Groundwork 1.2004

Maxing Out Your Computer
Part 2

By David Franz

TOYS! The holidays are a great excuse to get yourself some new toys. Maybe you were good this year and decided to treat yourself to some new software to use with Pro Tools, such as plug-ins, synths, and samplers. The plethora of new toys available is truly awesome — yet they all put a greater load on your computer's processor.

Last month I covered some of the major components that you can tweak to max out your computer's performance with Pro Tools and your new software toys, including CPU usage limit, hardware buffer size, DAE playback buffer, and Pro Tools RAM. In addition to these, there are many other ways to cut down on the processing load in your Pro Tools LE or TDM session to make more power available for your new software toys.

Here are some easy ways to maximize your computer's power and memory while using Pro Tools:

Make Items Inactive


A channel strip with an inactive plug-in, send, input, and output	Turning off the voice on a track makes everything on that track inactive

When not using specific plug-in instantiations, hardware inserts, sends, side-chain inputs, paths, track inputs/outputs, and entire audio, auxiliary, and master fader tracks, you can make them inactive. Inactive items are silent and consume no system resources, but their settings are still saved with your Pro Tools session. When items are inactive their names appear in italics, and their background becomes dark gray. Figure 1 shows a channel strip with an inactive plug-in, send, input, and output. To make an item inactive, Command + Control + click (Mac) or Control + Start + click (Windows) the item.

Bypassed plug-in
Inactive plug-in window Click to enlarge

Be aware of the difference in function and appearance of plug-ins that are inactive and plug-ins that are bypassed (see Figure 2). Bypassed plug-ins still consume system resources, but inactive plug-ins do not. When you click on an inactive plug-in, the window shown in Figure 2 will appear.

You can make everything on a track inactive by setting the track's voice to "off." Doing this deactivates all inputs, outputs, sends, side chain inputs, inserts, and plug-ins, and frees up all the DSP associated with those items on that track. When a track is inactive, the entire channel strip darkens, as in Figure 3.

Delete Unused or Unwanted Tracks
All tracks use up some processing power, whether they have data in them or not. Hiding a track will not significantly free up computer resources, but I've found that deleting unused and/or unwanted tracks can improve my computer's performance considerably. To delete a track, choose the track by clicking on the track's name and choose "Delete Selected Tracks" from the File menu. To delete multiple tracks at once, press Shift while clicking on the track names, then choose "Delete Selected Tracks."

Disable Page Scroll During Playback

	Selecting "No Auto-Scrolling " might allow you to squeeze more tracks or plug-ins into your session
	Turning off moving faders may give you less to look at, but it's a small price to pay for more processing "oomph"

Disabling page scrolling saves processing power that would have been allocated for redrawing the computer screen to show your track displays advancing in real time. While scrolling, each screen redraw takes up power that could be used for something else, like higher track counts and more plug-ins. To turn off page scrolling, select either "No Auto-Scrolling" (as the least processing-intensive option) or "Scroll After Playback" under Scroll Options from the Operations menu (Figure 4).

Disable Moving Faders
Turning off moving faders can improve your system's performance, especially if you have a lot of automation written — as with page scrolling, the screen redraws for the faders eat up power. (Don't worry, the automation still plays even if you've told the faders not to move.) Choose "Preferences" from the Setups menu. Click on the Automation tab and the dialog box shown in Figure 5 will appear. Uncheck "Faders Move During Playback."

Turn Off Sends View Meters
Just as turning off moving faders during playback conserves CPU power, turning off the sends view meters reduces CPU load as well. Figure 6 shows a sends view with meters, a sends view with no meters, and sends assignments only. If you have automation on your sends faders or pan control, you can save even more CPU power by displaying only the sends assignments.


Sends view, with meters	Sends view, without meters	Sends view, assignments only

To remove the meter from your sends view, choose "Preferences" from the Setups menu. Click on the Display tab and uncheck "Show Meters in Sends View." To show only sends assignments, select "Sends View Shows" from the Display menu and choose "Assignments."

Smooth and Thin Automation Data
All automation takes up processing power. Pro Tools records automation moves from continuous controllers (such as faders and pan pots) as a series of very small steps, often creating staircase patterns with many data breakpoints. Thinning this data to remove some of the breakpoints can make processing easier for your computer. In the same dialog box shown in Figure 5, you can choose to smooth and thin your automation data automatically after writing it.

You can also highlight certain sections of your automation data and thin them yourself using the "Thin Automation" command from the Edit menu — this command uses the "Degree of Thinning" setting from the "Automation Preferences" window. Figure 7 shows the difference in breakpoints before and after some automation data has been thinned.


Before thinning automation data Click to enlarge	"Degree of Thinning" set to Some Click to enlarge	"Degree of Thinning" set to Most Click to enlarge

Be careful, though. When using high amounts of thinning, the resulting automation may differ noticeably from the original, creating uneven or choppy level and pan adjustments. Listen to the tracks after thinning them — you can undo any thinning you don't like, or thin certain areas of a track more than others. Also note that thinning applies only to audio tracks — it does not affect MIDI tracks.

Consolidate Regions
During the course of recording, editing, and mixing, some tracks end up with many regions on their playlist. At the edit points for each region, Pro Tools makes your hard drive search for those regions of audio for playback. However, the regions are often not all in the same spot, so the computer has to work harder to find the regions on the hard drive. Consolidating regions combines the edits on the track and creates a new audio file that's easier for the hard drive to play back. Similar in effect to thinning automation data, reducing the number of edits on an audio track by consolidating can save processing power.

To make multiple regions into a single region, simply select the regions you want to consolidate with the Grabber or Selector tool and choose "Consolidate Selection" from the Edit menu, or process the selection with the AudioSuite Duplicate plug-in. This will create a new audio file that contains all of the selected range, including silence at any blank space or muted region.

Reduce the Levels of Undo


	Reducing the number of available undos can free up more RAM — and personally, I've found that I've never needed to go back further than eight steps to undo a mistake.

Pro Tools keeps track of undoable editing operations (cutting, pasting, nudging, etc.) in a queue that's temporarily stored in your computer's RAM. This queue can be memory-intensive, so reducing the levels of undo will help free up RAM for other needs. The maximum number of levels is 32 in Pro Tools 6.1 and beyond (16 in Pro Tools 6.0 and lower); this is also the default value. To change this, choose "Preferences" from the Setup menu and click "Editing." Click in the "Levels of Undo" field, enter a value from one to 32, and click Done.

Use Plug-ins Efficiently
You can also make more efficient use of your plug-ins. A few examples: 1) Use AudioSuite plug-ins instead of RTAS or TDM plug-ins. 2) Use one plug-in on an auxiliary input track with sends and busses, instead of using that same plug-in on multiple tracks. 3) Use less CPU-intensive plug-ins, like single-band instead of multi-band EQs. If you have questions on how to do these things, check out my book, Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools (2nd Edition).

Wrap-Up
With a little knowledge of how your computer interacts with Pro Tools, you can tweak your computer and maximize its performance. Join me next month for more performance-enhancing techniques and concepts that apply to both TDM and LE systems. See you soon. Peace.

Like what you see in this column? Check out my book Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools (2nd Edition). You can buy it online right here through Digidesign's website, or visit www.protoolsbook.com. Interested in personal instruction on Pro Tools from yours truly? Visit www.berkleemusic.com and learn about several amazing Pro Tools learning experiences available online though Berklee College of Music. Wanna see my studio and hear some samples of my work? Visit www.undergroundsun.com.

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