Tuning Your Pc - Tascam US-122 Owner's Manual

3 – Installation
nected MIDI ports. At the least you
should see two icons pertaining to
the US-122 specifically: the US-122
icon, and the US-122 MIDI port.

Tuning Your PC

A few words about computers and audio.
Much has been written about the best
ways to optimize your PC for handling
audio applications, and generally speak-
ing, it's a much deeper topic than we've
got space for in this manual. But here are
a few basic points to help you get the
best out of your audio programs:
Don't run extraneous applications.
While it's likely you'll sometimes use
your computer for applications other
than audio, it's strongly recommended
that you avoid running other applications
at the same time you're running audio
programs. Processing digital audio
requires considerable overhead from
your computer, so don't overtax the sys-
tem by running other applications (espe-
cially graphics or internet tools) that can
steal those resources.
Certain devices, such as network cards
and WinModems, can cause conflicts
with the native handling of USB. Should
you experience such conflicts, the
offending device can usually be tempo-
rarily disabled in the Device Manager.
Refer to your Windows manual for
detailed instructions on how to resolve
conflicts.
Assuming your computer has an IDE
hard disk (most do), enabling Direct
Memory Addressing (DMA) on will
14
— TASCAM US-122
Once OMS setup is successfully com-
pleted, you can proceed with setting up
the US-122 with your chosen applica-
tion. Please refer to the specific docu-
mentation for your application for more
details.
improve performance. Some programs
(such as Cubase VST) allow you to con-
figure the DMA as enabled on install. If
you've not already done this, here's how
to configure the DMA transfer mode: On
the Windows desktop, go to the Start
menu, Settings , Control Panel , System .
In the System Properties window, select
the Device Manager tab. Click on the
plus sign next to Disk Drives , and high-
light the IDE disk listing, then click on
the Properties button. Check the DMA
box under Options . (see the illustration
below).
In addition, a number of simple hard-
ware modifications and enhancements
can substantially improve your com-
puter's handling of audio, as well as your
track count and DSP capability:
Increase the amount of RAM in your
system. While most digital audio soft-
ware applications will function accord-
ing to the amount of RAM in their