Line 6 POD Farm Plug-In, POD Studio GX, POD Studio UX1, POD Studio UX2, POD Farm User Manual

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Wi n d o W s

XP ® & Vi s t a

au d i o ti P s & oP t i m i z at i o n s

Improve the performance of your computer with

Line 6 POD® Farm & audio recording software

Windows® XP® & Vista® - Audio Tips & Optimizations

ta b l e o f Co n t e n t s

Digital Audio and Your Computer ............................................................. 1

Windows® XP® Optimizations .................................................................1

Making System Tweaks in Windows® XP

Disable Your Onboard or Add-in Sound Card ....................................................................1

Turn Off Windows System Sounds .....................................................................................2

Disable Error Reporting .......................................................................................................3

Disable the Remote Assistance Option ..............................................................................3

Turn Automatic Updates Off .............................................................................................3

Processor Scheduling ...........................................................................................................3

Set Virtual Memory to a Fixed Size .....................................................................................4

Enable DMA Mode for All IDE Hard Disk Drives .............................................................4

Disable the Indexing Service ...............................................................................................5

Exit All Unnecessary Applications .....................................................................................5

Disable Startup Programs with the System Conﬁguration Utility .....................................6

Internet and Network Connections ....................................................................................6

Disable Windows System Restore .......................................................................................6

Display & Power Settings ....................................................................................................6

Maintenance Tasks ..............................................................................................................8

® ................................................................................1

Windows® Vista® Optimizations ...............................................................1

Making System Tweaks in Vista ..........................................................................................1

Disable Your Onboard or Add-in Sound Card ....................................................................2

Turn Off Windows System Sounds .....................................................................................3

Turn Off Visual Effects ........................................................................................................4

Disable the Remote Assistance Option ..............................................................................5

Turn Automatic Updates Off .............................................................................................5

Processor Scheduling ...........................................................................................................5

Set Virtual Memory to a Fixed Size .....................................................................................5

Enable DMA Mode for All IDE Hard Disk Drives .............................................................6

Exit all Unnecessary Applications ......................................................................................7

Disable Startup Programs with the System Conﬁguration Utility .....................................8

Internet and Network Connections ....................................................................................8

Display & Power Settings ....................................................................................................8

Maintenance & System Tools ...........................................................................................10

Windows® XP® & Vista® - Audio Tips & Optimizations

Additional Resources ..................................................................................1

Helpful Computer Optimization Sites ................................................................................1

Line 6 Online Resources ......................................................................................................1

Line 6, POD, PODxt, POD X3, POD Farm, POD Farm Plug-In, TonePort, GearBox, GearBox Plug-In, Line 6 Monkey, ToneDirect Monitoring, GuitarPort, FBV, Variax, Line 6 Edit and Custom Tone are trademarks of Line 6, Inc. All other product names, trademarks, and artists’ names are the property of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or afﬁliated with Line 6.

i i

Digital Audio and Your Computer

di g i ta l au d i o a n d Y o u r Co m P u t e r

Modern Windows® PC’s are now quite powerful and more than capable of being used as powerful Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). However, most are not typically conﬁgured for optimal performance for the speciﬁc demands of digital audio right out of the box. The following tips are offered as suggested optimizations you might try on your Windows® XP® or Vista® system to possibly improve the performance with your Line 6 POD® Studio, TonePort®, POD®xt, POD® X3, POD® Farm software, POD ® Farm Plug-In, as well as their use with other audio applications.

It is important to note that many of the default Windows settings do offer some advantages, conveniences, and even security improvements for the general use of your computer. You should evaluate the tradeoff of the security and conveniences some of these services offer to your everyday computing work before you go disabling all of them. It is also a good idea to always back up your system and data before changing system settings, and to keep a written list of all settings you’ve changed and know how to reset them back in case you encounter decreased performance issues.

Note - PC conﬁgurations can differ widely. The following tips are offered as suggestions only and Line 6 cannot be held responsible for problems caused to your system by applying settings changes. Please seek the assistance of a qualiﬁed service technician if you are not familiar with these Windows operating system settings. So we’ll say it once again - back up your system ﬁrst before making changes!

Digital Audio Demands

A few basic understandings are helpful as you start working with digital audio hardware & software, and the demands they make on your computer system. Here are a few helpful insights...

CPU Usage

This refers to the processing power that your computer uses to do lots of very complex math for such things as applying all those cool effects and amp models to your sound. Once you start running other audio applications and multiple Plug-Ins, this starts using more CPU cycles. It is best to run only the applications and processes you need to get the most out of your computer’s ﬁnite amount of CPU resources. And of course, the faster processor your computer has, the better. The newer Dual-Core and Quad-Core processors offer even better performance than earlier processors since they are indeed like having multiple CPUs all sharing the processing load!

Hard Disk Access

This is the “input/output” speed at which audio data can be written to your hard disk during recording, and read from your hard disk during playback. You disc access capability directly affects how many tracks you can record/play back in a Multitrack software project, for example. Recording digital audio also uses a great deal of hard disk space, so it is a good idea to have lots of free Gigabytes available. The speed of your hard disk itself is important here. It is best to have a hard disk with a 7200 RPM speed or higher. Also, newer PC’s support the Serial ATA (SATA) interface for internal hard disks - if yours does than you should purchase a SATA type hard disk rather than IDE since SATA is a bit faster. A common practice among folks using their computer for audio work is to add a second hard disk and use it strictly for storing and recording audio ﬁles, while the original drive is used primarily as your “C” drive where Windows®, POD Farm, and all applications are installed.

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Digital Audio and Your Computer

Note that often laptops come standard with a 5400 RPM speed internal hard disk, which may not be quite up to the task of more than simple multitrack audio recording projects. It is possible to purchase an external hard disk, such as one with a USB 2 or Firewire interface, that is 7200 RPM or faster to use as a secondary audio disk. External hard disk drives are also handy for back-ups as well (you are backing up your data, right?)

RAM

(Random Access Memory) Many modern applications use lots of this type of memory, so the more RAM you have, the better, up to the 3.2 GB maximum that Windows XP & Vista 32 bit operating systems support. One of the big advantages of the Windows XP and Vista 64 bit systems is that these support more than 3.2 GB of RAM. As RAM is getting cheaper all the time, and as hardware and software support increases for 64 bit systems, these are quite likely to be the next big thing for DAW systems.

If you are running a Multitrack recording application, effects plug-ins and soft-synths along with POD Farm, then RAM will be used up quickly. So it a great investment to ﬁll up those RAM slots with all you can afford (but remember that it will not reduce these applications’ additional needs for CPU processing). Be sure to check your PC or motherboard documentation to see speciﬁcally what type of RAM it takes, and the capacity of RAM it will hold per RAM slot before you order the wrong type and have to face the dreaded chore of trying to return electronics parts!

Hardware Conﬂicts

It is best to avoid connecting unnecessary peripheral hardware devices when working with audio on your PC. Since POD Studio, TonePort, PODxt and POD X3 devices connect to your USB port, you especially want to avoid any devices sharing the same USB bus. It can require advanced technical skills to track down device conﬂicts, and this is beyond the scope of this document – consult a technician for assistance if needed. But you can often avoid conﬂicts by simply not installing or disabling unneeded devices. For example, adding devices such as document scanners, Bluetooth adapters, printers, a USB coffee warmer, etc. can all raise the chances of conﬂicting with your audio device. Strive to keep your audio PC lean and mean, at least while running your audio applications.

Cables

Note that digital connections, such as the S/PDIF outputs on POD Studio & TonePort UX2, UX8, KB37, PODxt Pro and POD X3, require the use of a special 75-ohm coaxial cable to effectively transmit digital signals without loss or interference. Be sure to get this cable type for any digital connections to/ from your Line 6 hardware. For all analog audio connections, get yourself some good quality shielded instrument cables. Cheap cables often do not hold up well and can be a source of noise and tone loss if not well constructed. It is a good idea to invest in a few good quality cables and keep them away from cats and drummers. Before spending an entire day trying to ﬁgure out why you aren’t getting a signal through your setup, check your cables!

With the above understandings, you can already see one common rule of thumb – more processing, speed and memory is better! But you do not necessarily need to go upgrade your PC right now. If your computer meets the recommended requirements then it is likely just ﬁne to get going with your Line 6 hardware and POD Farm needs. To squeeze more out of your current system, take a look at the following sections for plenty of tips and tweaks!

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Windows® XP® Optimizations

Wi n d o W s® XP® oP t i m i z at i o n s

To follow is a number of settings changes that have been proven to optimize Windows® XP® speciﬁcally for better performance of audio software. It is worth mentioning once again... it is a really good idea to do a complete backup of your system and data before making any of these system changes so that you can restore your system to its previous state if any problems are encountered!

Making System Tweaks in Windows® XP

First a bit of information about accessing system settings in Windows...

Switch to the Classic Start Menu Mode

Within this document, instructions are provided assuming you have Windows® XP® set to use the Classic Start Menu mode, which remains the preference of most computer geeks everywhere. To switch to this mode, right-click on the Windows Start button and choose Properties > Start Menu tab > Classic Start Menu option. While you are here, click on the Customize button, and then check the box for Expand Control Panel. Click OK to close both dialogs.

The Windows Control Panel

Many of the following settings are accessed in the Windows Control Panel, which you intelligently just chose in the previous step to display as “Expanded” as a convenient sub-menu. Click on the Start button and choose Settings to get to the expanded Control Panel sub-menu as needed:

Accessing the Windows Control Panel Menu

Disable Your Onboard or Add-in Sound Card

When using Line 6 POD Studio, TonePort, PODxt or POD X3 hardware as your sound card device for recording and playback in audio applications, you may not need to have any other sound card enabled. In some cases you may even encounter a hardware conﬂict with some “onboard” and/or addin sound cards such as SoundBlaster® Live! or OEM cards. The best solution is to simply disable any unnecessary, additional sound card within Windows Device Manager.

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Windows® XP® Optimizations

Go to Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager button. Click the + symbol to the left of Sound, video and game controllers to expand it. Now right-click on your onboard sound card device, or other sound card device that is not in use, and choose Disable. Click Ye s when it prompts you if you really want to disable the device. The device then appears in the list with a red “X” to show it is disabled. You can come back to Device Manager any time, right click on the disabled device and choose Enable to enable it again.

Windows Device Manager - OEM Sound Card (a SoundMax device) has been disabled

Note that if you disable another sound card, Windows will often then automatically assign your connected Line 6 USB device as the Windows “default device” for all sound playback. This means that many audio applications such as Windows Media Player, iTunes, or games, will route their sound to your Line 6 device, which may or may not be what you want. The audio capabilities of Line 6 USB hardware are likely much higher quality than your on-board or add-on sound card, but Line 6 devices do not support some features such as MIDI playback, 5.1 surround output, or accelerated 3D audio for games. If you need these features, then it is best to set a sound card that does for the Windows default playback device, or speciﬁcally for the applications with these requirements. You can, however, avoid Windows system sounds playing through your Line 6 device independently of the Windows default playback device assignment – see the next section.

Turn Off Windows System Sounds

These little dings and beeps can be handy alerts, but not very pleasant to hear blaring at high volume, especially if they are assigned to play through your POD Studio. To turn them off, go to Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sounds tab. Choose No Sounds as the Sound Scheme. Click OK to exit the dialog. You can always come back here and turn the sounds back on if you really miss them.

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Windows® XP® Optimizations

The Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog - setting the No Sound scheme

Disable Error Reporting

Eliminate those pesky pop-up warnings by disabling this error reporting feature. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Error Reporting and then click the Disable Error Reporting button. Keep the checkbox checked for the But notify me if critical errors occur option.

Disable the Remote Assistance Option

Some technical support departments may ask you to keep this service active, but if this is not the case for you, then you can disable it. Go to Control Panel > System > Remote Tab and uncheck the option for Allow Remote Assistance invitations to be sent from this computer.

Turn Automatic Updates Off

Windows updates are actually highly recommended by Microsoft, and indeed many are for security enhancements and offer critical ﬁxes. But you may prefer to set the Automatic Updates feature off and check manually at the Windows Update web site for your updates to avoid this service kicking in while you are tending to audio processes. Go to Control Panel > System > Automatic Updates tab, and select Turn Off Automatic Updates. If you do choose to turn this option off, then be sure to check manually on the Microsoft Windows Update site for critical updates on a regular basis.

Processor Scheduling

Some audio applications recommend setting the Processor Scheduling setting to “Background Services” rather than the XP default of “Programs”. Others claim it can be detrimental to processing, so evaluate its advantages on your system. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Performance Settings > Advanced Tab, and set the Processor Scheduling to Background Services.

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Windows® XP® Optimizations

Set Virtual Memory to a Fixed Size

Advanced tab and then click the Change button within the Virtual Memory section. Choose the Custom size option and you can then type in new minimum and maximum values.

It is typically recommended to use a value that is 1.5 to 2 times the amount of your PC’s total RAM and enter this same value in to BOTH ﬁelds so that it maintains a ﬁxed ﬁle size. Click the Set button, and then OK to close the dialog. Click OK for the alert and restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

The Virtual Memory dialog - Custom paging ﬁle created on the C drive

Enable DMA Mode for All IDE Hard Disk Drives

Note - This tip is only for IDE type hard disks. The latest PCs often now come with Serial ATA (SATA) interface controllers and hard disks for which this Device Manager setting change is not applicable.

Check to make sure the transfer mode for your IDE hard disk drive(s) is set to the DMA mode, otherwise the disk access speed will be poor. Go to Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager button. Expand the entry labeled IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Right click on the Primary IDE Channel item and select Properties and go to the Advanced Settings tab. Check that the Transfer Mode options are set to DMA if available for all channels. Repeat this for all IDE

channel items beneath IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

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Checking the IDE Transfer Mode

Windows® XP® Optimizations

Disable the Indexing Service

Unless you are using the Windows Search function very often to ﬁnd ﬁles on your computer, then this service is yet another you might consider disabling. This service basically runs through and catalogs items on your hard disks and makes the Windows Search function more efﬁcient, but it can cause some random “slow-downs” and high CPU usage when it kicks in. If you are using your PC mostly for audio work and keep your projects well organized, then you’ll likely know where most things are all the time anyway! To disable this service, go to the Control Panel and select Administrator Tools and then

Services. In the Name column of the Services dialog, ﬁnd and double-click on the one titled Indexing Service to launch its Properties. In the Startup type drop-down, choose Disabled. Click OK when

done.

You can of course come back to the Services at any time and set this back to Manual if you want to allow the Indexing Service to be re-activated again.

Exit All Unnecessary Applications

This follows common sense – to free up more resources you should avoid running other programs as much as possible when running POD Farm and/or audio applications. But many Windows programs and utilities are often set to launch automatically when you start your system and you may not even know it. One way to look for these is in the Windows Taskbar, but ﬁrst you may need to change a setting to see them all:

Right click on the Start button and select the Taskbar tab. Uncheck the Hide inactive icons checkbox. You will now likely see several little icons on the Taskbar, at the lower right of your screen, next to your clock. Most utility applications that start with Windows will display a little icon here. You should know what it is you are accessing before shutting one of these off – usually hovering over the icon for a moment will show a tooltip informing you what utility it is. If it is one you do not need, often you can right click on the icon and choose Exit. The utility will again start next time you reboot your machine. Or, for more advanced Windows XP users, you can try using the System Conﬁguration Utility (see next tip).

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Windows® XP® Optimizations

Disable Startup Programs with the System Conﬁguration Utility

It is not recommended you use this utility unless you are familiar with the Windows XP operating system – seek the help of a technician if needed. To access the System Conﬁguration Utility, go to Start > Run and type in msconﬁg, and then go to the Startup tab. All checked items here are set to start running when you boot Windows. If some of these are not necessary, you can uncheck them. Note that some of these will likely be important security utilities, such as Anti-Virus software, which you probably never want to surf the Internet without. You will need to restart your computer for changes in this dialog to take effect.

Tip - Sometimes the name or path displayed for each Startup item isn’t very telling as to what the application actually is. You can often ﬁnd out, as well as obtain some details that can help you decide if you should uncheck it or not, by doing a Google Internet search using the .exe ﬁlename.

Internet and Network Connections

You’ll likely want your PC to be able to connect to the Internet or perhaps a network, but some users ﬁnd that having a connection active while using audio applications causes glitches or drop-outs, especially if using a wireless connection or USB wireless network card. One thing you can try is to disconnect from the Internet/network while using your audio applications if you ﬁnd that it is causing some interference. Likewise, during the times that you are not connected, you should not need to have Internet/Networking utilities running, such as Windows Firewall, Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware, networking utilities, etc. It is not recommended that you exit these services while connected to the Internet, since they are necessary security measures.

Disable Windows System Restore

This can be a helpful system tool to have running, since it regularly makes backups of important Windows system ﬁles and drivers, and allows you to switch to the backed-up version in case of problems. But this service comes at some costs - the use of a signiﬁcant amount of disk space, CPU usage and the disk access it needs when it kicks in. If you see no problems with it active, then leave it on. But if you need to solve audio problems and want to try turning it off, then you can access it in Control Panel > System > System Restore Tab. You can choose Turn off system restore for all partitions to completely disable it. Or, if you have more than one hard disk partition, one compromise is to keep active for only your C: partition, and disable all other partitions. Click on the OK button and restart your computer for the setting to take effect.

Display & Power Settings

The following items are all accessed within the Windows Control Panel:

Turn off the Screen Saver

You likely do not want a screen saver kicking in during the middle of your perfect take when recording. To turn this off, go to Control Panel > Display and select the Screen Saver tab and choose None for the Screen Saver option.

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Windows® XP® Optimizations

Turn Off Visual Effects

By default, WinXP has numerous Visual Effects active. These do make the interface look pretty, but also utilize resources. You can toggle many of these on/off individually, or one easy tweak is just to turn all off within the Performance Options dialog. Go to the Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Settings button, and then choose the Visual Effects tab in the Performance Options dialog. Select the Adjust for best performance option. Optionally, you can check only the individual display options here to turn them on if you think some are sufﬁciently visually stimulating to not do without. Click the OK button when done.

The Visual Effects settings - “Best performance” option selected

Remove Background Picture

Having a high resolution photo or rotating slide show will use some resources – setting this to a plain, boring color will be a little less demanding, and maybe keep you focused on your music instead! To change this, go to Control Panel > Display > Desktop Tab, and for the background picture select None.

Turn Off Power Schemes

There is probably no reason for your audio PC components to ever need to power down when the system is plugged in (although if you have a laptop, then this can conserve the battery). To avoid this from happening, go to Control Panel > Power Options, and in the Power Schemes tab, set each of the following items to Never within the Plugged In column; Monitor, Hard Discs, and System Standby.

Turn Off Hibernation

There is likely no need for your audio PC to ever automatically go to “sleep” on you, and this ties up a signiﬁcant amount of hard disk space. To disable this feature, go to Control Panel > Power Options, and in the Hibernation tab, uncheck the option for Enable Hibernation.

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Windows® XP® Optimizations

Maintenance Tasks

There are several recommended routine maintenance tasks you should perform to keep your system in top form for audio work…

Backup Your Data

Yes, you have heard it before, but it is easy to keep putting off the chore of backing up all that audio data. Invest in an external hard drive backup system or DVD burner drive if you can afford it. Losing audio data can be costly and extremely negative to the creative process. There are also “drive imaging” software applications you can buy that allow you to back up your entire computer’s contents – data, programs and all – and completely restore your computer back to the last backed-up state in minutes in case of failure.

Clean Up

Your PC accumulates lots of little temporary ﬁles and trash over time, so it’s a good thing to clean house once in a while. Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and choose the Disk Cleanup utility for this. This can be run individually for each hard disk partition.

Defragment Your Hard Disks

An important practice to follow for audio is to regularly run a defragmenting application on all your hard drive partitions, especially your audio partition, to allow more streamlined disk access. Many 3rd party companies produce defragmenting applications, but Windows XP already includes Disk Defragmenter, which works pretty well (albeit a bit slower than 3rd party ones you can buy). To run Disk Defragmenter, go to Start > Programs > System Tools. If you ﬁrst click the Analyze button, it will tell you if your disk needs to be defragmented.

Windows Disk Defragmenter

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Windows® Vista® Optimizations

Wi n d o W s® V i s t a® oP t i m i z at i o n s

To follow are a number of settings changes for optimizing Windows® Vista® speciﬁcally for improved performance with audio software. It is worth mentioning once again... it is a really good idea to do a complete backup of your system and data before making any of these system changes so that you can restore your system to its previous state if any problems are encountered!

Making System Tweaks in Vista

First a bit of information about accessing system settings in Windows Vista...

Administrator Privileges

To be able to access many of the system settings, you’ll need to be logged in to Vista with a user account that has full Administrator permissions. Please check your Windows Help if you need to learn about User Accounts and permissions.

The Windows Control Panel

Many of the following settings we’ll be covering here are accessed in the Windows Control Panel. You can access the Control Panel by clicking the Windows Start button - you’ll see that you can click on Control Panel here to display the menu of all Control Panel items.

Accessing the Windows Control Panel menu from the Start button

User Account Control

The new User Account Control (UAC) feature in Vista is what keeps prompting you for permission to do conﬁgure system settings and access some areas and programs. UAC is a security measure, but it can also be really annoying when trying to do system tweaks, such as many of the ones listed in this

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Windows® Vista® Optimizations

document. Keep in mind, Microsoft implemented UAC to prevent tampering with important settings, and you could expose some security vulnerabilities disabling it, but if you prefer to disable it you can do so. It is also possible to enable UAC again, should you just want to disable it temporarily. Note that you will have to reboot for this setting change to take effect.

Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools and select the System Conﬁguration utility from the list of tools. Select the Continue button at the prompt (ironically, this prompt asking you to continue is launched by the UAC service!) In the System Conﬁguration dialog, select the Tools tab. Scroll down and ﬁnd the Disable UAC item - select it and then click the Launch button to execute the command to disable it. If you are left with an open black-background command dialog, close it when the command completes. Select OK in the System Conﬁg dialog to exit when done. Restart your computer for the change to take effect.

Performance Information and Tools

The following instructions in this document take you to various settings dialogs in Vista to make the necessary tweaks. But one handy dialog where you can alternatively get to lots of Vista settings is the Performance Information and Tools, which you can select from the Control Panel menu. As it’s name suggests, this dialog also displays performance ratings for your system, as well as some tips and info on how to improve overall performance.

Disable Your Onboard or Add-in Sound Card

When using Line 6 USB hardware as your sound card device for recording and playback in the POD Farm Standalone application and other audio applications, you may not need to have another sound card enabled. In some cases you may even encounter a hardware conﬂict with some “onboard” and/ or add-in sound cards. The best solution is to simply disable any unnecessary, additional sound card within Windows Device Manager.

Go to Control Panel > Device Manager. Click the + symbol to the left of Sound to expand it. This should show your Line 6 USB device (if connected) as well as any other audio device currently available on your computer. Now right-click on your onboard sound card device (often listed here as High Deﬁnition Audio Device or other generic name), SoundMax®, or other sound card device that is not in use, and choose Disable. Click Yes when it prompts you if you really want to disable the device. The device will then appear in the list with a little downward arrow icon to show it is disabled. You can come back to Device Manager any time, right click on the disabled device, and choose Enable to enable it again.

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Windows® Vista® Optimizations

Windows Device Manager - Onboard sound card disabled

Note that if you disable another sound card, Windows will often then automatically assign your connected device as the Windows “default device” for all sound playback. This means that many audio applications such as Windows Media Player, iTunes, or games will route their sound to your Line 6 device, which may or may not be what you want. The audio capabilities of POD Studio, TonePort, PODxt and POD X3 are likely much higher quality than your on-board or add-on sound card, but Line 6 devices do not support some features such as MIDI playback, 5.1 surround output, or accelerated 3D audio for games. If you need these features, then it is best to set a sound card that does for the Windows default playback device, or speciﬁcally for the applications with these requirements. You can, however, avoid Windows system sounds playing through your Line 6 device independently of the Windows default playback device assignment – see the next section.