Home Recording: Time For A Clean Install? Options

[Todd Simpson]

Using something like NORTON GHOST or CARBON COPY CLONER makes it a snap No longer do you have to waste hours and hours on installs.

1.) Make a clean install of your fav software.
2.) Using Ghost or Carbon to make a "Clone" of the drive to an external hard drive.

When you notice your rig is feeling pokey, just pull out your external and reclone your internal drive. Bingo Done.


CLOUD STORAGE SAVES LIVES:

And souls.

1.)Go to www.dropbox.com and get free cloud storage.
2.)Keep all small project files/serial numbers/ in drop box.

Try to avoid keeping any project files/audio in your laptop/desktop internal drive. It's begging for problems. Keep all project files on dropbox.com as a backup. It keeps a local copy on your system so you don't have to connected to the web, but the local copy is just a backup.

Use an external drive to store al your work/audio etc. and a backup drive to back it up. I realize this means spending some money. It will be the best money you ever spent on anything in your entire life IMHO. Losing your hard drive with all your recordings/songs/ is like being shot. It's horrible.

Most folks don't back up anything at which point you sorta have nobody to blame. Being a musician these days involves being a tech support guy. Just no way around it.

I hate doing fresh installs of OS - its just so time consuming and everything, BUT it is so worth it!
Computer can feel like a new one when you reboot everything.

I like the emerging idea of "cloud" storage, its a hustle to keep up with all your files locally and then backup and everything. Having important stuff up in a cloud and accessible from any device is so useful.

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[Saoirse O'Shea]

Using an EXTERNAL hard drive to keep all your project files, recordings and such is CRUCIAL. Pro's do NOT typically like to keep their project files/etc on the root drive. It's just a bad idea in general. If you have no choice, then it is what it is, but if at all possible. DON"T KEEP PROJECT FILES/RECORDINGS on your root/boot/primary hard drive guys!!!!!

Just keep your software on your main drive. Your main drive should be 20% EMPTY at all times. Otherwise it creates other performance issues. I can't tell you how many laptops I've seen maxed to the edge with zero space left and then the poor guy wondering why it crashes all the time.

But beyond performance, the main reason is data integrity. Basically, if you primary drive goes down, your sunk. Here is how a typical semi-pro/pro computer recording setup should be hopefully configured.

DESKTOP/LAPTOP INTERNAL DRIVE
*Software Applications
*Operating System
*Plenty of FREE space

EXTERNAL DRIVE #1
*Project Files
*Recording Files

EXTERNAL DRIVE #2
*Automated Backup of Drive #1
...

Very similar to what we do Todd. We only have the OS, DAW, Melodyne the drivers for hardware and a few vsts on our main mastering pc. All of those, along with passwords etc are on the internal drives and backed up onto a Ghost external. The primary drive is a small 60 gig drive only for the OS. The OS is stripped down to get rid of all the non-essential stuff that MS like to include in an OS. The second drive is a larger 500 gig drive for software and is currently partioned 150/350. We can change the partition at any point with partition allocation software.

We use an external 1 terabyte HD for all music files. The DAW is set to back up audio, edls and so on every 5 minutes to this drive. We also back up each night to a separate scsi mirror raid. At the end of a project we make a final backup of the complete project to the externals and burn a copy of the final project to CD and a high volume USB data stick. We print out and file hardcopies of recall sheets, project notes, PQ, BLER, etc. Completed projects stay 'live' on the external for 1 year and then are archived to ghost files on the raid and to a CD. The CDs go to my home whilst the other copies stay in situ.

We don't have internet on the mastering pc at all. We do have a virus guard on it but it is set up to run only when we attached an external drive. We use a separate office pc for internet and admin. It has virus guards and we check all the files we're sent on there first before any transfer to the main pc. We have had producers send us infected files a few times but so far we've always caught them.

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[Todd Simpson]

BINGO!!!! This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Thank you Toni for giving some insight in to the Pro World here. This kind of setup is what I hope everyone will try to work toward as it will save you headaches that will make you want to pull your hair out. I helped set up my buddy Matt @ indieatl.com with his data/work flow and it's really smoothed things out in his production.

I do get that most folks are using a standard laptop in a bedroom and just hoping for the best and perhaps dont' have any external drives or any extra cash to buy them. I actually sold a guitar to get my first set of external drives which hurt but ended up saving my neck later.

So honestly guys, take your DATA (projects/files) seriously and make a plan and put it in to practice. Your home studio, no matter how modest, is "YOUR STUDIO". Run it like a pro and good things will happen.

Todd

Very similar to what we do Todd. We only have the OS, DAW, Melodyne the drivers for hardware and a few vsts on our main mastering pc. All of those, along with passwords etc are on the internal drives and backed up onto a Ghost external. The primary drive is a small 60 gig drive only for the OS. The OS is stripped down to get rid of all the non-essential stuff that MS like to include in an OS. The second drive is a larger 500 gig drive for software and is currently partioned 150/350. We can change the partition at any point with partition allocation software.

We use an external 1 terabyte HD for all music files. The DAW is set to back up audio, edls and so on every 5 minutes to this drive. We also back up each night to a separate scsi mirror raid. At the end of a project we make a final backup of the complete project to the externals and burn a copy of the final project to CD and a high volume USB data stick. We print out and file hardcopies of recall sheets, project notes, PQ, BLER, etc. Completed projects stay 'live' on the external for 1 year and then are archived to ghost files on the raid and to a CD. The CDs go to my home whilst the other copies stay in situ.

We don't have internet on the mastering pc at all. We do have a virus guard on it but it is set up to run only when we attached an external drive. We use a separate office pc for internet and admin. It has virus guards and we check all the files we're sent on there first before any transfer to the main pc. We have had producers send us infected files a few times but so far we've always caught them.

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

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