Tuning up Your Mac - by Rich Tozzoli

We all know how important it is to keep your car tuned up. Your Mac is no different; with a few small maintenance tips, audio sessions will run as smooth as a new Porsche on a freshly paved four-lane highway.

Think about how many programs you install to run a typical DAW session. There’s the software itself, followed by countless plug-ins of every type and format. You also might run soft samplers and soft synths, as well as stand-alone programs such as Ableton Live or Propellerheads Reason. That’s a lot of information your computer has to think about every time you press that On button to work.

REPAIR DISK PERMISSIONS

Each time you install a new piece of software (or at least once a week or so), you should run the Disk Utility Repair Disk Permissions feature. Easily located by going to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility (10.2 and later), you simply click on the First Aid tab, select your computer and press the Repair Disk Permissions ‘button’.

WHAT IT ACTUALLY DOES

No doubt you’ve installed files from a software package with the filename extension “.pkg”. Every time you install something from this package, it creates a “Bill of Materials” file with the extension “.bom”, which is stored in the packages receipt file - Found at Library/Receipts. Check out your Receipts folder, and you’ll see many files that are installed—such as the ones on my computer in this screenshot—Apple’s Soundtrack Pro, String Studio, SoundToys Log File and Stylus Log File, etc.

Well, all of those “.bom” files contains the proper permissions for each file on a list installed by the package. Disk Utility will look at each .bom file and compare it to the actual permissions listed for each file. Disk Utility will tell you if any of those permissions differ and repair them if you choose to.

Note that Disk Utility does not check non-.pkg installed files. Also, there is no need to remove those files from Library/Receipts, so leave them alone!

KEEP IT SEPARATED

While it may seem logical to many, it’s very important to store your recorded audio files on a separate audio drive. You don’t want the computer that runs your application software (such as Logic, Digital Performer, Pro Tools, Nuendo, etc) to also have to stream out audio as well.

SEVERAL OF MY HARD DRIVES

For example, I use one LaCie external hard drive to keep the production sessions, and one or more to store the samples from software plug-in sound modules such as Ivory, DrumCore, Mirosloav and especially things like the East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestral collection.

The sample hard drive connects to my dual 2.5 G5 with the FW800 port, while the session drive is connected to one of the FW400 ports. Since Macs have room for a second internal drive, I keep all my loops on there.

Finally, I asked David Ondrick, who formerly ran the NBC New Media Division for 10 years, how he kept his Mac’s tuned up. “First and foremost is to juice up the Ram to at least 4GB’s, since it’s so cheap now.” “Actually,” he continued, “In this day and age, I would recommend 6 GB’s, because this will help you with both audio and video.”

“You also want to install an AGP or a PCI-Express graphic card to help you handle the future, with HD, etc.,” Ondrick noted. “Of course, you’ll also want a separate drive for your media. Other than the RAM, there is actually so little to do -the new machines are such screamers.”