DAW computer w/ internet connection?

[Rollo10AD]

Some will tell you NEVER CONNECT UP YOUR DAW COMPUTER TO THE INTERNET.

 

But it occurs to me those people assume too much, namely, that EVERYONE has high-speed, cable, whiz-bang, etc. that is ALWAYS on and running, and THAT's what you don't want connected to your DAW computer.

 

But what about us dinosaurs who use dial-up? Why should we have to worry?

 

What's wrong with dialing up for updates, downloads, etc., as needed, then disconnecting when finished? Assuming I will have anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall. I can then disable the security programs when getting back to DAW work, so the system won't be taxed by them.

 

What the hell's wrong with that?

[TimOBrien]

Never had a problem with it.

 

Use a firewall and anti-virus and don't browse the infested porn sites.

 

(There's a lot of "you must do this" information on DAWs that is old and outdated from the Win98 days....)

[UstadKhanAli]

You should be fine with what you've just described.

 

I keep my DAW computer disconnected from the internet (even though it's a Mac going on 6 years old; admittedly I largely do this for peace of mind). For updates, downloads, etc., I use my PC in the other room to download anything I need, and then "sneakernet" it over with a USB drive to the DAW computer. This way works fine. Your way will work also. I do web site stuff for several people and therefore have a second computer, so I figured I'd take advantage of it.

 

Some people get really dogmatic and tell you NEVER do this, NEVER do that, ALWAYS do this, ALWAYS do that, but more often than not, there's more than one way of doing something well.

[Phil O'Keefe]

My policy is that my DAW computers are kept completely offline at all times. If you have complete control of your PC, and there's no way anyone else can access it, then what you described should be fine... dial up, get your updates and logoff.

 

But I don't want to tempt fate. If I had a dialup for the studio PC's, then sooner or later, someone would try to use it to get online. I like the feeling of security in knowing that they can't. Besides, many of the things I have to D/L are just way too large for dialup. For example, one program I'm getting ready to review is requiring a 300 MB + D/L, and that would be nearly impossible to do on a dialup connection.

 

My recommended solution, IF it's practical for you, is to have seperate internet and DAW computers. I do the D/L on the internet machine, then virus scan it and stick it on a flash drive and "sneakernet" it over to the DAW, where I scan it again before installing it. It's really not that much extra work, and personally, I just feel safer this way. YMMV.

[alcohol]

I have my Mac connected to the internet all the time. I download plug-ings, and get authorizations and updates via the internet. Never had a problem. I've been doing that for ten years, until this year when I replaced the aging beige G3; after which I've had a G4 connected 24/7 to the internet since December. No problems.

[UstadKhanAli]

My work and those of my clients is really important to me, so my feeling is that keeping the DAW off-line is the absolute safest thing I can do. YMMV.

[alphajerk]

mine is connected as well... never had a problem [knock on wood]. as long as you are safe about your business, its rather safe. one problem is being networked to a machine that others use where virus can spread off it through the network.

 

i run my machines and dont have others networked to these machines.

[Matt Hepworth]

I have a USB wireless LAN device that I plug-in ONLY for authorizing (as that's the biggest PITA of all!) - then unplug immediately. Updates and such are downloaded from my home/office computer and dumped onto a thumb drive.

 

I also recommend the same to all clients DAW's I build for them.

[Rollo10AD]

Dudes, I will have no problem with internet then--this is my personal, project, basement studio computer, and NOBODY BUT ME will ever have access to it.

 

Unless internet hacker gnomes emerge in the dead of night from their homes in the hollow earth and invade my home through the dryer wall exhaust.

[blue2blue]

A probably bigger problem for those who don't run a machine dedicated to DAW use are poorly written consumer programs.

 

Recently a "trivial" slipstream online update for MusicMatch Jukebox, the player I have to use with my subscription service, re-set something I had had problems with in the distant, forgotten (until after it was solved, of course) past... some kind of "Deferrred CD Lookup"... a DVD had been sitting innocently in the drive for days... after the update, my audio skipped after the first song -- every time. First song would play fine. Then the next would start skipping and subsequent tunes would, too. Trying to turn off MMJB would then lock up the program, forcing me to remove the still-loaded software components by hand and after closing. Even then MMJB wouldn't load without rebooting. Finally, after a huge runaround, I got a pop up message asking me if I wanted to suppress "Deferred CD Lookup" and I slapped my forehead and suppressed it. I then rebooted, realized there was a DVD in the drive (which had apparently vexed the clueless MMJB to the point of complete nervous breakdown).

 

Now, I KNOW MMJB is, at this point, probably the buggiest piece of software I have ever repeatedly subjected myself to (next to some CorelDraw version I had in the early 90s on Windows 3.0, maybe)... and if I didn't love my subscription service (happily listening to a morning of Chieftans, even now) MMJB would be gone so fast there'd be a cloud of ones and zeroes still hanging in cyberspace where it had been.

 

 

Anyhow... I'd worry less about the net than buggy programs.

 

 

BTW, is it just ME, or is my "new love" Firefox 2 leaking memory, itself? After I've been browsing with it for a while and close it down, my available memory pool is often CONSIDERABLY smaller. I'm about this close to going back to IE... even though I've been using FF for well over a year and really liked most of the version 2 upgrade. Damn.

 

At least IE 7 has page zoom (not as good as text zoom, to my thinking) and it is a LOT faster than Firefox (with both browsers caching turned "off" -- even though FF doesn't actually EVER completely turn it off, the dummies.)

[skibob]

One advantage to having an offline DAW computer is not having to have any anti-virus or other programs doing who-knows-what in the background eating up system resources. You can get rid of a few more processes if you aren't using the internet.

 

If you can't afford a whole other computer one option is using some kind of dual boot setup. You set up one instance of your operating system for DAW only and another for your internet, gaming, porn, etc..... All you need is the operating system and someone who knows how to set it up.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

One advantage to having an offline DAW computer is not having to have any anti-virus or other programs doing who-knows-what in the background eating up system resources. You can get rid of a few more processes if you aren't using the internet.

 

 

That's exactly right. And less potentially buggy applications, such as browsers and Java stuff, and also, no cookies and other nonsense gumming up your computer. Less chance for funny little viruses and spyware and email programs and other nonsense. Less time diddling around with other anti-virus bloatware. I like a stripped down computer that only does DAW, and does it well. Again, this is what I prefer, and may not matter to you.

[doug osborne]

 

Never had a problem with it. Use a firewall and anti-virus and don't browse the infested porn sites. (There's a lot of "you must do this" information on DAWs that is old and outdated from the Win98 days....)

 

 

This is the correct answer.

 

If you aren't running your modem, network card, or anti-virus at the same time as you are DAW-ing, there will be no CPU hit. Old news.

[alphajerk]

yeah anti-virus software SUCKS cpu/mem bigtime. antoher mem whore is quickbooks with qbupdate runnign 14MB in the background at all times. so do your accounting on another machine or boot.

[Rollo10AD]

skibob and alphajerk:

 

Magic Command: DISABLE

[alphajerk]

disable? dual boot would be better... or dual computers. course a fast computer with lots of fast RAM it doesnt seem to matter in the end anyway. i have been loading a computer down for a few here with all kinds of stuff on it and its holding up well.

 

where are you talking about disabling? you can exit/quit/whatever, but until you end process in your task manager, lots of things are still active. msconfig is the only place im aware of killing the boot load for apps, but then when you want to use the app... it sometimes wont work.

[skibob]

 

skibob and alphajerk: Magic Command: DISABLE

 

 

 

I would rather dual boot than enable/disable everything everytime I want to switch applications. And like Alphajerk says, sometimes it's hard to completely shut down an application. It's easier to just not install it in the first place.

 

I'm not saying you shouldn't use your DAW computer online, I've done it for years, but I recently set up my system to dual boot and everything just seems much more responsive using a stripped down OS for my DAW. For the price of a hard drive and the time to do it it was well worth it. I think I'm going to start wiping my hard drive and starting over once a year just to get rid of all the junk that builds up.

[alphajerk]

best thing is simply imaging your drive with acronis and keeping it on a server and reloading it every once in a while. especially if you install/uninstall software on the machine.

[seclusion]

What seems to have worked great for me is, Using my Mac as my internet/download machine. I do use the G4 as a Daw, but mainly for recording my final stereo track. The Mac has minimal Plugs running in Logic Pro, which I love.

So then I just have a shared folder on the PC that I connect to whenever I have something to share. Install it delete it on the Pc done. The only website I've gone to is MS on the PC...

I have adaware personal and goto trendmicro's online scan and haven't had anything since I've done this in 2 years... That way I don't have virus protection running on my Daw... The other thing mainly is that I don't have anything that "matters" to anyone on the Daw. Sonar, Plugs, Samples, midi data and Audio data. So if anyone had outside control of my system they'd be pretty bored with my stuff... They can probably get anything I have a lot easier off the p2p networks...

Later

[Rollo10AD]

I thought that if you click, "disable," "quit," "exit," what-have-you, and the icon disappears from the task bar, that means it's not running any more.

 

Not so?

 

Then how about CONTROL+ALT+DELETE, dialog box, END TASK for each program?

[alphajerk]

you can end task... but it will pull other processes running with it that you might not end and still run, which can cause instability in the system by ending the other process you suspect if that makes sense. things like svchost.exe is one where multiple instances run for various applications DLLs output. it can also be a trojan or malicious use as well....

 

right now the biggest offenders of bloating mem/cpu are:

any-antivirus

outlook [because it brings up word as well]

quickbooks

quicktime is kind of {censored}ty and i dont like it, BUT things like altiverb use it so its kind of necessary unfortunately

sun java

 

there are other things, any IM thing... lose it bigtime. limewire is HORRIBLE and shouldnt be installed on ANY system PERIOD.

[Rollo10AD]

Well, the only thing on that list I will have on my dedicated DAW computer is AVG Free anti-virus. I will just click "quit" when I am ready to do DAW work and see if it's OK.

 

I will do likewise for my free firewall and free anti-spyware (when I decide which ones to install) and just see what happens--or, hopefully, what DOESN'T happen, heh heh.

 

Enough people have told me they've had no problem with that, so I feel pretty confident I won't either.

[UstadKhanAli]

At the outset, you've seemed quite certain that you can run your computer-based DAW on the internet and not suffer any ill effects, so I would encourage you to jump in and do it. We all do things to our comfort level, whatever that may be, and since this is yours and others are saying that it's quite possible, you should do it.

[Zooey]

Mine was disconnected for years, but I recently hooked it up via wireless to our cable internet connection.

 

No contest--I never want to go back to unconnected. It makes copy protection and downloading upgrades so much easier. I used to manage this stuff by downloading to a thumb drive and shuttling files back and forth and that works, but being able to do it all directly from the DAW is much nicer. Avoid kracks, avoid games, and you should be good to go.

 

edit: be aware that you will likely need to disable anti-virus and spyware software every time you record. It's just one more thing to manage. In windows, msconfig is the surest way to shut down all unnecessary processes.

[alphajerk]

anti spyware stuff just plain sucks period. i wouldnt install that on my machines if they PAID me to do it. if you know what you are looking for, you will know if spyware is on your machine or not... course where you go on the internet and what emails you open play the biggest part. i dont really go many places on the net...

 

dont bother with 3rd party firewalls. get a router with a firewall and use the windows firewall. thats typically enough unless someone is REALLY intent on getting in your system.

 

also, CHANGE your default IP addresses off 192.168.1.x, any other 192.168.x.x is better or 10.x.x.x. also make any OTHER computers you arent networking for music purposes a different network group. name your music system like [music] and your other computers [other]... examples, keep them on different network groups.

 

antivirus will also run other services besides just exiting the application for updates and so forth. dual boot is REALLY the best.

 

and above all, IMAGE YOUR DRIVE!!! there is nothing safer and more secure than having an up to date image of your OS drive at all critical updates. CLEAN install, IMAGE IT.... after software is added, IMAGE IT. keep those copies on a DVD, hard drive, or if you have a server [which is the easiest restore] keep them there. drives are CHEAP. downtime costs money. get a 500GB drive simply for OS drive images at various restore points.

 

the other thing to keep in mind if you do have internet connected and surf the net on the machine is to empty the temp files folder. install routines also gum up the temp folders as well, keep those in check. sometimes you have to manually delete those files... sometimes disk cleanup works fine. if you use email on the machine, your email data file will grow if you keep emails. keep that in check [especially if you image your drive, make sure to back that file up before you restore if you want to keep the emails... i have serials and logins in my emails for plugins and so forth, probably should print those but dont]. another nice thing to have a server for, or in the backup routine is your downloaded software to keep it organized and off the machine you use.

 

just a couple thoughts.