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Building a Windows DAW Computer part II

Once you've determined the components going into your computer, it'll be time to assemble everything. Below is a video demonstrating a generic PC assembly. You'll want to have the manual for your Motherboard handy to find the locations of the various connectors pins etc.



Next, install Windows.


With that done, it's time to start doing some extra configuration specifically for audio work. Many audio interface manufacturers have a list of settings they suggest be turned on or off. These can vary a bit, but the most important ones are as follows:


Update BIOS/UEFI and drivers

A BIOS is the basic input/output system that starts on the motherboard when turned on. A UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a modern replacement for the traditional BIOS firmware found in computers, offering a standardized interface between the operating system and the platform firmware. In short, this defines to a degree how your operating system sees your motherboard and the various features and components it offers. It also controls things like how fast your RAM speed can go and the like. Keeping this up to date ensures maximum compatibility with everything.


Device drivers for everything from mics and keyboards to your audio interface are often updated. Again, it's worth keeping these up to date as bugs are fixed, features improved, etc.


Hyperthreading and C-States/Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT)

Hyperthreading (Intel CPUs) and SMT (AMD CPUs) are features designed to get the most power out of the various cores on your CPU. In essence, when a core has to pause briefly to await a response from whatever instruction it was given, it begins to work on another task or 'thread'. Once it's completed the second task or is itself awaiting a response, the core switches back to working on the initial task. This happens extremely quickly, switching thousands of times per second. If you're working on a spreadsheet or an email you won't notice it at all. However audio processing requires some things to be done in real time, and any pause can result in dropouts or glitches in audio processes which we usually perceive as clicks and pops. These features can only be turned off in the Motherboard BIOS/UEFI. It is probably the single most critical thing you can do to increase the stability of your system when working in a DAW.


The below video is excellent and explains more fully why this is:


C-States are a way for your computer to power down CPU cores that don't appear to be doing much. Thus, turning off these features keeps all your cores up and running full speed so that when called upon, they can get right to the task at hand. These again, are turned off in the BIOS/UEFI.


USB power off disable

To prevent USB ports from turning off when the computer is idle or off, you can disable USB selective suspend settings in Windows or adjust power settings in your BIOS.


Power Plan

Windows has a built-in ability to control how power gets distributed and when to the various components. You want to prevent Windows from turning things off in the background if not used briefly.


To change the power plan in Windows, navigate to Power & battery settings (Start > Settings > System > Power & battery) or use Control Panel (System and Security > Power Options) and select your desired plan. You can also customize existing plans or create new ones to suit your needs. 


Some systems, especially laptops, may have a hidden "Ultimate Performance" plan. You might need to unlock it via a PowerShell command or through manufacturer-specific settings. "Ultimate Performance" provides the highest possible performance and is suitable for demanding tasks like music production. 


At this point you may have been noticing a trend. Energy efficiency has been a trend in computing for a while to the point where the philosophy is baked right into the system. For a fast and stable DAW machine, most of these efforts need to be undone.


Disable system sounds

While not as big a deal as it used to be, it's a good idea to turn off all the system's bloops and bleeps, as these can get messy when you're trying to record and process audio. At bare minimum, direct those sounds to come out of say, your display's speaker instead of going through the audio interface.


Remove bloat and background services

New branded PCs may come preinstalled with all sorts of software that isn't necessary or is superfluous. If you're building from scratch this is less of an issue, but nonetheless there are lots of software packages that always want to run in the background and steal precious CPU cycles to do things other than audio.


The biggest offenders are usually things like Microsoft Office, and various 3rd party Anti-Virus programs. The built-in Windows Defender is pretty sufficient these days. If you don't want to completely uninstall these, then at least make sure there are no realtime processes happening in the background.


Now you can start installing your audio interface, DAW of choice, and whatever other production software you use.


Once the above is done, there're a couple of utilities I highly recommend to see how robust your new sytem is:


LatencyMon is a tool to help measure your system's ability to record.


Process Lasso is a fantastic utility program that runs in the background and allows you to assign different cores on your CPU to different tasks. It works like a charm and helps reduce recording audio issues when setup correctly for your DAW.

https://bitsum.com The free version of this is good but has a nag screen. It's inexpensive though and I recommend buying it.


Feel free to reach out for any questions or clarifications!



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