Teac US-122 - Manual (Page 15)

3 – Installation
TASCAM US-122 —
15
minimum system requirements, increas-
ing your computer's RAM as much as
possible will markedly improve perfor-
mance.
Consider the addition of a dedicated hard
disk for audio; preferably one with a
high spindle rate (over 7200 rpm and a
seek time of 8.5ms or less is recom-
mended for most audio applications).
Using different drives for program and
audio data speeds up the seek time for
the audio track data. Note that simply
partitioning a large drive will not have
the same effect, as the computer will still
be accessing the same physical drive.
Consult your DAW application’s docu-
mentation for full details of recom-
mended drive configurations, etc.
If you’re presently using a PCI-based
graphics card, and your motherboard has
an AGP slot, consider getting an AGP-
based graphics card. This will decrease
traffic on the PCI bus and allow for faster
screen redraws.
Special Note: For even more detail on
optimizing your PC for audio, please
refer to the Computer Recording Support
areas on the TASCAM Web site for PC
Optimization documents.
Notes on USB interfacing
The USB protocol is an extremely versa-
tile one, and much has been made of the
possibility of using multiple (over 100)
devices on a single bus. While this is cer-
tainly a possibility, we recommend using
as few other USB devices as possible in
a system equipped with the US-122. The
demands placed on the USB bus by pass-
ing multiple tracks of audio through it
are considerable, and adding additional
devices will risk reducing that band-
width.
NOTE
The drivers of many other USB devices,
especially CD burners, scanners, printers,
and cameras, are written to poll the USB
bus on a regular basis (usually once every
millisecond). This can lead to dropouts,
clicks, pops and other artifacts in your
audio. We strongly suggest unplugging any
non-essential USB devices while recording
with the US-122. USB keyboards and mice
are the notable exceptions—in most cases
they are passive devices with very minor
bandwidth requirements.
Another well-documented advantage of
USB is the ability to “hot-plug” devices
(that is, plug them in and out without
powering the computer down). While
this applies to the US-122 as well, we
recommend against plugging or unplug-
ging the unit while running your audio
application. Doing so can result in audi-
ble pops, or even hanging or crashing the
program.
You’ll find a listing of web links and
resources on hard disk recording on our
Web site at www.tascam.com.