MD Tip: Optimizations

Hello everyone. This information is largely related to Adobe Audition, but will also apply to essentially any version of Cool Edit. Keep in mind, these are 'suggestions' - result may vary according to your particular configuration.

With Audition's dockable, re-sizeable windows (and customizable) interface, it's easy to leave everything open, big and in focus. This, of course, will add a little more weight to your system, particularly if you're keeping the Multitrack Mixer window open. That's not to say that you shouldn't (the default window placements are quite solid on an average-fast machine)...but here's some suggestions for making things run a bit smoother...

Buffers and Cache: (from my personal setup)

I've mentioned many times that I use a host of Delta cards (66 & 1010) and in the not-to-distant past was also using a Layla 24. All of this under a 1GHz, PIII with 512mb RAM and using...uh huh...WinMe. Here's what I recommend if your setup is remotely similar; either way, you might want to give this a try...(note...these are merely suggestions. I cannot guarantee that this will improve performance, as each system is different, and as you all know, there are many things that are key to optimizing a computer for full-time digital audio)

Options>Settings>System: 1 sec, 8 buffers, Min. Preview 250ms (default)
Wave Cache: 32768 (when Cool Edit 2.0 was released, we changed the way the cache is used; if you've got 128/256mb RAM, I'd recommend at least 16384. I don't see any benefits going above 32768).

Options>Settings>Multitrack: 1, 8, 2, 8, 2. Correct for Start Sync checked. (now, you will most definitely want to uncheck this box if doing any type of SMPTE/MTC mastering or slaving with Audition. Some soundcards benefit greatly with this checked. More high-end soundcards, it's 50/50...so if you experience sync issues when multitracking, this might be the cause)

Smooth Auto-Scroll During Playback...Unchecked. If you've got a solid machine with a good video card (and lots of RAM), you might want to check this to impress your friends. Keep in mind that this is 'heavy' stuff, and is really not a necessity. Without it checked, Audition will 'page' the display. I will say that on my P4, 1.7 machine, this function works pretty well...(IRQ sharing and other problems eliminated)

32-bit Premix...Checked.

Other tweaks - 16-bit color is preferred; always check IRQ settings. Particularly with 2000 and XP, it's best to disable all services that are unnecessary (and there are lots of them) especially if you're not networked. And, it goes without saying...if you don't need to have lots of things running in the background (ie, live update software, real-time virus protection, Go Back or other System Restore/Capture program) disable them.

And, as a last note, regarding mouse wheel zooming. The default (under options>settings>general) is set to 33%...I typically prefer a setting of around 55%...just a thought.

Continued...

Fragmented Hard Drives:

You should de-fragment your hard drive often when working on Audio files. If you are using Norton Utilities, select full defragmentation. Your hard drive can be 100% defragmented, but it may look very messy with lots of gaps (free space) between each file. So when you try to record on that drive, the HD has to jump all over to find free space to record into, which may cause skipping and gaps in recording. When you run a full defrag with Norton Utilities or use Windows XP's defragmenter, it actually moves all the files to the beginning or end of the disk and leaves the rest of the HD free for recording. This way, the hard drive does not have to jump all over to find free space to record into.

WinXP Speed and Performance:

Windows XP uses processor time to handle system performance according to default settings when the OS is installed, which can be adjusted for your computing needs. Also, settings that control visual effects enhance the appearance of the Windows XP interface, but can slow down performance with programs or your system in general. You can fine-tune settings in Windows XP to improve performance:

- Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
- Click the Advanced tab, and in the Performance area, click Settings.
- On the Visual Effects tab, click the Custom radio button, and then select the "Adjust for best performance" option.

# * You can also select or de-select specific settings here that you may want but do note that the more effects that run, the more processing that needs
to take place which can hurt performance within applications.

You may need to be logged on as an Administrator to make these changes. Note that applying these settings may change your current desktop theme.

Enabling DMA Access:

Sometimes programs run slowly or have problems because of issues related to the way your hard drive, memory, and other hardware that is installed on your system get along. Here is a great way to configure your hard drive and RAM to obtain a much faster result:

Under Windows XP it can be difficult to tell if your Hard Drive(s) are configured to run in the preferred "direct memory access" and "programmed input/output" (DMA/PIO) settings. This is because the DMA/PIO settings are configured for each controller instead of for each hard drive as in Win98/Me.

To check these settings, click Administrative Tools in Control Panel, and then follow these steps to configure the DMA/PIO settings for a controller:

- Click Administrative Tools , and then click Computer Management .
- Click System Tools , and then click Device Manager .
- Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers .
- Click the specific controller for which you have an IDE Hard Drive connected to.
- Click the Advanced Settings tab.

If you see "DMA if Available" in the Transfer Mode box, and "Ultra DMA mode under current transfer mode," then you've got DMA enabled on the hard drives that are connected to this controller device. If it says PIO only, you can try switching it to "DMA if Available" for each device listed. DMA enabled is typically the preferred mode for running audio applications on a Windows PC.

De-activating Screen Savers:

If a screen saver kicks in while you are recording or burning a CD it can
cause problems. To disable any screen saver: Right mouse click on your Windows
Desktop, Properties, Screen Saver, set to 'None'.

Power Saving:

Aside from LapTop usage, I don't see why this is necessary...Even still, power saving was not developed with digital audio recording in mind. That being said, go to Control Panel, Power Management and choose the power scheme 'Always on'. Set 'System Standby' and 'Turn off hard disks' to 'Never'. Turning off the monitor after a certain time usually causes no problems, so set it as you like it. This can be an alternative to a screen saver.

Here's some more Win2K/XP related optimizations provided by forum member, Rabban_syn

For those of you who are thinking about installing Windows XP or have done so already, there is one tweak that may come in handy, especially if you are experiencing droputs and other problems. This also relates to Windows 2000. Some audio problems can be due to ACPI which is installed by default where it likes to dump many PCI slots into a single IRQ creating conflicts. Check you IRQ's and see if many of your PCI cards are sharing the same IRQ. For instance, when I first installed WinXP, my USB port, Layla24, CreativeLab's 5.1 Live and video card were all sharing the same IRQ which was causing problems with audio.

In order to increase performance and stability with regards to audio, I reinstalled WinXP and found a tip that may help others. During the OS installation when it asks you to press F6 to install mass storage and SCSI devices, press F5 instead. It will take you to a menu where you can scroll down and choose "Standard PC." (or, if your motherboard supports this feature, disable ACPI in the BIOS before installing WinXP).

If you already have WinXP or Win2000 installed, there is a way (albeit a less reliable way) to remove ACPI to prevent IRQ sharing conflicts. Go to device manager and search for "ACPI enabled PC" option. Go to Driver tab and Update Driver. Choose to Display List of Known Drivers and then choose Standard PC. When you reboot, you may have to reinstall the drivers for your hardware. Other people I know who have removed ACPI AFTER installing WinXP or Win2000 have said that this particular method may not work in all situations. The one sure-fire way of disabling ACPI is a fresh OS install and pressing F5 when it asks you to press F6.

After I disabled ACPI, I was able to get each of my soundcards, video card and USB port on their own separate IRQ and I have not received dropouts in performance.

Another hint which Audition MD suggested, if you have Windows XP installed, is to disable many of the Services. There are a great deal of services and accidentally disabling the wrong one can screw up your OS (trust me, I know from personal experience). I did come across a site which is great -- the author explains all the services of WinXP and their relation to other services and he offers suggestions on which services to set to manual, automatic or disabled.

Here are the links to the great resource site:

http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm

I can't tell you how much this guy's site helped me to tweak Windows XP!

For those of you who are squeamish about disabling a serice that you later find was critical and now you have to reinstall the OS, the following is another method I use.

Instead of disabling services from going into "Adminstrative Tools" -> "Services", just open a new notepad text file and create a batch list like the following (where you can add all the services you want to disable):

net stop "dhcp client"
net stop "dns client"
net stop "ipsec services"
net stop "norton antivirus auto protect service"
net stop "task scheduler"

Save the document (I call mine "stop services") and rename it with a .bat extension

Now, create another batch list with the same items listed under your "stop services.bat" file but replace the work "stop" with "start". What this allows you to do is run "stop services" before using your audio software. After you are done audio editing (or whatever), you can run "start services" to re-enable the services if you now need them. The good thing about creating a batch list is that if you disable a critical service in your batch list by mistake, just reboot you machine and everything is returned to normal. Just go into your batch list and fix it

Here's a summary of a tip posted by forum member MarkDJ -

I did a fresh install of WinXP SP1 and CEPv2.1 and started having problems. I used CEPv2.1 and WinXP without problems, but after a HD format and clean install of WinXP SP1 the recording is messed up. As soon as I hit record the scrolling juttered and the mouse became jumpy too.

I'm using a 2200+ Athlon XP with 512SDRAM PC2100 and Seagate Barracuda IV 80Gb drive so the system is no slouch. Using a Gina 20 soundcard.

I found out the solution to the problem with the jumping and skipping quite by accident and this is something that needs to publicised greatly.

As a last resort I disabled all the bells and whistles making Windows XP look like WinME again. You know the settings, all the little check boxes for fading windows, animation of windows etc. etc. The problem disappeared - no more jumping scrolling waveform when recording.

Then I thought, I don't like the look of Windows anymore, maybe there's one thing that is messing this up. Got to thinking and noticed that when the mouse was over the waveform while recording, it was a smooth motion, but when it was at the edge of the screen it stuttered. So I disabled the shadow under the mouse pointer and sure enough, I could have all the XP visual gubbins, but turning the shadow off make the recording waveform scroll smoothly again.

Problem solved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some more advice, from Bob McIlvaine -

Since we all have an interest in having the most resources
available as possible, I thought I'd share this.

I happen to land on TechTV while scanning and they
were discussing a web page: www.blackviper.com.

The owner of the site has provided lots of great info about
services on MS OS's.

A quote from his site:

-Disabling all of the "un-needed services" frees up 12-70 MB
 of RAM, depending on system.
- Do you mean that out of 89 services, 36 are set to
  Automatic as DEFAULT, but, we MAY only need 8
  running?!? YES.

In his download XPServices.zip he documents all the normal
services and tells which you can safely disable. On other pages on his site he suggests (and explains how to ) multiple configurations, etc. For Win2000,
WinXP (Home & Prof.).

YMMV,
Mac

Robert Von Bargen suggests these sites for handy XP tuneup tips for DAW's - http://www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.htm and http://www.pcaudiolabs.com/setuptips.asp