Wayne, we are MTU. All the customers helping one another taking the load of the guys and gals that work in or out of an office associated with MTU.
MTU products, for my limited experience, are designed with the same level of compassion that you have for your show. Everybody wants to put on the best show they can, not for the money, but for the fun of it. When I have a GREAT show, I walk away from my day looking forward to the next one and never second guessing why I put up with all the problems associated with the business end of it (Taxes, licensing, technical problems).
I don't know how many people actually work for MTU, but I would guess it isn't much more than 10, maybe upwards of 20 taking into account lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, Mavis who answers the phones and handles the mail (Mavis doesn't really exist, I think
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If I have a point, I think it is this, we all think of the company (whatever one we may be dealing with) as bigger than we are. Some companies attempt to bloat themselves in the image of the consumer so as to insure confidence in there product. MTU isn't Microsoft, but don't think that if Bill had a hair crossed he wouldn't consider engulfing it! Let's all be thankful that Bill doesn't sing karaoke.... but many of those employees do, and I know where
We, those of us menions who answer these posts are the front line (tech 1 and sometimes 2) MTU is the Senior Tech and above but even they don't have all the answers.
This may be my subtle way of saying, give 'em a break. The more we can help each other, the more time they can spend on getting the next version out to us!
Gduns brings up some good suggestions. You might be surprised at how poorly so called "Factory Installed" installations are failed! There are a lot of other things that you can do to increase performance to help reduce the cpu load while switching back and forth.
I want to do the same thing you are doing. Right now I use a CD Mixer, LD Player and CDG player to get my job done. When I get to the computer and have all my songs on it, I plan on having Sound Effects on command, MP3 Music for filler and of course all the karaoke. I will be watching this post as I watch them all prempting my next move.
Let's hope we can find your solution.