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Looper's Delight
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On Aug 12, 2005, at 11:24, loop.pool wrote: > > just posted this really excellent guide to optimizing a PC computer > for > music. It's one of the best and most comprehensive articles I've > seen > on the subject and it might be cool to add to the thread if people > have > other good HotRodding tips. I agree! Good posting, Rick! It was aimed at desktop machines, but many tweaks are the same for lappies. My main audio computing experience is from Win98 and Windows XP PCs and I did all that stuff. I also used the software Partition Magic to set up two identical (cloned) audio optimized systems (plus one third clone on DVD media for hardware backup). When starting the machine there is a little application called Boot Magic (comes bundled with PM) that lets you pick the system that you want to boot from. Now this is NOT the same thing as the Windows XP built-in "dual boot". Typically I had three or four systems installed on drive C. Each one in its own partition and when booted the other two (or three) systems became invisible for the active system. Drive D was used for audio files and sample library. As I said, two of the systems were identical clones of an audio optimized Windows XP, the third was for office working and using the internet. The last system partition was for installing and trying new applications. On a Windows PC its a no- no to instal more software than you need for your work (It will slow down the system. Got better with XP, but still an issue). The idea of keeping two identical audio optimized partitions was that if I had a severe Windows problem I would not have to ask people to wait while I fixed it - I could simply reboot the machine from the cloned audio system and keep up whatever we were into. This was made possible by keeping all audio working projects on the D drive, the only place on the machine that is shared by all system partitions. > How about a similar thread for the Mac side of the equation? Amazingly thin! OS X is a rewrite of Unix and as such aimed at keeping the machine going practically by itself. When I got a Mac with OS X two years ago I was used to defragging, and even swapping and reinstalling (took me 8 minutes on PC with Ghost), on a regularly basis. This is not the way to run a OS X system, I learned. The only thing you really have to be careful with is to always repair permissions before and after installing new software. You can also leave the machine on overnight now and then, because then OS X will run The Cron Scripts (yeah, sounds like a thriller ;-) which is an old Unix self maintaining procedure. > Certainly simple things > like using one hard drive for audio only and one for OS and apps is > a good thing > for Macs. I've learned that this may not be as important as with Windows XP. But one thing of major importance is to run OS X with lots of free disc space. The reason it so rarely does fragment the drives is that OS X is a never resting cleaning worker. It keeps moving and restoring files all the time to continually optimize the system in the background. Something I was initially skeptical to, but fact is I still have to see an issue with my macs. Today it's two years since I started using a dual G5 on a daily (as well as many night shifts) basis. A powerbook I have been using for 15 months. Both are doing their job splendidly, never any problem at all. For PowerBooks there have been published a couple of "Audio optimizing tweaks" on the net. I tried them but found no performance gain at all. So, like most OS X users, I now run them macs pretty much as they come out of the box. Things I have found important for the PowerBook is to maximize the RAM to 2 GB, to allow audio software to put the samples (the live loops) in the RAM instead of shuffling it up and down the hard drive. Plenty of free drive space is of course important for a mac lappy as well. But that's it, I think. Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.looproom.com (international) www.boysen.se (Swedish) ---> iTunes Music Store (digital) www.cdbaby.com/perboysen