# Optimizing your Pro Tools HD/LE system pt. 1



## immortalgropher (Feb 16, 2010)

Optimizing your Pro Tools system is yet another important part of having smooth and stable 
recording/mixing/mastering sessions and each particular process requires different configurations.

*Optimizing for recording: * When recording audio, latency is a big issue, you want the least latency possible 
so that there is no lag between the source and what you're capturing, latency issues can cause artifacts in the recording that aren't very pretty!

  (Assuming you're already inside PTHD/LE) Go to the "System" Menu and select "Playback Engine"
 Here, you will see various options, the first one being H/W Buffer Size. This means: "Hardware Buffer size" which 
relates to the timing of latency between the hardware and the software. You will notice there are quite a few options in the drop down menu:
 

64
128
256
512
1024
2048


 As I said, you want the lowest option your system can perform, if your system can utilize 64 ms latency, fantastic, if not, 
don't stress yourself too much. If you can keep your buffer size between 64 and 256, you're doing well. If you're uncomfortable 
playing with these settings for now, that's fine! Those of you who fall into this category, just keep it at 512 samples.

 The next option that you will see is: "Host Processors" This refers to how many processors Pro Tools will use to allocate 
threads to. If you have a dual/quad core CPU, you will be using four cores, if you have hyperthreading enabled in your BIOS settings, 
you will see 4/8 in this menu, if you have 8 physical cores (dual CPU) you will see 8 and if you're using hyperthreading with 8 physical cores, 
you will see 16! If you're using 8 physical cores though, you won't have any need to enable hyperthreading. Basically, for this 
particular option, keep it as high as you can, the manual will say to use one less core, but I disagree as I have had no issues with all selected.

 The final setting under the "Settings" category is CPU usage limit, what this is, is basically a brickwall limiter for your 
CPU that works off of a percentage. When your system reaches a specified usage amount due to RTAS plug ins and 
Audiosuite rendering, etc, once it reaches the peak, it will go no further than that. A setting of 85% or 90% is acceptable here.

 The next section you will see refers to the DAE playback buffer, which deals with disk latency and plugins/audio streaming. 
This is a very important setting for recording and mixing. Different from the H/W buffer in that this setting does not focus on 
the CPU or Digidesign hardware, but on your _hard drive_. You will see "size" and in the dropdown menu you will see levels 
1-4, keep this on level 1 and if your system can handle it, put it on 0!

 For Cache size, leave this on normal unless your system is really having a hard time, then switch it to large. (If you followed my 
recording PC guide, you will be just fine leaving this on normal!)

 Lastly, you will see an option with a tick box that says: "ignore errors during playback/record" (may cause clicks and pops). 
This setting is debatable, if there is something wrong and you keep getting errors when mixing about the DAE engine and you
just can't get it to go away, tick this box (especially with the 8.0.3 update) I hear no clicks or pops with or without it. I have not 
had this particular option enabled when tracking so I cannot speak for this option in such an instance, only with mixing.

 Try to keep it unchecked if possible, if you notice nothing wrong with tracking or mixing, leave it on, it is most likely doing no harm.
 These steps should lead you in the right direction for a stable recording system with Pro Tools HD/LE!


----------



## Ford.P (Dec 24, 2007)

AstralPlaneStudios said:


> The next option that you will see is: "Host Processors" This refers to how many processors Pro Tools will use to allocate
> threads to. If you have a dual/quad core CPU, you will be using four cores, if you have hyperthreading enabled in your BIOS settings,
> you will see 4/8 in this menu, if you have 8 physical cores (dual CPU) you will see 8 and if you're using hyperthreading with 8 physical cores,
> you will see 16! If you're using 8 physical cores though, you won't have any need to enable hyperthreading. Basically, for this
> particular option, keep it as high as you can, the manual will say to use one less core, but I disagree as I have had no issues with all selected.


Actually I had issues with all 8 processors enabled when using both UAD-2 and UAD-1 cards together. This problem did not occured while using only UAD-2. Lowering one step down to 7 processors solved that out. Did not checked that with new UAD SW - which may solve this issue as universal audio says the new version reduces CPU spikes...
But generally - when you do not use ReWire applications - 8 processors setting works smooth. One extra CPU dedicated for rewired Reason help to the system to be more responsive.


----------



## Kirill (Apr 14, 2010)

Ford.P said:


> Actually I had issues with all 8 processors enabled when using both UAD-2 and UAD-1 cards together.


I think UAD1 is a bit slower then UAD2, thus perhaps that could cause the issues. At least I would think this way. Meaning that if you have a slower and faster processors running same heavy tasks at certain amount of buffer, one of them could slow down the over all speed of processing. Just considering that possibility... :dontknow:

Kirill


----------



## immortalgropher (Feb 16, 2010)

Keep in mind everything is subject to change from system to system, these are just the steps to an efficient system ^_^.


----------

