Just got back from the NARAS event in Chicago

[@?,*???&?]

Also, never ever touch the mouse while recording. Once you put your unit in record, don't even look at it until the passage is done. As the computer will make ANY mouse activity immediate priority, that puts A-to-D on the back burner.

[mjau]

Also, never ever touch the mouse while recording. Once you put your unit in record, don't even look at it until the passage is done. As the computer will make ANY mouse activity immediate priority, that puts A-to-D on the back burner.

Never thought of that, but it makes sense.

[Electricide]

on a pc, open your DAW, and then CTRL+ALT+DEL to see your processes. Right click on one, and you'll see a "set priority" setting. I put my DAW and sound card at top proirity, and put the browser and ipodhelper and other stuff low. You could put the mouse low too I think.

[dogcow]

When Todd Rundgren came into a studio a was working at a few years ago, I thought it was weird that his PT session faders were all at unity and he did all his ITB mixing with trim plugins inserted on every track. He's a very meticulous, technical dude, so I'm inclined to believe there's something to it, despite my instinct to believe it BS. I guess that just goes back to the "perception is reality" argument already stated.

Mike Manewitz

[GooberNumber9]

Also, never ever touch the mouse while recording. Once you put your unit in record, don't even look at it until the passage is done. As the computer will make ANY mouse activity immediate priority, that puts A-to-D on the back burner.

I think that might be a little bit of overkill. Your host CPU isn't actually doing any A/D conversion. It's merely taking a data stream from the PCI bus, firewire controller, or USB controller and sending it to the hard disk. There's plenty of bus bandwith and processing power for a little mouse movement. This is all assuming you have a computer that's less than three years old and you're not recording 48 simultaneous tracks at 24-bit, 96 kHz.

In PTLE I zoom and scroll the view all the time while recording without issues.

A bigger issue is killing every single process that you don't absolutely need. You don't want anything in your systray (by the clock). Disable your screen saver, power saving, hibernation, and sleep modes. There's plenty of material out there on optimizing your computer for audio that you can check out to keep things running smoothly.

Todd Wilcox

[Electricide]

A bigger issue is killing every single process that you don't absolutely need. You don't want anything in your systray (by the clock). Disable your screen saver, power saving, hibernation, and sleep modes. There's plenty of material out there on optimizing your computer for audio that you can check out to keep things running smoothly.

Todd Wilcox

err, well my DAW is my internet, so I have AVG running in the sys tray, and the soundcard/mixer, and the internet connection symbol. So 3 isn't bad.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Also, never ever touch the mouse while recording. Once you put your unit in record, don't even look at it until the passage is done. As the computer will make ANY mouse activity immediate priority, that puts A-to-D on the back burner.

this sounds like malarky to me, i've never noticed any issues with the mouse when recording. anyway in the interests of science, i just did a test....i ran a mix out of the computer and back in, whilst closing my eyes and turning my back on the dreaded mouse. then did another pass, this time mousing like a hopped-up senator awaiting a return IM from some teenager.

lined 'em up to the sample, flipped phase on one. the meters were hanging out around -60 or so. so then i did another pass, again not moving the mouse at all, and compared that to the first no mouse pass. meters were exactly the same. which to me says that the files null to the same point regardless of mouse shenanigans.

then i actually turned my power amp on and listened to them. if jeff or anyone can tell the difference i will...uh...give you $35? a mackie onyx? allow you to gaze adoringly at my leathur pants?

[@?,*???&?]

Also, never ever touch the mouse while recording. Once you put your unit in record, don't even look at it until the passage is done. As the computer will make ANY mouse activity immediate priority, that puts A-to-D on the back burner.

this sounds like malarky to me, i've never noticed any issues with the mouse when recording. anyway in the interests of science, i just did a test....i ran a mix out of the computer and back in, whilst closing my eyes and turning my back on the dreaded mouse. then did another pass, this time mousing like a hopped-up senator awaiting a return IM from some teenager.

lined 'em up to the sample, flipped phase on one. the meters were hanging out around -60 or so. so then i did another pass, again not moving the mouse at all, and compared that to the first no mouse pass. meters were exactly the same. which to me says that the files null to the same point regardless of mouse shenanigans.

then i actually turned my power amp on and listened to them. if jeff or anyone can tell the difference i will...uh...give you $35? a mackie onyx? allow you to gaze adoringly at my leathur pants?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I know enough about how a computer operates to know this can be screwing with my data. Until I hear from a Mac design engineer to the contrary I'll take my voodoo to the grave...

[inflatable]

I know no other way around it at this time unless I just do nothing in Pro Tools and only work on tape.

Why do you have to work with tape if you don't mi ITB? Why not use a real console like we've ben doing for the last 50 years. I personally use a dedicated HDR and an analog mixer. You could do the same thing with any DAW. Using a computer in no way precludes the use of plugins or ITB mixing.

[inflatable]

Also, never ever touch the mouse while recording. Once you put your unit in record, don't even look at it until the passage is done. As the computer will make ANY mouse activity immediate priority, that puts A-to-D on the back burner.

What are you smokin? You obviously don't know much about how much a computer does in the background when it isn't being used if you believe a mouse movement is gunna affect your recording.

Every service or daemon on your computer eats CPU cycles when you aren't even using the system. The frame buffer is constantly scanning and redrawing your monitor, the mouse is constantly being polled for position.

All recording interfaces in computers use a FIFO buffer so audio is recorded with correct timing. That is why we have latency in DAWs.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I know enough about how a computer operates to know this can be screwing with my data. Until I hear from a Mac design engineer to the contrary I'll take my voodoo to the grave...

I think you are getting confused here. I know of issues with computers (Macs as well) where if you move the mouse, it makes a zipper sound through the speakers. This has nothing to do with process priority. If anything, it is a grounding issue between the built-in AD converter and the mouse electronics. Whatever the cause, it doesn't affect me because I don't use the builtin converters to record.

[@?,*???&?]

I think you are getting confused here. I know of issues with computers (Macs as well) where if you move the mouse, it makes a zipper sound through the speakers. This has nothing to do with process priority. If anything, it is a grounding issue between the built-in AD converter and the mouse electronics. Whatever the cause, it doesn't affect me because I don't use the builtin converters to record.

Yes. Very true. That sound tells me the computer is looking for input from my mouse and must detract from any other process.

Did you have a point other than to belittle?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

wow, that's rich coming from you jeff.