Website for optimizing computer performance for Audio

True North · 24th April 2008, 04:28 PM

Thanks for making this a sticky George.

In the interest of simplicity, I am going to post all of the links that people have added below in this first post.
If you want to add another link P.M. me and I will add it.
If you have some general advice then obviously feel free to post below.

The following links are to webistes which give instructions on how to improve your Audio PC computer performance.

TweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software
Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide.
XP Performance Tweaks
Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees
Optimize XP
Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf
Some (so far) good Windows XP news... - Cockos Confederated Forums
MusicXP.net > Home
Matt Bentley Music - Windows XP cleanup/speedup guide
Black Viper's Web Site
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 1
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 2
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 3

Lagerfeldt · 24th April 2008, 07:11 PM

Mac OS X

-No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky.

-Set processor for max power, set hard disks and screens to don't sleep (only applies to some Macs)

-Don't use screen savers.

-Clean up your desktop, don't fill it with folder icons.

-Get matched RAM pairs (up to 5% increase in speed).

-Minimum of 10% (preferably more) free hard disk space. I.e a 100 Gb hard disk should have at least 10 Gb of free space at all times.

-Don't activate Widgets (Dashboard). Once activated it'll use resources in the background until you log out or restart your Mac.

-Open iCal and turn off alarms when iCal isn't open (in preferences).

-Disable AirPort.

Apart from journaling and matched RAM pairs all these will matter less than 1-2%

Lackatee · 24th April 2008, 11:23 PM

A lot of those guides are kinda out dated, but theres still some goodies in there you can use. Heres some i have bookmarked.

Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide. - Probably the best one
XP Performance Tweaks
Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees
Optimize XP
Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf

theblue1 · 24th April 2008, 11:40 PM

More confirmation that when asking for help, we should be as explicit as we can and still be brief.

For tweaking XP in general there is TweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software.

There WAS a pretty good site called musicXP.com but it appears to have changed hands or something and simply has a link to another tweaking site and a bunch of web adds and a 'bookstore.' Kinda sad.

travisinhell · 24th April 2008, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by True North

WHoa!!! This is for PC

Anyone

Some (so far) good Windows XP news... - Cockos Confederated Forums

it's a pretty long thread and the opening topic is about xp sp3 but read on.....

True North · 25th April 2008, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lackatee

A lot of those guides are kinda out dated, but theres still some goodies in there you can use. Heres some i have bookmarked.

Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide. - Probably the best one
XP Performance Tweaks
Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees
Optimize XP
Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf

PERFECT - thanks VERY much

through your links I found the site I was looking for

www.musicxp.net

Cheers!

soulstudios · 25th April 2008, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by True North

Does any remember where that site is ?

This one's mine - a bit more detailed, musicxp.net does cover some more basic things which I don't touch on.
Cheers-
m

temetrepo · 25th April 2008, 01:57 AM

Black Viper's Web Site

True North · 25th April 2008, 04:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lackatee

No problem, anytime. The second poster did you give you the musicxp.net link, so ill take partial credit? :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jesse Z

yeah, it's apple.com/store

seriously though, i think maybe you're referring to: musicxp.net or tweakxp.net ?

i did all kinds of tweaking when i used PCs/XP and never saw any benefits, only crashes and unstability.

and so he did.......... Thanks Jesse and everyone else

actually George, this probably wouldn't be a bad sticky

**George Necola** · 25th April 2008, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by True North

and so he did.......... Thanks Jesse and everyone else

actually George, this probably wouldn't be a bad sticky

after cleaning the shit in this thread.. why not.

Black Viper's Web Site might be the best, as mentioned above.

now we need a reason to use VISTA and optimize Bill Gates.

Ethan Winer · 25th April 2008, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by True North

There is a website that has been posted here that outlines all of the settings you can make to optimize the performance of your computer for audio

A lot of good sites have been listed, and I'll add my three-part series from Keyboard magazine only because it addresses many related issues:

Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 1
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 2
Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 3

--Ethan

dylansmale · 26th April 2008, 03:15 PM

Few...glad I record on a mac and not a PC. lol

Lagerfeldt · 1st May 2008, 03:22 PM

Yup, there's very little you need to do on a Mac in terms of tweaking.

tarabok · 12th May 2008, 05:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Mac OS X

-No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky.

2%

what are the pros and cons of such journaling?

Lagerfeldt · 13th May 2008, 10:45 PM

Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count).
Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway.

Always do regular backups of mission critical data. However, I haven't experienced any trouble with my Macs since I started in 1996.

Here's some Apple info on Journaling:

When journaling is turned on on a storage volume, the server automatically tracks file system operations and maintains a continuous record of these transactions in a separate file, called a journal. The operating system can use the journal to return the file system to a known, consistent state after a failure. This eliminates the need to perform a consistency check on the entire file system during startup.

Journaling is best suited for servers requiring high availability, servers containing volumes with many files, and servers containing data that is backed up at infrequent intervals (nightly, for example).

If a volume contains read-only data that is not mission-critical, it may not be necessary to turn on journaling if performance is more important than safety.

allencollins · 17th May 2008, 04:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Mac OS X

-Get matched RAM pairs (up to 5% increase in speed).

huh?

Lagerfeldt · 17th May 2008, 06:15 PM

Matched RAM on Intel Macs - Mac Guides

As I said, marginal improvement but it's there in some cases. More RAM vs. Less matched RAM = More RAM wins. But all things equal, matched pairs are better.

To quote from Bare Feats' Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users

"April 20th, 2006 -- Matched Memory Pairs make your Intel Mac Faster. Some of you were asking whether you would gain any speed using matched memory pairs on your Macbook Pro, Intel Mac or Intel mini. In our testing, iMovie renders were 3% faster with matched pairs. Our Photoshop CS2 MP actions ran 6% faster with matched pairs."

Muggeh · 23rd May 2008, 04:11 PM

That matched ram part also holds true for PC's, the thing that is happening is that when you have 2 different modules each rated at a different speed, the system will default to the speed of the slowest module.

And this can happen with different clock speeds as well as different access timings.

FOURTHTUNZ · 24th May 2008, 03:33 PM

[quote=Lagerfeldt;2046281]Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count).
Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway.
QUOTE]

Lagerfeldt, thanks for posting this, a good reminder! I looked and I guess my audio drives are journaled on my g5 dual 2 gig. Back when I got that I thougt Digi was into journaling? So to turn off journaling do you have to back up the drive and erase?
I used to know this stuff but haven't been doing much audio,thanks for the help!

Micah Tolentino · 16th June 2008, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lackatee

A lot of those guides are kinda out dated, but theres still some goodies in there you can use. Heres some i have bookmarked.

Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide. - Probably the best one
XP Performance Tweaks
Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees
Optimize XP
Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio
http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf

I dont know if I would use the first one.. Anyone who refers to his processor speed in GB shouldn't be making tweak guides imo.

Lagerfeldt · 16th June 2008, 06:17 PM

[quote=FOURTHTUNZ;2072579]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count).
Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway.
QUOTE]

Lagerfeldt, thanks for posting this, a good reminder! I looked and I guess my audio drives are journaled on my g5 dual 2 gig. Back when I got that I thougt Digi was into journaling? So to turn off journaling do you have to back up the drive and erase?
I used to know this stuff but haven't been doing much audio,thanks for the help!

They changed their minds at some point.

AnonJack · 17th June 2008, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lagerfeldt

Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count).
Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway.

Always do regular backups of mission critical data. However, I haven't experienced any trouble with my Macs since I started in 1996.

Here's some Apple info on Journaling:

When journaling is turned on on a storage volume, the server automatically tracks file system operations and maintains a continuous record of these transactions in a separate file, called a journal. The operating system can use the journal to return the file system to a known, consistent state after a failure. This eliminates the need to perform a consistency check on the entire file system during startup.

Journaling is best suited for servers requiring high availability, servers containing volumes with many files, and servers containing data that is backed up at infrequent intervals (nightly, for example).

If a volume contains read-only data that is not mission-critical, it may not be necessary to turn on journaling if performance is more important than safety.

the system disk comes journaled, at least mine did. is it worth it to erase my disk so that i can turn off journaling? or do i only need my external audio drive to be not journaled?

thanks in advance.

Lagerfeldt · 17th June 2008, 01:53 PM

No, do not remove journaling on your system disk. Only your audio disk.

Lagerfeldt · 17th June 2008, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Micah Tolentino

Anyone who refers to his processor speed in GB shouldn't be making tweak guides imo.

Woah, not the best typo on a page like that. Kind of lowers the credibility a lot.

Anyway, the MIDI saxophone sound in the background probably lowered the credibility to begin with...

Brian! · 25th June 2008, 02:27 AM

As I've recently discovered, be sure to format your external with Journaling off initially because you cannot disable it in Leopard now. You can disable with your system drive using Onyx but Onyx does not currently support any external drives.

Lagerfeldt · 25th June 2008, 05:59 PM

Can't you disable if you hold down the option key in the Disk Utility?

Brian! · 26th June 2008, 01:22 AM

Pretty sure they took that away in Leopard but I'll doublecheck when I get home. I did see some Terminal workarounds while I was looking though.

ty604 · 2nd July 2008, 02:48 PM

oh I have another one for Windows optimizing.

STEP #1. Step on the foot pedal of the plastic box in your kitchen and at the same time place the guts of the PC inside the plastic bag. Put it on the curb of your house and wait for Saturday pickup.

STEP #2. Visit Apple

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24th April 2008, 11:40 PM	#4
theblue1 Lives for gear Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Long Beach, CA Posts: 5,107 iTrader: (0)	More confirmation that when asking for help, we should be as explicit as we can and still be brief. For tweaking XP in general there is TweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software. There WAS a pretty good site called musicXP.com but it appears to have changed hands or something and simply has a link to another tweaking site and a bunch of web adds and a 'bookstore.' Kinda sad. __________________ tkmajor.com \| myspace \| music: one blue nine

25th April 2008, 01:57 AM	#8
temetrepo Gear maniac Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: NY/NJ Posts: 177 iTrader: (0)	Black Viper's Web Site __________________ Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome

26th April 2008, 03:15 PM	#12
dylansmale Lives for gear Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Salt Lake City, Utah Posts: 1,278 iTrader: (0)	Few...glad I record on a mac and not a PC. lol __________________ BAND PAGE: www.myspace.com/capsul3cid

1st May 2008, 03:22 PM	#13
Lagerfeldt Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Posts: 2,103 iTrader: (0)	Yup, there's very little you need to do on a Mac in terms of tweaking. __________________ Producer & engineer Apple Certified Pro for Logic Pro Popmusic.dk my production company Hit Kit V3 Sample CD urban & electronic beat production - used on Billboard #1 hits (recently: Usher remix)

24th April 2008, 04:28 PM	#1
True North Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Richmond Hill, Ontario (Canada) Posts: 2,283 iTrader: (0)	Website for optimizing computer performance for Audio Thanks for making this a sticky George. In the interest of simplicity, I am going to post all of the links that people have added below in this first post. If you want to add another link P.M. me and I will add it. If you have some general advice then obviously feel free to post below. The following links are to webistes which give instructions on how to improve your Audio PC computer performance. TweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide. XP Performance Tweaks Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees Optimize XP Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf Some (so far) good Windows XP news... - Cockos Confederated Forums MusicXP.net > Home Matt Bentley Music - Windows XP cleanup/speedup guide Black Viper's Web Site Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 1 Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 2 Keep Your Music PC Happy, Part 3 __________________ "In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey" - Beck, Loser "I do use compressors/limiters but not for controlling dynamics, I use EQ for that!" Jp22 (damn I miss him) "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." -- Will Durant, historian (1885-1981) "I try to get a boom out of the bass drum, in one of my albums, my CD, boom, I try to get that big boom, I could not get a big boom, I paid bucks, and could not get the boom" - Recording Expert, Tad Donley Last edited by True North; 25th April 2008 at 08:53 PM. Reason: added links to websites

24th April 2008, 07:11 PM	#2
Lagerfeldt Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Posts: 2,103 iTrader: (0)	Mac OS X -No journaling on your audio disk (use the Disk Utility). Up to 20% more speed if you're lucky. -Set processor for max power, set hard disks and screens to don't sleep (only applies to some Macs) -Don't use screen savers. -Clean up your desktop, don't fill it with folder icons. -Get matched RAM pairs (up to 5% increase in speed). -Minimum of 10% (preferably more) free hard disk space. I.e a 100 Gb hard disk should have at least 10 Gb of free space at all times. -Don't activate Widgets (Dashboard). Once activated it'll use resources in the background until you log out or restart your Mac. -Open iCal and turn off alarms when iCal isn't open (in preferences). -Disable AirPort. Apart from journaling and matched RAM pairs all these will matter less than 1-2% __________________ Producer & engineer Apple Certified Pro for Logic Pro Popmusic.dk my production company Hit Kit V3 Sample CD urban & electronic beat production - used on Billboard #1 hits (recently: Usher remix)

24th April 2008, 11:23 PM	#3
Lackatee Gear Head Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Bay Area Posts: 65 iTrader: (0)	A lot of those guides are kinda out dated, but theres still some goodies in there you can use. Heres some i have bookmarked. Aviel Segal music AND his Computer audio performance, Windows XP tweaks & DAW optimization guide. - Probably the best one XP Performance Tweaks Music computers optimisation and Windows XP tweaks from Phil Rees Optimize XP Optimizing Windows 2000 and Windows XP for Audio http://www.tascamgiga.com/pdf/optimizing-xp-and-2k.pdf

13th May 2008, 10:45 PM	#15
Lagerfeldt Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Posts: 2,103 iTrader: (0)	Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count). Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway. Always do regular backups of mission critical data. However, I haven't experienced any trouble with my Macs since I started in 1996. Here's some Apple info on Journaling: When journaling is turned on on a storage volume, the server automatically tracks file system operations and maintains a continuous record of these transactions in a separate file, called a journal. The operating system can use the journal to return the file system to a known, consistent state after a failure. This eliminates the need to perform a consistency check on the entire file system during startup. Journaling is best suited for servers requiring high availability, servers containing volumes with many files, and servers containing data that is backed up at infrequent intervals (nightly, for example). If a volume contains read-only data that is not mission-critical, it may not be necessary to turn on journaling if performance is more important than safety. __________________ Producer & engineer Apple Certified Pro for Logic Pro Popmusic.dk my production company Hit Kit V3 Sample CD urban & electronic beat production - used on Billboard #1 hits (recently: Usher remix)

17th May 2008, 06:15 PM	#17
Lagerfeldt Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Posts: 2,103 iTrader: (0)	Matched RAM on Intel Macs - Mac Guides As I said, marginal improvement but it's there in some cases. More RAM vs. Less matched RAM = More RAM wins. But all things equal, matched pairs are better. To quote from Bare Feats' Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users "April 20th, 2006 -- Matched Memory Pairs make your Intel Mac Faster. Some of you were asking whether you would gain any speed using matched memory pairs on your Macbook Pro, Intel Mac or Intel mini. In our testing, iMovie renders were 3% faster with matched pairs. Our Photoshop CS2 MP actions ran 6% faster with matched pairs." __________________ Producer & engineer Apple Certified Pro for Logic Pro Popmusic.dk my production company Hit Kit V3 Sample CD urban & electronic beat production - used on Billboard #1 hits (recently: Usher remix)

23rd May 2008, 04:11 PM	#18
Muggeh Gear interested Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 19 iTrader: (0)	That matched ram part also holds true for PC's, the thing that is happening is that when you have 2 different modules each rated at a different speed, the system will default to the speed of the slowest module. And this can happen with different clock speeds as well as different access timings.

24th May 2008, 03:33 PM	#19
FOURTHTUNZ Lives for gear Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: MAINE Posts: 558 iTrader: (0)	[quote=Lagerfeldt;2046281]Pros of turning off journaling on your audio disk: more speed (higher track count). Cons of turning off journaling on your audio disk: None really. In case of a real hard disk failure journaling most likely won't help anyway. QUOTE] Lagerfeldt, thanks for posting this, a good reminder! I looked and I guess my audio drives are journaled on my g5 dual 2 gig. Back when I got that I thougt Digi was into journaling? So to turn off journaling do you have to back up the drive and erase? I used to know this stuff but haven't been doing much audio,thanks for the help!

17th June 2008, 01:53 PM	#23
Lagerfeldt Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Posts: 2,103 iTrader: (0)	No, do not remove journaling on your system disk. Only your audio disk. __________________ Producer & engineer Apple Certified Pro for Logic Pro Popmusic.dk my production company Hit Kit V3 Sample CD urban & electronic beat production - used on Billboard #1 hits (recently: Usher remix)

25th June 2008, 02:27 AM	#25
Brian! Gear maniac Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 227 iTrader: (0)	As I've recently discovered, be sure to format your external with Journaling off initially because you cannot disable it in Leopard now. You can disable with your system drive using Onyx but Onyx does not currently support any external drives.

25th June 2008, 05:59 PM	#26
Lagerfeldt Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Posts: 2,103 iTrader: (0)	Can't you disable if you hold down the option key in the Disk Utility? __________________ Producer & engineer Apple Certified Pro for Logic Pro Popmusic.dk my production company Hit Kit V3 Sample CD urban & electronic beat production - used on Billboard #1 hits (recently: Usher remix)

26th June 2008, 01:22 AM	#27
Brian! Gear maniac Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 227 iTrader: (0)	Pretty sure they took that away in Leopard but I'll doublecheck when I get home. I did see some Terminal workarounds while I was looking though.

2nd July 2008, 02:48 PM	#28
ty604 Gear interested Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 18 iTrader: (0)	oh I have another one for Windows optimizing. STEP #1. Step on the foot pedal of the plastic box in your kitchen and at the same time place the guts of the PC inside the plastic bag. Put it on the curb of your house and wait for Saturday pickup. STEP #2. Visit Apple