Most of you already know the following, but for those who are new to Pro Tools here is an article i wrote on my Facebook (facebook.com/risey) page to get the most out of Pro tools and eliminating them errors that pop up from time to time (especially DAE)
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From time to time, like most things these days, eventually it will throw a load of error codes at you causing a mass panic.
Pro Tools from time to time needs to be reset, I don’t mean default everything, but you need to delete preferences and some other tweaks, DO NOT DO THIS WHILE THE PROGRAM IS LOADED.
I thought i would share my six years of experience in using PT.
First thing you need to do (sequence taken from Digidesign help files):
Start Menu > My Computer > Local Disk(C:) or correct hard drive > Program Files > Common Files > Digidesign > DAE > Right-click on the DAE Prefs folder and delete.
Start Menu > My Computer > Local Disk(C:) > Documents and Settings > "Your user folder" > Application Data > Right-click on the Digidesign folder and delete. (If the Application Data folder is not showing: Tools Menu > Folder Options > View Tab > Click Apply and OK.)
Then do the following:
Start Menu > My Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Digidesign Databases > Right-click on the Digidesign Databases folder and delete. Repeat for all hard drives.
Start menu > My Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Program Files > Digidesign > Pro Tools > Databases > Right-click on the Volumes folder and delete.
The above should eliminate any DAE errors you may have had.
Some other tips I would strongly suggest is DEFRAG, do this at least twice a month on your audio drives.
Speaking about Hard Drives, make sure PT does not record audio onto you system drive or your inviting all sorts of errors and strains on your PC, personally I have 3 HD’s in my PC, one is the system drive that i partitioned (never use partitioned drives for PT), the other two drives are my Audio drives, I originally had Raid set up on my PC but had a host of problems, so I decided to remove them and use Round Robin, what is Round Robin you ask?
PT has the ability to communicate between several drives at the same time taking lots of strain from your PC, this also is helpful in eliminating errors especially when you have several audio tracks on one mix. To turn on Round Robin go to “Disc allocation” and turn it on, next you will want to go to “Workspace” here you will see a list of all your HD in use for Round Robin, so to remove any drive such as the system drive just set the drive to: PLAY (this will exclude the drive from Round Robin)
One final note, another thing I do is (I know it can take hours lol) every six months i move all the files from the Audio drives to my external drive then Format the Audio drives and then transfer the files back, this also helps PT to work more efficiently.
oooh and dont forget to turn off any background services that you do not need running (enter msconfig into RUN)
Hope my tips helped…
Good luck folks
Happy producing..
Risey
http://www.MediaPressPack.com