality sound, that is 512 MB for each of its 4 virtual players... then you have also to count in 1 additional Giga for Windows (Vista or 7) resulting in that you cannot have almost anything else running at the same time (plug-ins, security soft, forget about co-running Live, etc.)...

Zero line needs the 64 bit drivers not only because Windows is evolving fast (and users are following suit), but because Native Instruments already evolved with the recently launched Traktor PRO. Even Richie Hawtin is endorsing this technology.
Zero 8 is being left aside nowadays by a rather minor driver uncompatibility. Something wich does not correspond with its excellent and still unmatched features, provided you are using Zero 8 good sounding digital path and not its noisy analog path.
Hawtin started using Traktor beacuse its capacities, not because a Native Intruments marketing campaign. Zeros could have a similar response from advanced professional users, but it wont happen at least until Korg makes them uptodate standards.

Korg's rival Roland has upgraded their drivers to 64 bits.
They explain its benefits quite on the point:

"The evolution of 64-bit processing technology empowers musicians with faster PC audio processing than ever before," says Vince LaDuca, Product Marketing Manager. "The professional audio and MIDI interfaces in our line of products are now a powerhouse combination with any cutting-edge PC on the market."
http://news.harmony-central.com/Product ... dows-Vista

I wonder how different would be to re-program drivers when the techs have already done it in other mixers from the brand? Not like writting them from scratch probably...

I am waiting for 64 drivers as well. I hope Korg follows Roland's lead into supporting win64.

I guess I will load Win7 for the time being

Korg please make the drivers!