Optimising your system for hassle-free music-making

Getting your system working to its full potential is vital both for your workflow and creativity. Hollin Jones tunes up.

OPtimise your system

Maintenance has always been a crucial part of making music, whether it’s keeping pianos tuned, guitar strings clean or tape heads free from dust. And as more and more technology has crept into the music production world, it has become increasingly important to know something about how computers work and how to keep them running smoothly. But with the increasing flexibility of computers comes a new set of challenges that didn’t exist before – latency, hard drive speed, memory problems, bloated systems and the like are common issues that many of us will encounter at some point. The good news, though, is that you don’t need to be a computer expert to deal with them, you just need to be able to diagnose a problem and deal with it effectively.
It’s not all that difficult to run a clean, stable and well-maintained system, but it does mean forcing yourself to pay some attention to your working methods and file management and to do some housekeeping from time to time. If you do, you should find that your DAW runs smoothly and you can get on with making music without being slowed down or frustrated by technical problems. The techniques and tips we’re going to look at in this feature apply both to desktop and laptop computers for studio and live use. You do, after all, want broadly the same thing from a studio or a live performance machine: stability, speed and reliability. True, stability is even more vital when performing live than when you’re in the studio, while running a greater number of plug-ins and tracks is perhaps more important in the studio, but why not aim for a fully optimised system regardless of what you are using your DAW for?

System specs
Let’s start with your computer, since there’s little point in streamlining your DAW unless your computer is performing optimally in the first place. Most of what follows applies both to Mac and Windows, but where there are differences we will mention them.
One of the most common performance-related issues with audio computers is insufficient RAM. The minimum amount for running a modern operating system – Mac OSX 10.6 or Windows 7 – plus a DAW should be considered to be not less than 2GB. If you want to use samples-based virtual instruments such as drum machines or orchestral libraries, the RAM requirements escalate fairly quickly. If you are running Windows XP, install 3GB, which is the most it can use without requiring some BIOS tweaking. Under Windows 7 or Mac OSX 10.6 (both of which, incidentally, are well worth upgrading to as they are faster and more advanced than earlier systems) you can install 4GB or more.
Actually, you can install more than 4GB on any computer that physically accommodates it; however, only the latest 64-bit operating systems partnered with a 64-bit CPU will be able to address it all efficiently. Even then, your DAW will have to be 64-bit-aware to be able to address lots of memory; currently, only Sonar and Cubase 5 under Windows and Logic 9 on the Mac are (Reaper is 64-bit-capable on both platforms). Whatever system and DAW you are running, more RAM is never a bad thing, so try to fit at least 2GB, preferably 4GB.

Drive time
Sticking with the subject of hardware, another crucial component that is often at the root of performance issues is the hard drive. Hard drives should spin at 7,200RPM or more if you want decent DAW performance; in laptops, the standard hard drive speed is usually 5,400RPM. Not only do they offer better streaming of samples and audio tracks, they make the system snappier when reading and writing virtual memory ‘swap’ files. A faster drive will decrease a laptop’s battery life a little, but this is more than made up for by the increase in performance. Consider installing a 10,000RPM drive as the boot drive in a desktop system as it can make the system considerably more zippy.
We talk a lot about solid-state hard drives (SSDs) as the next big thing, and although still expensive they are gradually becoming more affordable. Capacities are still relatively low, but by getting your hardware spec right you can certainly make good use of one. SSDs are far quicker than conventional spinning hard drives at reading and writing data since they have no moving parts. They are also much kinder to laptop batteries and generate virtually no sound at all, making them perfect for recording applications. Using an SSD as your boot drive in a desktop computer alongside additional fast hard drives for recording and storing samples will result in a properly quick system. Laptops usually have only one internal hard drive (although the odd model sacrifices the optical drive for a second hard drive), but you can use an SSD internally and a fast FireWire or USB 2.0 or 3.0 external drive for samples and recordings for a fast yet high-capacity system at the cost of having to carry an extra drive around.
In terms of processors there’s not much you can do to optimise them as such unless you’re a keen overclocker, so buy the fastest one with the most cores that you can reasonably afford. If you have a desktop PC you may be able to upgrade the processor yourself with a newer model after a few years.

Modern systems
Returning to the subject of operating systems, as we have already mentioned it’s worth running the latest version if your hardware supports it (be sure to back up properly before undertaking any major upgrades). Windows 7 is far more streamlined and efficient than Vista was and Mac OSX 10.6 omits support for PowerPC processors, so it has a smaller footprint and runs much faster. If you’re using an older system, simply installing the latest OS will make things much snappier as long as you have a decent amount of RAM.
If you are able to install a system from scratch there are a couple of ways to strip out some of the stuff you may not need, resulting in a leaner, meaner machine. The more things that are running on a computer, the more resources are being used. Since DAWs are very resource-hungry as well, you want to tip the balance away from the system and towards your music software wherever possible. If your system isn’t a fresh one, you may have to migrate to a new drive or back everything up, format and copy data back across if this is something you feel comfortable doing. If in doubt, consult an expert rather than risking losing data. This is a process best performed on a brand-new machine or when installing a new hard drive.
Installing a ‘skinny’ OS is rather easier on a Mac than on a PC. The OSX 10.6 install DVD can be booted by holding down the [C] key during startup; you can then choose to install Mac OSX to a new hard drive or erase and install an existing drive. Again, take care when erasing anything.
As you run through the install process you will see an option to customise the install. Click on this and you can deselect a number of default install options, making the system leaner. The safest things to omit at this stage are additional fonts, language translations, X11 and printer support, which will save several gigabytes of disk space. Be sure to install Rosetta and QuickTime 7, however, as they provide important backwards compatibility for certain applications and take up very little hard drive space anyway. If you decide that you do need some of these things in the future, you can install them manually from the DVD by delving into the Additional Installs folder and adding them from there.
Windows 7 gives you fewer options during installation and, generally speaking, it’s easier to remove or switch things off after installation than before. We recommend buying your audio PC from a specialist company, which will do all of this for you before the system arrives. If you are feeling adventurous you might want to check out a free application called vLite (available from www.vlite.net) that enables you to tweak and remove components from a Windows install and create a bootable disk. You are then able to install a custom version of Windows streamlined to your liking. If you go into the Programs and Features section of Windows 7 you can turn Windows features on and off fairly easily.

Diet time
Hardware considerations aside, another factor in slowing down a system is bloat – the build-up of stuff that’s a by-product of months of installing software and generating files. This doesn’t always mean your pictures, movies and audio files, but ‘stuff’ that gets buried deep in the system by various installers. Libraries, start-up items and other clutter can be left behind when you remove an app unless you use an uninstaller or a specialised application to get rid of them. These things can cause slower booting, slower app launching and more resource usage by virtue of hanging around the system. They can also contribute to crashes and instability.
The best way to avoid bloat is not to install anything that you don’t need. When an application that you have been using is no longer needed, run the uninstaller (if it came with one). Under Windows, use the Add/Remove software tool in the Control Panel section to remove it. On the Mac, try something like AppZapper. To see what is using resources on your computer, use a system monitoring tool such as the Activity Monitor that comes with OSX or the Task Manager in Windows. Look at the Processes section and you will see which items are using memory and processing power. If there is something there that is obviously wrong – perhaps a driver for some hardware that you no longer use – uninstall it. If you’re not sure what something is, consult the relevant technical support department before deleting it.
As a hard drive approaches total capacity it will have a detrimental effect on the speed of a system. Computers run better when there’s at least 20 per cent free space on the boot drive for assorted virtual memory operations and temporary file storage. To see what is using up space on your drive, run an analysis program to visually show where the space is occupied. There are loads of these, some free and some paid-for – try WhatSize, Disk Inventory X or DaisyDisk on the Mac; SpaceSniffer, WinDirStat or GetFolderSize for Windows. Use this information to delete that huge video file you had forgotten was buried in a folder somewhere or to identify stuff that can be safely off-loaded to DVDs or external drives for storage.
A mostly empty hard drive is quicker and more reliable than a mostly full one. Some people are still keen on defragmenting hard drives, but this is something of a hangover from years gone by, when capacities were lower and reliability more patchy. In fact, Mac OSX defragments its boot drives automatically and invisibly in the background while running, although this process doesn’t impact on performance thanks to the way in which it is implemented. Windows 7 automatically schedules defragmentation, but you can change this and run it manually. Unless you do a lot of installing/uninstalling, drive fragmentation isn’t the problem it used to be.

DAW tricks
Once your system is tuned and specified with the right hardware you can turn to the more straightforward business of optimising your DAW. A lot of problems can be avoided and stability achieved by making sure that the latest version is installed and that the drivers for your audio interface are also the most recent for the version of the OS you are running. It’s dull, but keeping your DAW and plug-ins up-to-date is the best way to prevent crashes. Out-of-date versions – and, dare we say it, cracked or pirated ones – are frequent culprits for instability as everyone plays catch-up with Apple or Microsoft’s changes to their operating systems and older versions become incompatible.
The best way to get the most out of your system is not to run lots of applications unnecessarily simultaneously. It might sound obvious, but a surprising number of people get this wrong and have a web browser, email client and even a graphics program or game open in the background as they try to record. While it’s true that modern computers with multi-core processors are able to cope with running several apps at once, why take the risk of Outlook notifications popping up as you try to record?
Here’s another tip that not enough people know about: if your computer has been on for a while, restart it before opening your DAW for a big session. This will terminate any lingering processes and clear out virtual memory swap files, giving you a clean canvas on which to start work and ensuring no mystery slowdowns from a system that’s been on for days. Another good way to optimise your DAW’s performance is to manage your buffer settings and thus your latency according to whether you are recording or mixing (see the ‘It’s all in the timing’ box for more detail on this).
Once you are up and running with a project there are numerous ways to minimise the hit on your CPU and RAM, most notably by freezing virtual instrument tracks so they are played back as audio, which requires far less muscle than processing them in real time. This is also a good trick for live work, removing the risk of a plug-in crashing your DAW. It might be feasible to run projects at high sample and bit-rates in the studio, but for live gigs you can get away with CD-quality settings – 16-bit/44.1kHz, which places a much reduced strain on your computer. If you are worried about stability, you could even consider exporting backing tracks as stems and playing them back as audio rather than MIDI-triggered tracks. If you’re playing virtual instruments live and are worried about your DAW crashing, use the instrument’s standalone mode (if it has one).
We have gone into quite a lot of detail here, but the fundamentals of system maintenance and optimisation are quite straightforward. Spec up a decent system, install the latest OS (stripped back if possible) and make sure that your DAW is up-to-date and its audio buffer set correctly. Keep an eye on how full your computer gets and don’t fill it with junk. Spring-clean it once in a while and you should have a smooth and stable ride. MTM

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 94
Filed under General Features, Features

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