Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

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Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by ken »

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/mac ... imization/

Hey All,

Sweetwater Music Store has posted a bunch of optimization guides for audio. If you want to increase your systems performance, you should check these out.

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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by roymond »

Most awesome. Anyone know if there's a Profile Manager in pre-Lion versions of Mac OSX? Would be nice to set it up, save as a defined profile and be able to boot to the music profile, then back to it's original state.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Lunkhead »

Not to duplicate what I was saying on Facebook too much, but I've not seen anything that will let you modify multiple global settings at once, either pre or post Lion. I would love to learn of one too if anybody knows of one.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Lunkhead »

Some of the "optimizations" seem kind of dubious to me. A lot of it isn't very important as long as you use an external/second hard drive for all your DAW work. It's just a good idea in general to use a separate drive for your DAW work than your system/apps drive. That would mitigate issues with Energy Saver, Spotlight Indexing, Software Updates, Time Machine, File Vault, and Sudden Motion Sensor. Turning off Sudden Motion Sensor seems like a pretty bad idea. I would hate to turn that off, then forget to turn it back on, then drop my laptop and lose my internal drive. Oops!

I think their best advice is to just turn off everything that you never use. If you don't have any Bluetooth devices, turn off Bluetooth. Turn off FireWire Networking, as practically nobody uses that. Go into the Sharing settings and turn off any sharing that's on that you didn't know was on and don't use. Quit any programs that are running that you don't need.

Make sure you've got as much CPU and memory as possible. Get 4-8GB of memory at least. Browsers can be major memory hogs, so if you want to make sure your DAW software can get all the memory it needs, quit your browsers. (You can see your memory usage in the Activity Monitor app, "System Memory" tab, also choose "All Processes" in the top menu and sort by "Real Mem" descending. Chrome tabs show up as different processes so add those up to get your total Chrome memory usage, for example.) Generally quit any app you don't absolutely need while using your DAW software (e.g. quit your IM app, your mail app, don't stream videos from Netflix, or play DVDs, crunch genomes or generate fractals in the background, etc.).
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

I just followed each step in the guide. I'll let you know if my computer explodes.
Thanks, Ken. ;)
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by ken »

I think a lot of this stuff isn't all that important the way it used to be when computers had a fraction of the power and drive space they do now. Certainly, if you are mainly using your machine for audio, like I do, making it as streamlined as possible for that makes sense.

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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Caravan Ray »

Lunkhead wrote:A lot of it isn't very important as long as you use an external/second hard drive for all your DAW work. It's just a good idea in general to use a separate drive for your DAW work than your system/apps drive.
What do you actually mean here?

I just use Garageband on my iMac as it came out of the box.

Sometimes - it does hang and tell me it is out of memory and stuff. Especially if I have lots andlots of vocal tracks (as I usually do) I generally ignore it because next time I click 'play' or 'record' it is usually fine. It is a rare, minor annoyance.

Are you saying that if I plug in an external USB hard drive and keep my GB files on there, then this won't happen? Have I got that right?
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Lunkhead »

I can't really speak to your specific problems, and having another drive won't help if you are having memory related issues. It can help with reading/writing your audio data though. You can only access so much data from any one hard drive at a time. If you've only got one drive for everything, then GB will have to compete with everything else that's going on (e.g. your OS downloading updates, Spotlight Indexing, Time Machine backups, etc.). If you have a separate drive just for your audio data, GB will not be competing with anything to access data on that drive.

As far as memory issues go, the solutions there are: buy and install as much memory as you possibly can (I'm talking about "RAM" here, not hard drive), and quit memory hogging apps like browsers, etc. if you need more memory for your DAW. I tend to leave Activity Monitor open all the time and when my Mac feels sluggish I go look at the "System Memory" pie chart. If you don't see much green, you need to quit some apps.

(CPU is a constrained resource like memory, as well. Quit any CPU hogging apps while running your DAW if you're hitting CPU limitations, though this is probably a lot less likely than memory limitations. Don't play fancy 3d games, run your CAD program, etc. if you want to keep your CPU capacity available for your DAW.)
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Caravan Ray »

Well, my point was really that I don't actually have any significant problems (shut up BLT), but you wrote" It's just a good idea in general to use a separate drive for your DAW work than your system/apps drive" - and I don't really understand why.

You wrote:
It can help with reading/writing your audio data though. You can only access so much data from any one hard drive at a time.
I am not sure why I need help here. If as you say - using an external hard drive would not change the rare and minor "hangs" I sometimes see (which, as you say are probably memory related from using too many tracks and too many effects at once) - I am not sure how it will help.

I ask becasue I actually do have a spare external HD lying about doing nothing - and I would try what you suggest, if I could understand why I was doing it. I have heard similar comments elsewhere - but, as I say - I am at a loss to see what benefit an external hard drive would give me.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Lunkhead »

I was suggesting it as a good thing to do in general, not as the solution to your specific problem. If you have a memory bottleneck, don't get another disk, get more memory. Also I was suggesting it as a way to mitigate the "need" for many of the "optimizations" mentioned in the linked article. None of those things will help you either if you have a memory constraint problem. Some of them seem potentially dangerous. I was just cautioning people that rather than futz with settings, if they are having an I/O problem they might benefit from a second drive, assuming they're not also having memory and CPU issues. I don't really know how to be more clear about what I am saying, sorry if I'm still not making sense.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Caravan Ray »

I am trying to work out why it is a "good thing to do in general".

What benefits does having a separate external drive for your DAW work than your system/apps drive bring?
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Lunkhead »

To paraphrase my earlier comment, a computer can only transfer so much data to/from a hard drive at a time. If your computer only has one drive, then GarageBand will have to compete with the operating system and all the other apps for a share of that capacity to transfer data to/from that hard drive. Using a DAW app usually involves reading a lot of data from your hard drive, because you are streaming large uncompressed audio files, one for each channel in your project. If the OS or other apps are hogging access to the drive, your DAW will not be able to play back audio properly.

Imagine that your DAW is like a large bus, trying to get through city streets crowded with lots of cars. A second drive is like having a set of roads only for the bus, with no cars or other traffic in the way. It's not a perfect analogy but it's late and I'm tired...
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Caravan Ray »

Ok - sorry I'm a bit dense - but that does make more sense now

I think the spare HD i have is USB. Would that be worth using? Of should it be firewire?

I might try it out one day - but it is still hard to see how it may benefit me. Mainly because it would be very rare that I would have anything besides GB open on my computer Thanks your your patience.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by roymond »

You're not aint gonna want a no USB drive for daw work.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Caravan Ray »

roymond wrote:You're not aint gonna want a no USB drive for daw work.
I read that post to the tune of this:



But the other thing I was thinking is I have a 500GB Time Capsule which services 3 computers and is approaching fullness. I notice the 2TB ones are now as cheap as buggery - so if I upgrade - I will have the 500GB one doing nothing.

Would it be worthwhile keeping all my GB files on the old Time Capsule? - but it talks wirelessly - and that is even slower than USB n'est-ce pas? One benefit I can now see is that if I am travelling for work etc- I could take the external HD and plug it into my laptop and fiddle with stuff when I am alone in a motel room (shut up BLT). (my old lap top I travel with is full of photos and stuff so there is not much HD space for recording)
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Lunkhead »

"USB" is a bit vague. If you mean a USB "thumb drive", one of those little things more like the size of a stick of gum, you don't want to use that for recording. If you mean an actual hard drive, in an external enclosure, with a USB 2.0 interface, then that's plenty good enough for audio. You do not want to try to use a drive over WiFi for audio, though, that is too slow, like ~3% the speed of USB 2.0. You can go to System Profiler, or System Information depending on your Mac OS version, to see when you have the drive plugged if it's connected over USB 2.0 or 1.x. 1.x is slow and not good enough, but if your drive is less than 5 years old and your Mac is less than 5 years old, odds are it'll be connected over USB 2.0. Just watch out if you're plugging it in via a USB hub or a USB port on your keyboard. You probably want to just plug it straight into your computer.

It definitely won't hurt to have a dedicated drive for your GB files, and you would get the added benefit of portability.

Also, if you're having issues with GB on your iMac, you should probably buy more RAM. Make sure you have at least 4GB, preferably 8GB. If you're already not running much else other than GB when you use GB, that's good.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

On my old slow computer, I had to have my DAW on the main HD. If I used an external, it was glitchy as efff. Now on my new rig, I still keep my DAW on the main drive because I have a 1.6 tig HD partitioned. 640 gigs is the DAW and active songs in the works partition and the other tig is for storage. I use my externals for personal and business.

Update on the changes in the guide Ken posted: I did all the things in the guide on my old computer first, because I'm still transitioning from Cubase LE. It did in fact fix a little pain in the ass issue I've had. I loaded up an old song I did that had so many tracks that I had to break it up into 2 separate projects. The problems I had were extreme lag, freeze ups that would lock up for as long as a couple minutes! Sometimes just freeze and I'd have to power down and lose whatever wasn't saved. If I was able to get a mix down window to open, there would be click/spark sounds in the mix. Very aggravating.
So yesterday I loaded up one of the old projects that had several click/spark sounds on the mix down before I separated the tracks into new projects. It rendered fast and no click/spark sounds in the mix. Yay, success!
I haven't tried recording a 45th+ track with a bunch of VSTs active yet, because recording a track is when I have the highest CPU usage. It still had lag keeping a low latency and I still have to set it so high. But that's processor and ram causing that problem. It's fine up to around 22 tracks. I hate when a computer limits my imagination when I'm in the zone.

The new DAW computer is straight out of a recording studio (thank you Edgar) and set up specifically for recording needs. But I followed the guide anyway because some of the things described made sense to me. I did load up that same heavy song into the new DAW with my latency set at 512, which is the default for my interface setup. The CPU meter barely moved. But that's because of the processor and ram on the new rig I'm guessing.
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by HeuristicsInc »

Lunkhead wrote: Also, if you're having issues with GB...Make sure you have at least 4GB, preferably 8GB...GB when you use GB, that's good.
wow, that's some acronym overloading. 8 Garage Bands? haha, just kidding. I hope you haven't confused poor CRay too badly :)
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

HeuristicsInc wrote:
Lunkhead wrote: Also, if you're having issues with GB...Make sure you have at least 4GB, preferably 8GB...GB when you use GB, that's good.
wow, that's some acronym overloading. 8 Garage Bands? haha, just kidding. I hope you haven't confused poor CRay too badly :)
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Spud »

Are you guys really too geeked out to see that CR is pulling your leg? He is essentially saying "what I have works for me, why should I change?", and the real answer is "you shouldn't - concentrate on making better music, dude".
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Re: Mac/PC Optimization Guides from Sweetwater

Post by Caravan Ray »

Spud wrote:Are you guys really too geeked out to see that CR is pulling your leg? He is essentially saying "what I have works for me, why should I change?"
No - there was no limb manipulation. I was saying as - "what I have works for me, but am I missing something that might work better?"
Spud wrote: and the real answer is "you shouldn't - concentrate on making better music, dude".
You're pulling my leg right? How could my music possibly get any better?
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