Important Tip for Cakewalk users...

[DavidK]

Turn off the @$%^# Virus Programs before using Cakewalk. I usually do, but last night I forgot to, and it really sucked bigtime. I didnt know it was on, so I tried everything to get rid of the problems ( Stuttering, dropouts). Once I figured it out, all was fine, but I lost an entire night of recording because I was STUPID. Hold me

 

[James Argo]

Goes the same on Cool Edit Pro, specially when using DirectX...
Thank's Dave...

 

[AlChuck]

It was probably "King Kong" that you lost, eh?

I'm sick of holding you... sick, I tell you!

 

[jumpingpound]

Why am I only learning about this now? I haven't updated my virus programs in a year anyway.

 

[Paul881]

When recording, its especially useful to quit out of all uneccesary programs running on your computer. Alt+Ctrl+Del, the only programs you need are Explorer and (I think) Systray.

Also, RealPlayer is the most invasive program, in the universe, get rid of all its auto dial up and update features.

David, I hold you more often than my wife........ And you have been two timing me with AlChuck.......

 

[DavidK]

It was probably "King Kong" that you lost, eh?

I'm sick of holding you... sick, I tell you!

It was King Kong, and I am not sending it unless I get a hug. Same with you, Paul. No soup for you

 

[AlChuck]

OK, a hug, but ixnay on the isskays.

 

[Alan McGuinness]

Dual Boot.

Just a thought,

Go dual boot on the P.C.
Put everything “Home Studio” related on a separate drive. (Hard drives are about the cheapest they have ever been right now) No Microsoft Office, no anti virus, no Internet nonsense, and the like.
I did this over 6 months ago and my computer has loved me ever since, and I now love it.

A happy ending in an unhappy world. (at least for now)

Alan.

 

[heinz]

Another cool thing is enabling Hardware Profiles under XP (or Win2k). This is similar to the multi-boot concept, but does not require any changes to your installation.

I have a "Recording" profile that disables my network card, com ports, parallel port, and any other hardware that is not essential to recording. This frees up the irq's, i/o ports, and other resources used by those devices (and the associated system overhead of managing them).

A nice side effect is that I discovered that my network card (3com ethernet) was somehow causing popping/clicking artifacts in my Sonar audio when I recorded under XP. It only came up after I would use my browser, then Sonar, but not when I started Sonar after a clean boot. This problem damn near drove me to the brink of insanity before I caught a tip on an XP music site. It's all good now.

 

[ElSilva]

Use StartupCop

Reviving a dead thread here, but whatever.

I use a program called Startup Cop (try www.download.com) which lets me set multiple profiles for my Win2K PC. it controls what starts at boot-up time.

I considered dual boot, but I do so much multitasking, I like to have all my programs just where I like them. If you know a thing or two about Windows, you can leave all yer stuff right where it is.

I'm a real do-it-yourselfer, and I do checkups on my system every couple of weeks to see what kind of crap I may have accidentally installed.

In Win2K, check the control panel...admin tools...services, and look up everything on the web. Shut off the stuff you don't need.

Learn where the Run registry key is in the windows registry, and look up everything you see in there, and remove the stuff (like spyware and the like) that you really don't need. I believe it's under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE...Software...Microsoft...Windows...Current Version...Run or very similar.

Get some spyware catching program, like Ad-Aware (download.com again) and run it every so often if you like to install shareware and the like.

I've also used Registry Cleaner to good effect to clean out unnecessary registry keys that refer to files that are no longer on my computer. These can and will slow you down, mostly at boot time.

Don't install a ton of fonts.

Use the TweakUI control panel and turn off all that stupid animation in menus and windows and tooltips and the like.

Turn off all system sounds, if one of them chimes when you're working, it can hose you.

Finally, clear out your Startup folder under your Start...Programs menu.

If you do all this, and use a separate disk for OS vs audio, and defrag each night when you go to bed, you should be styling.

-ElSilva