Optimising Win 7 for music recording...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Armistice
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Armistice

Armistice

Son of Yoda
Hi..

I'm sure this has been covered before, probably ad nauseum, but does anyone have a (link to a) step by step guide for killing off all the Windows and other programs that cause resource contention problems with a PC.

I don't record to PC, but I'm increasingly importing stuff and working on it in Reaper - I'll probably make the full switch to PC recording in the next year, at which stage I'll get a dedicated box and set it up properly.

For now, I mainly just compile drum tracks from Addictive via the MIDI editor, having imported the various WAV music tracks in as well to work against. Once completed I send the drums back out and mix on my standalone.

Anyhoo... sometimes this works fine, other times I get pops when playing the drum tracks - I presume it's just Win 7 processes running away in the background, and probably stuff like Norton as well... It's a fairly low powered HP laptop - i3 with 4 GB of RAM, but still it'd be nice if I could coax it to do what I want until I get around to switching.

As it's a general purpose machine, I don't want to permanently cripple it, just turn off things that are going to be big resource suckers while I'm working on audio.

Cheers...
 
That's probably the best link for optimizing a PC up there^^^
 
So following the win 7 instructions for enabling DMA via Ctrl Pan / Device Manager / IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers..... "3.For each icon that has the word Channel as part of its label, right-click the icon, and then click Properties." ... fine, except there are no icons withthe word Channel here, just one single line with "Intel (R) PCHM SATA AHCI controller 4 port"...

What does this mean, in the scheme of things? Already enabled by default, or not a relevant paramater for machine?

Not having much joy with these instructions, so far, I'd already done everything...!
 
Armistice said:
Hi..

I'm sure this has been covered before, probably ad nauseum, but does anyone have a (link to a) step by step guide for killing off all the Windows and other programs that cause resource contention problems with a PC.

I don't record to PC, but I'm increasingly importing stuff and working on it in Reaper - I'll probably make the full switch to PC recording in the next year, at which stage I'll get a dedicated box and set it up properly.

For now, I mainly just compile drum tracks from Addictive via the MIDI editor, having imported the various WAV music tracks in as well to work against. Once completed I send the drums back out and mix on my standalone.

Anyhoo... sometimes this works fine, other times I get pops when playing the drum tracks - I presume it's just Win 7 processes running away in the background, and probably stuff like Norton as well... It's a fairly low powered HP laptop - i3 with 4 GB of RAM, but still it'd be nice if I could coax it to do what I want until I get around to switching.

As it's a general purpose machine, I don't want to permanently cripple it, just turn off things that are going to be big resource suckers while I'm working on audio.

Cheers...
Click to expand...

Ok. First let's get the lol @'s out the way:

Lol@ HP, its notoriously shit. Just do a search.

Lol @ Having Norton on your computer at all.


Now. Well done for having Addictive Drums. It's the best drum sample engine.

Also. Do this if you want. DPC Latency Checker

And this. The temporary disable procedure. http://sourcedaddy.com/windows-7/how-to-temporarily-disable-service.html

Good luck and once again. Lol @ HP and Norton.
 
Last edited:
Thanks C. I'll check it out. In terms of the LOLs, it was never intended to be a recording PC, and it works just fine as a general purpose laptop, and always has. I have enough things to think about without being purist about basic worktools.

I can see a special PC will be necessary when I start recording on 'puter, but for now, if I can make this work in the meantime, all the better.

Cheers
 
I see there's a certain hierarchy for progs & comps.
I wonder what laughs I'd get for my ACER & DELL running AGV!!!
Armistice,
I just did an update of what you're doing on my replacement computer - it was easier as it's XP which I find more stable for audio stuff as well as the fact that ther's nothing beyond XP in drivers for my PCI INCA 8I/O sound card - I assume that'd get a laugh too.
With the laptp - are you setting up a user account for the audio use? That'd probably allow you to switch between optimized and normal as needed.
Mate, do what you can with what you have. When you do wind up recording to computer see if you can afford to keep the audio comp offline just to prevent things - I know it sounds paranoid but I've had to do 2 or 3 full wipe & reinstallation jobs due to bugs getting into my recorders via the net.
 
Armistice said:
I have enough things to think about without being purist about basic worktools.
Click to expand...

My Toshiba was a basic worktool until it was time for an upgrade and I asked a mate who worked at JB what he recommended. He told me who to avoid based on returns and Toshy made it to the list since they change plants. HP is even worse. You got lucky ?

Nothing wrong with thinking about things that may potentially come back to bite me. :)

Check this out, I am thinking of buying one.

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB Recording Interface 2 Inputs 2 Outputs with Software | eBay
 
Possibly got lucky... my previous laptop was also a HP - or Compaq - same deal, from Hardly Normal, and it also worked fine until I spilt a glass of red on it one night when it was sitting on the table to left of me and I was trying to assassinate a particularly evil Roman dude in Assassin's Creed on the PS3 and got a bit expansive with the controller.... whoops... couldn't make it work again properly, but a year later it was OK and so I gifted it to the GF...

Ray - definitely will be quarantining new PC from teh nasty interwebz whenever I get around to getting one... thing is, I'm a real purist about all sorts of other stuff, but PCs.... meh... who cares... as long as they work..

Interface looks nice C... I like a bit of colour in the studio:D
 
On a side note: has anyone come across information to configure or a need to configure a Mac for music production? Just curious.
 
Garf Richards said:
On a side note: has anyone come across information to configure or a need to configure a Mac for music production? Just curious.
Click to expand...

I'll let you know... my other band member has just loaded up Reaper and my other instance of Addictive Drums on his Mac, so we'll see how it goes..
 
I used a search engine & found that the consensus was that MAC OSX doesn't really need much tweaking (doesn't need or isn't ameanable to...?), but there are some tips that can be found at places like...
XO Wave: Optimizing Mac OS X Performance for Audio and Video Users
KVR: How to Optimize Mac OS for Music Production:
Optimizing Your Computer for Audio - Mac OSX : PreSonus Audio Electronics
Mac OS X 10.6 intro - audio optimization (HD) - YouTube
& some older but useful tips...
Optimize Mac OS X for Audio Recording
 
I have turned off everything that can be turned off and still it happens.....

I've been checking the performance of the PC whilst it's going on - CPU never gets above 10%, Memory never gets about 50%, but the Disk monitor shows it regularly spiking... perhaps it's that - but how to fix????

It does this irrespective of whether I'm playing the track or not, but more often when I am..

It doesn't need defragging, which was my first thought.

Help! Getting annoying now....
 
This kind of problem really annoyed me for quite some time on my old W7 PC. One of the things that was killing my CPU with intermittent spikes was 'Superfetch'. It delegates a portion of your RAM to keep stupid files for easy loading later. The last thing you want your recording computer to do is delegate RAM for stupid shit like loading spell check, remembering where you saved your last picture, or quickly finding your **** internet sites quickly.

Search 'services.msc'. Scroll to Superfetch. Click on it and disable. There are 30+ more useless services running on a retail PC.

This is only one of many unnecessary services that W7 supplied by PC manufacturers, add to the software to make it 'happy' for illiterate users. Those of us who wish to have a clean PC to record on, and hell, even use the web, are best off with a clean OEM install of W7. Even with my clean install, I had to disable that stupid Superfetch thing.

Black Viper will give you very detailed options as to how to streamline W7. But it can be a bit scary for someone, like myself, who is afraid of killing the machine. Following the steps carefully, results in a super clean running PC. Though, I would not myself try these steps without planning on a complete fresh install of everything in case of system crash.

The best bet IMO, is to buy a retail or OEM version of W7 Home Premium, and screw all the bullsh!t that is clogging up your system. It just sucks chasing rabbits when you are a wolf with a credit card in a supermarket.
 
jimmys69 said:
This kind of problem really annoyed me for quite some time on my old W7 PC. One of the things that was killing my CPU with intermittent spikes was 'Superfetch'. It delegates a portion of your RAM to keep stupid files for easy loading later. The last thing you want your recording computer to do is delegate RAM for stupid shit like loading spell check, remembering where you saved your last picture, or quickly finding your **** internet sites quickly.

Search 'services.msc'. Scroll to Superfetch. Click on it and disable. There are 30+ more useless services running on a retail PC.

This is only one of many unnecessary services that W7 supplied by PC manufacturers, add to the software to make it 'happy' for illiterate users. Those of us who wish to have a clean PC to record on, and hell, even use the web, are best off with a clean OEM install of W7. Even with my clean install, I had to disable that stupid Superfetch thing.

Black Viper will give you very detailed options as to how to streamline W7. But it can be a bit scary for someone, like myself, who is afraid of killing the machine. Following the steps carefully, results in a super clean running PC. Though, I would not myself try these steps without planning on a complete fresh install of everything in case of system crash.

The best bet IMO, is to buy a retail or OEM version of W7 Home Premium, and screw all the bullsh!t that is clogging up your system. It just sucks chasing rabbits when you are a wolf with a credit card in a supermarket.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jimmy, I'm just starting to deal with some of the services I found running... there were 66, I think, and I'm scrolling through the list and thinking "WTF are all these things doing..." especially when there's ones for stuff I KNOW isn't required at the moment. Apple, I'm looking at you! Those were the ones I could identify... a lot of them are just meaningless file names. Will check out the Black Vyper thang... and when I eventually get new PC I'll be going for something that has no bloatware... all the damn crap they load these things up with is just amazing..
 
Armistice said:
Thanks Jimmy, I'm just starting to deal with some of the services I found running... there were 66, I think, and I'm scrolling through the list and thinking "WTF are all these things doing..." especially when there's ones for stuff I KNOW isn't required at the moment. Apple, I'm looking at you! Those were the ones I could identify... a lot of them are just meaningless file names. Will check out the Black Vyper thang... and when I eventually get new PC I'll be going for something that has no bloatware... all the damn crap they load these things up with is just amazing..
Click to expand...

Amazing is a word I would equate to F**k*ng annoying!
 
Hey Jimmy (and anyone else who wants to chime in...)

I have shut down every damn service, process etc, I can find, including Superfetch and about 30 others from the Black Viper list - the machine is using very few resources and I still get glitches in Reaper.

I mean I'm getting crackles when, with NO tracks actually playing, I adjust a MIDI drum velocity...

Driving me nuts.

Soundcard? I don't use an interface, so I'm doing this on the PC sound card (not recording, just the MIDI stuff....), although I note I didn't have this problem before v4 of Reaper came along...

Any further suggestions?
 
Armistice said:
although I note I didn't have this problem before v4 of Reaper came along...

Any further suggestions?
Click to expand...

As soon as I wrote that I knew what the damn answer was... grrr...

Upgrading Reaper from a 3 version to a 4 version had reset the input/output parameters. There were now additional options available (bearing in mind how I'm doing this - if you'd had your interface as the I/O parameter and it had changed, you'd know immediately, but as I'm just using the internal card / drivers / whatever, I didn't even remember what I'd set it to originally) than before and so it had reset it to some crappy default parameter .

Found a new Win 7 driver/ option in the picklist and it works a charm now.

Touch wood!:)
 
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