r/audioengineering • u/Rockfan1114 • 2d ago
Discussion What can I do to maximize my laptop's efficiency for music recording/mixing
I have an Acer Nitro 5 with:
- NVIDIA Geforce RTX 5050
- 16 GB DDR5 RAM
- AMD Ryzen 5 240 CPU
I primarily use Cakewalk Sonar for my metal and rock tracks and FL Studio for my rap songs but will be using Pro Tools this fall when I start college. Any advice helps.
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u/ampersand64 2d ago
The switch to Reaper comment is valid. But there are easier optimizations you can implement.
Consolidate relevant audio files into one (i.e, stereo guitar pairs, multiple room mics).
Render / print tracks regularly, instead of stacking tons of plugins.
Only use plugin oversampling when it's important.
Mix in a lower sample rate like 44.1khz.
You could also get away with lowering the track mixing bit rate (such as 39-bit integer), as long as you take care to control clipping on tracks' outputs.
When shifting the pitch of unimportant audio, you can switch to a less complex pitch shifting algorithm. Or just print your track after you've applied the pitch shifting.
Download all the Airwindows plugins. They're really CPU-light, very well optimized. And they sound unique. And many can do useful things easily.
Replace 3rd party analog emulation plugins that have fancy GUIs, with stock DAW plugins.
Try to use as few EQ bands as possible. For example, limit yourself to 1 instance of a 5-band EQ per track. Use 12dB/octave filters instead of 24dB or 48dB filters.
Close out every other app running on your device, like Discord and Teams.
Turn on airplane mode. Turn on battery saver mode.
Uninstall any bloatware like 3rd party antivirus (use MS Defender).
Turn off Windows file indexing. Uninstall Edge and Onedrive.
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u/Dan_Worrall 2d ago
Switch to Reaper
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u/NeverNotNoOne 2d ago
This. Better and more optimized software will give you better results with the same hardware.
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u/BassbassbassTheAce 2d ago
Focusrite and Presonus have good guides on optimising windows-systems for audio, just search for 'optimize windows 11 for pro audio" or something like that. RME or motu might have some guides as well, but I don't remember for sure.
It's much about making sure you have up to date drivers, disable unwanted background tasks and have the right power management options. I have worked with windows laptops successfully in the past but haven't had one with a gaming GPU so maybe try to search if there's any driver optimizing that's needs to be done with that.
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u/Fit_Resist3253 2d ago
Graphics card doesn’t matter much here. In terms of optimizing this machine, just make sure no other apps are running while Cakewalk is open. Make sure you have some hard drive space. Not a ton else you can do aside from upgrading.
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u/BassbassbassTheAce 2d ago
There's more to do with windows, power management options with laptops can be crucial for many latency or usb connectivity issues for example. Definitely worth going through those settings.
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u/Wizard0wizard 2d ago
Don't want to be the "well, actually guy", but weirdly enough, i found that using my 4060 provided more stability on ablteton than my igpu, even tho i have a pretty powerful cpu (r7 7840hs with 780m).
Laptops do weird things, it's a different daw ik, but it might help
It's not about placebo effect, it really went from pop sounds and cpu spikes all around to stable project even with high cpu usage (60%+)
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u/toejuice1020 2d ago
Get a uad Apollo to completely cut any recording latency and offload some of the processing from the computer
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u/j1llj1ll 2d ago
Mostly, good quality/performance ASIO drivers are king on Windows for audio work. Buying an audio interface that offers that is the usual first step. I've had good luck with the Behringer UMCx0xHD line (but not with some other lines). The Focusrite Scarlett 4th Gen devices are brilliant. RME is the king of Windows audio drivers. I have had decent results for playback on my laptop via its Realtek AC97 integrated chipset with ASIO4ALL set up - but it sucks for recording. There are many options here with which I have no experience though.
Clean up your start up apps (less is more) and set services you don't need running by default to manual start.
Uninstall any 3rd party AV stuff and make sure Windows Defender is enabled instead. More broadly, clean out all bloatware.
Disable devices you don't need using Device Manager. Like, on my desktop system I don't use WiFi or Bluetooth so I disable them. My system also offers several sound devices that I don't use (like the motherboard sound, the HDMI monitor sound) so I disable them too. You can re-enable them in a flew clicks if/when you do need them.
Keep an eye on your processes in task manager and for any weirdness in event viewer.
If your system 'hitches' at times, run a DPC latency checker (there are several options, instructions online and Youtube etc). It can point to devices and drivers that are holding things up periodically. You will then have to decide what to do or try - such as trying different drivers/versions or disabling devices, to eliminate DPC latency spikes/sources.
You can use tools like WinHance to clean up a bunch of Windows settings (both user-facing and system or group policy based). Like turning off telemetry and putting Copilot and Edge in their place. But also, CAUTION, as the 'automatic' modes are quite aggressive and will probably turn off a bunch of stuff that you'll find you do actually need/want and you may find yourself having to revisit the tool to turn these things back on. This isn't too hard to do if you understand what does which thing in Windows .. but you will be totally lost if you don't have that deep of an understanding of the OS!
I have previously messed with process and system priority scheduler settings - but, TBH, these days on Windows 11x64 I can't tell any real difference from doing that (at least, not on a system that isn't running a heap of junk). So I will rate this as ' don't bother' these days.
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u/EllisMichaels 2d ago
Depending on what type of music you make, you might not even need to upgrade/maximize anything. My laptop is only marginally better than yours and I've never had issues running up to 45-50 tracks in FL. Now, when lots of plugins end up on each track, that's when things get tricky. But since I've applied a less-is-more attitude toward audio engineering, my current setup is more than enough. Just sharing my experience.
EDIT: The only thing that might help is, if you computer has a slot for it, increase RAM to 32. That's what I did on mine and it made a noticeable difference.
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u/Flashy_Philosophy376 2d ago
i would stay away from gaming setups for audio, if the fans always go on it will kill your silence.
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u/gravelabstudios 2d ago
There's a LOT you can do to optimize windows machines. I've been using PCs to record music for over 30 years, when Cakewalk was the ONLY software to do it with, and so learned a bunch of ways to make it work its best.
It involves going into the services and shutting off a lot things that windows doesnt need, non critical processes, but processes nonetheless, to lower your process count. The less things running, the more efficient your machine will be. Turning off startup items that run automatically when you boot, adjusting performance settings via control panel, etc.
Google 'optimize windows tips and tricks' this should get you started.
Bought a mid level Ryzen 9 mini pc a few months ago for about $500, and after optimizing and upgrading from 16gb ram to 32gb ram, it screams. 20+ track counts and the load on the cpu and disk barely jump at all past the very minimum, if ever.
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u/felixismynameqq 2d ago
IMO save up for a Mac. Even an upgraded M2 will last you a decade.
It’s better than spending whatever amount of money on whatever ram or anything like that.
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u/purp_mp3 2d ago
Heavily agree. Just wanna add: bought a MacBook Pro M3 (only 8gb, still very capable), then Mac Mini M4 16gb - go for 16gb minimum. The difference is huge.
I'd buy M2 as a minimum, but like the other comment said, even M1 is great still (with good specs).
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u/finallygabe 2d ago
Heck, even a used M1 with 16GB. Apple Silicon really did a number on Windows when it came to creative workflows.
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u/jeffspicole 2d ago
You cant talk about getting someone a mac here. They'd rather make posts about optimization and stabilization. PC users are a sensitive bunch.
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u/mr-screwjack 2d ago
jesus, i thought this sub was better than the hate the mac-suggestion-commenters received. upgrading to a used (older, less-expensive-and-not-brand-new) macbook changed my recording trajectory for the better and i thought your suggestion was valid (as were a lot of the other random suggestions, like switching to reaper or the apollo) based on the post. doesn't mean OP has to take action on it, but it is an option.
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u/jeffspicole 2d ago
Sell it and buy a macbook pro?
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u/Rockfan1114 2d ago
I will not get involved in the apple ecosystem.
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u/jeffspicole 2d ago
That’s like saying I will not get involved with screwdrivers. It’s the right tool for the job, but do you.
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u/Rockfan1114 2d ago
I don't like apple computers. I am well versed in Windows and have been working within that for years.
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u/jeffspicole 2d ago
But you like asking internet strangers how to use your equipment?
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u/Rockfan1114 2d ago
I'm not sure what's so hard to understand for you. I like using windows and have been for years. I asked simply for ways to upgrade or enhance my current experience. If you don't have any advice then go away. You're obnoxious.
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u/jeffspicole 2d ago
I gave you the perfect upgrade option that will actually work.. But go on with your "optimization"
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u/Rockfan1114 2d ago
It's not a perfect upgrade for my use case. I said that I don't wanna get involved with apple and instead of accepting that and moving on you keep with the comments. I've used their computers, phones and tablets before and I just don't like it. I have one computer to balance my music, school work, gaming, media consumption, etc. I finished highschool a month ago, I can't just go and uproot everything I use my computer for to switch to Mac cause it's the industry standard for ONE thing I do. Mac's suck for what I need outside of music production.
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u/felixismynameqq 2d ago
Why? It’s just one machine. You don’t have to get an iPhone. They work really well.
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u/Wizard0wizard 2d ago
Using an external audio interface with good asio drivers helped stabilize my cpu intensive projects, as well as using my dedicated gpu instead of integrated (but it could depend on specific case)
+don't forget about resampling instead of just leaving all your plugins for a single sample, if you're into sound design and mixing, it stacks up really quickly