Optimizing your PC for Audio Tutorial

1 - Requirements. Make sure your computer meets the minimum requirements of your software (host application and plug-ins).

2 - Version. Make sure to check that you are using the most current versions of your software (host application, plug-ins and any software required for your digital audio hardware). Go to the manufacturers website and compare the latest version with your installed version. In most cases the version you install from a purchased package is not the most recent.

3 - HARD DRIVES? Your audio data needs to be written/read from high performance drives, that should have access times of at least 9 ms or lower. Drives with a larger cache are also favorable. These drives are usually described as “7200 rpm / 8mb Cache” and are quite common. We strongly recommend that you NOT use your C: drive for audio recording if at all possible. You should have a second drive that is dedicated to AUDIO files only. This can be an external Fire Wire drive that is very easy to add to your system. If you must use your C: drive for audio recording it should be partitioned.

4 - INTERNET? Although it is handy to have your workstation connected to the internet for downloading updates and patches, we strongly recommend that you NOT use your workstation for EMAIL or “everyday” web browsing. EMAIL and browsing opens you up to all sorts of “attacks” that will eventually bog down your machine.

5 - Turn Off Windows Messenger. Double click on the Messenger icon in the system tray to open it. Skip thru the internet and sign up stuff, just cancel it. When Messenger loads go to tools and Options then Preferences and uncheck 'Run this program when windows starts'

6 -Turn Off System sounds. Trust us on this one… Most computers come with their own “on board” sound card or chipset. These devices can interfere with the nice soundcard or external box you just bought. Click on START then Select CONTROL PANEL, then double click the SOUNDS AND AUDIO DEVICES icon. Click on the Sounds tab and change the sound scheme to NO SOUNDS. When asked to save current theme, just say no.

Now to some performance enhancements…

7 - Use “Windows Classic Mode”. Switching to Classic Mode is better for system performance because it doesn’t need to make everything “look cool” all the time and will immediately make your system “snappier”.

Here’s how…

Click on START, and then on CONTROL PANEL. Once the control panel is opened, click on SWITCH TO CLASSIC VIEW. Then Double click on the SYSTEM ICON. The SYSTEM PROPERTIES window appears… Click on ADVANCED, then click on the settings button in the PERFORMANCE box. Now click / select the radio button ADJUST FOR BEST PERFORMANCE, then click APPLY… Bingo… It’s not as pretty but it’s WAY faster! Now, while we still have the PERFORMANCE OPTIONS window open we’ll go to the next step…

8 -Optimize Performance for Background Applications. So, with our PERFORMANCE OPTIONS window still open select the ADVANCED tab. Now you will see a box / area called PROCESSOR SCHEDULING. Click / select the BACKROUND SERVICES radio button and then click OK. That’s it!

9 -Disable Disk Indexing Service. This tweek will make searching for a file a little slower BUT, it will make your audio applications run faster and smoother.

Here’s how:

Right Click on START then choose EXPLORE. Click on MY COMPUTER and you will see all of your drives in the HARD DISK DRIVES section of the window. Now right click on a drive and from the pop up menu select PROPERTIES. At the bottom of the properties window you will see a check box (the default setting is CHECKED) next to ALLOW INDEXING SERVICE TO INDEX THIS DISK FOR FAST FILE SEARCHING. We want to UN-CHECK this box and then click APPLY. You will now see a window saying CONFIRM ATTRIBUTE CHANGES. Select APPLY CHANGES TO X:\,SUBFOLDERS and FILES. Where “X” is the drive you have chosen. You will now probably see another window telling you ITS DOING IT. This process can take a few minutes depending on how much data is already on the disk. REPEAT this process for all Hard Disk Drives on your system.

10 - Regularly defragment all your drives using windows’ defragmentation tool.