manning--

One of the things most people don't know much about is the Power Management setup.

Especially on laptops, it is usually set to allow the product to earn the Green Meanie award, rather than to allow the computer to work hard.

The recordist should investigate their laptop choice thoroughly as to how it handles Power Management of the CPU.

Some will throttle back the CPU speed when it thinks the computer "isn't busy" enough to warrant the full capability of the clock cycles.

Problem with that is easy enough to guess, when the DAW software demands CPU, there is this time lag while the CPU "throttes up" -- but by the time it gets to full speed, you've already experienced the dreaded Audio Dropout.

Turn. That. OFF.

Also, set the laptop -- and its screen and hard disk -- in the Windows Control Panel to be "Always On" when plugged into the mains AC, too.


--Mac