Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

Tips for Setting Up Your Mac System for Music Production :
Tips for a Smooth System in General
     •     Keep at least 10% of your total drive capacity free
     •     Use an external or second hard drive for your data (i.e sample 
libraries)


Important system preferences settings 
Although you could potentially have a great running system with all the 
following settings active, we recommend that you consider turning these items off 
to get the most performance out of your computer. To access the OS X system 
preferences click on the Apple menu in the top left corner and choose System 
Preferences 

Energy Saver 
Under the Options tab there is a section called processor performance. Select 
Highest from the list. 
Under the Sleep tab set all sliders to never. Uncheck put hard disk to sleep 
when possible 

International 
If you have issues with a program not starting, it may be due to a keyboard 
layout conflict 
Under the input menu tab check the U.S. , British, or German layout. Check 
the "show in menu bar" box to make sure that it appears in the Finder's menu 
bar. Now use the flag in the Finder's menu bar to switch to that layout. 

Desktop and Screensaver 
Under the Screensaver tab set start screen saver slider to never. 

Dock 
Turn magnification Off 
Minimzie using: scale effect 
Uncheck animate opening applications and hide and show the dock 

Sharing 
Under the Services tab turn personal file sharing and other active (checked) 
services Off. Select them and press Stop. 
Under the internet tab turn internet sharing off. 

Network 
Select your active network connection and press configure 
Select the Apple Talk tab and turn Apple talk off 
If you are using a WLAN connection such as Airport, you should turn Airport 
off as well. 

Accounts 
Startup Items tab. Disable any unnecessary startup items. 
Login Options. Uncheck turn on fast user switching
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Disabling Dashboard in OS X Tiger
07/11/2006

The Tiger OS for Mac is full of bells and whistles that can be very handy. 
But the extra processes running - like Dashboard, for instance - can occupy 
valuable system resources that you may need elsewhere, especially if your Mac is 
your main audio computer. Here's a tip on how to disable Dashboard if it's 
robbing system resources during recording sessions:

 Open Terminal (which is found under Go, Utilities in the Finder window or 
the shortcut Shift + Command + U in Finder to open Utilities), and then type 
this command, followed by the Return key:

 defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

 This tells the system that you no longer wish to have Dashboard available. 
However, the Dashboard task is actually "owned" by the Dock, so to make your 
changes take effect, you need to restart the Dock. The easiest way to do that is 
to type this command into the Terminal (and press Return when done):

 killall Dock

 Dashboard has been eliminated from your system, and won't return until you 
tell it to do so. You can do that by opening Terminal again, and typing this 
command:

 defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO

 Once again, you'll have to use the killall Dock command to make the changes 
take effect. Once you do, though, you'll find that Dashboard is back as usual

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If yesterday's Tech Tip got your pulse racing, this tip might send you over 
the edge. Again using Terminal in Mac OS X Tiger, enter the following commands 
to disable Spotlight to conserve system resources:

 In the Terminal, type this:
 $ sudo su
 # chmod 0000 /Library/Spotlight
 # chmod 0000 /System/Library/Spotlight
 # chmod 0000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle
 # chmod 0000 /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Spotlight.prefPane
 # chmod 0000 /System/Library/Services/Spotlight.service
 # chmod 0000 /System/Library/Contextual Menu Items/SpotlightCM.plugin
 # chmod 0000 /System/Library/StartupItems/Metadata
 # chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdimport
 # chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdcheckschema
 # chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdfind
 # chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdls
 # chmod 0000 /usr/bin/mdutil
 # chmod 0000 /usr/bin/md

 After a reboot, open a new Terminal and do sudo su to make a root shell, 
then:
 # rm -r /.Spotlight-V100
 # rm -r /private/var/tmp/mds
 # exit

 This can be reversed by repairing permissions.


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 According to our friends at Glyph: "Simply shutting down a Mac OS X 10.4.x 
machine while FireWire drives
 are still mounted can result in the directory of the drive being corrupted 
the next time the computer boots. We are not sure what causes this, as it has 
been reported with many drive brands, but always on Mac OS 10.4.x. At this 
time, we are recommending that all Mac OS 10.4 users unmount all FireWire drives 
before they shut down the computer."

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