seamless upgrade from V 7 - V8 ?

Before I upgrade my HW V7 to V8, will this be "seamless" . in other words, will everything function as it did with HW 7 with my existing Mixer Presets - using intermediate audio routing , floating divisions, etc.

I'm currently doing a choir festival in the next week - I understand from the literature that the time it takes to "switch organs" has been reduced significantly? ( 90 seconds or so seems like an eternity) if so, the reduced load time between instruments would be a huge advantage. - what would a good estimate be based on the current load time of around 80 - 90 seconds )
I just don't want any surprises that would require an investment in time and study to have everything function properly. \

Also, will my existing Launchpad also work. I'm not sure of the differences in the launchpad "X". they appear to be the same physical size. Does this include the Launchpad "mini" - a smaller footprint would certainly be nice at the console.

thank you,
Wayne

While I found upgrading from 7 to 8 to be effortless, I wouldn't risk upgrading a stable system with a performance looming.

My 90 second load times on some larger organs went to about 45 seconds with HW8, mainly due to better memory management.

[mdyde]

Hello Wayne,

Thanks very much for the interest in upgrading.

Before I upgrade my HW V7 to V8, will this be "seamless" . in other words, will everything function as it did with HW 7 with my existing Mixer Presets - using intermediate audio routing , floating divisions, etc.
...
Also, will my existing Launchpad also work.

In principle no settings should be lost in the process, and your existing hardware should continue to work. One minor point to note is that the former 'medium' audio engine quality option no longer exists and is migrated automatically to 'higher', so if you were using that 'medium' setting for any organs then you might possibly want to fine-tune your polyphony limit setting a little for those organs after upgrading (although Hauptwerk attempts to do that for you anyway when migrating).

The release notice covers changes, and any things to be aware of:

https://www.hauptwerk.com/documentation/

Although the upgrading process should be very quick and simple, it's always good practice to make sure you do a backup first ("File | Backup ...") and keep it somewhere safe, for good measure. I would also say that it would be better and safer to wait until after your choir festival before upgrading or changing anything on your computer, so that you have ample time available, to minimise the risk of anything getting in the way of your festival.

I'm not sure of the differences in the launchpad "X". they appear to be the same physical size. Does this include the Launchpad "mini" - a smaller footprint would certainly be nice at the console.

Hauptwerk v8 officially supports the "Launchpad X", "Launchpad Mk2" and original "Launchpad" (mark 1) models. We don't officially support the Launchpad Mini, but see also this note page 14 of the Hauptwerk v8.0.1 release notice:

Note: we have also implemented the Launchpad X support in such a way that it is likely also to be compatible with the Launchpad Mk3 Mini model (if its equivalent MIDI ports are enabled, similar to the list above), although it is not guaranteed, and we don’t officially support the Mk3 Mini model.

We've heard from users that v8 does indeed work properly with the Launchpad Mk3 Mini model, so you would probably be fine using one of those (but we don't officially guarantee it).

I understand from the literature that the time it takes to "switch organs" has been reduced significantly? ( 90 seconds or so seems like an eternity) if so, the reduced load time between instruments would be a huge advantage. - what would a good estimate be based on the current load time of around 80 - 90 seconds )

It's largely impossible to say how much of a speed gain you would achieve, since it depends so much on your hardware (CPU speed, SSD speed, RAM speed, operating system performance), but most people do see a significant gain (in some cases more than halving the time needed to switch between two organs).

[Edit: P.S. Mark and I replied at the same time.]