Computer Audio Design OSX Audio Optimization Script

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Scott:

 

You may also want to consider having the script tune Hibernate mode off, since it creates a Sleepimage file equal to the size of system RAM. That takes up a lot of room for those of us who now boot from an SD card!

 

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

 

Thanks,

ALEX

actually had to redo my sd card after a major crash after i let my mac go to sleep on battery as myself fell asleep... First thing i typed in terminal once it was reconstructed was that line i forgot to reproduce from my standard boot...

[Le Concombre Masqué]

We are working on it and the hope is to have something out later this week. Thanks for all the feedback. I did not know about LaunchControl, great app!

 

Scott

thank you, I'm looking forward to using it. I used bits of your scripts (I'm down to 99 processes) as I could understand some lines (i.e., I use your gui optimisation but for the desktop since I like to monitor my login script (unmounts ssd, creates ram disks, opens A+ from 1...). BTW, applying your script retrieved the authorization to run mine. If I may ask for something personal : a y/n option to disable wifi. It's not just a matter of turning it back on manually : after running your script i lost access. BTW, I hear many things, endianness included, but I never heard an impact of turning off wifi on my MBPR nor the Time Capsule (and here I store my music, an option I highly recommend, so I rely on it...) Thanks

[Le Concombre Masqué]

I've been playing with it for about an hour, and after carefully unloading a bunch of daemons, noting in Activity Monitor the reduction in active processes and threads, I rebooted--only to discover that the unloads are not permanent!

 

That's too bad, because I thought it was going to be a good tool to pick and choose as many as possible of the CAD Script daemon unloads as I could get away with without breaking functionality, since LaunchControl does allow for instant unload/load.

 

I still may sit with the CAD list and LaunchControl, and when I find the offending commands (which disable access to my network drives and also keep me from opening files on my boot volume), I'll make note and then comment out or delete those lines from the script.

Unless someone else has some better ideas. I know there are some UNIX and OS X experts out there.

 

Maybe I should just be patient and wait for Scott at CAD to release a new version. I certainly have other things to play with (and work I should be doing!).

 

Ciao,

Alex

 

 

A+ triggers the spinning wheel a lot since I trimmed os x... I had an idea : uncheck all optimizations for A+ that has become redundant (i don't have iTunes on the sd card, spotlight has been termina(l)ted...). I got an awful dirty sound and then wondered if A+ hand checks or what have you some processes we are terminating and if it was all so good... SuperDad : have you checked with Damien P or encountered the same phenomena ? it might be specific but...

[Le Concombre Masqué]

thank you CAD ; i have reached all time lows without drawbacks : 96 processes (vs 85 but with drawbacks with the preceding iteration of your script) 390 threads and 99.82 cpu idling percent.

 

My slightly optimized ssd scores about 150 processes, trimming osx on a sd card + mojo audio optimizations led to a score of 110, my adaptation of your previous script brought the score to 99. Hence I can't say I hear a better SQ (actually I slightly preferred the tracks i listened to tonight this morning ; but it's well in my physiological state variations range). I kept some options for confort (i.e. monitor shutdown and mission control for i like to pad click and push the arrow in one corner to turn my screen all black) : some might report better scores.

 

For anyone who will go from 150+ processes to 96, this script should bring a substantial sq improvement ; thanks again

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Hi Scott:

 

 

BTW, I'm down to 80 processes and about 305 threads at idle. Sound better than ever!

 

Have a great weekend,

Alex

Obviously you killed processes that are not covered by this script. Any suggestion ?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

When I used this script the disk drive icons that used to appear on the right vertical bar on the screen disappeared.

 

How do I get these back?

 

Also I use a wireless trackpad and mouse. How do I stop the disabling of Bluetooth?

 

aS of the icons, run redo line for the desktop (near the bottom of the list)

 

I have an issue : I came to dislike very much what A+ does compared to RX3 when it comes to upsampling and EQing. When running on my trimmed os on a sd card, but with files going from and to ram disks, processing times are excruciatingly long. The RX3 would start using the processors by the 100%s but then slows down and it takes way too long.

 

Anyone, an idea of which process i should reinstate ?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Please at least try connecting your NAS with Ethernet cable instead of wifi. Give it a quick listen and let me know what you think.

 

Scott

my music files are on a Time Capsule too (latest model 5GHZ band). Never heard a consequence of switching it and the provider's box off nor of turning the wifi off on my mbpr ; should I ?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Ok, got it. And I believe you all. Things are never as simple as they seem

 

I am considering buying Audiophilleo+PurePower. I am currently evaluating it and my SQ improved dramatically. I am also curious to try the equivalent solution from iFi but will only be able to try the version without battery, which is an unfair comparison with Audiophilleo.

 

I was hoping this would avoid all the optimisations I see you guys doing. I guess it doesn't.

 

Anyway, I already bought an SSD drive which will replace my internal HDD. The music will move to a Synology NAS 413 connected to the MacMini with a proper ethernet cable. I would also like to compare this with an external Thunderbolt HDD but I don't own one so for now it will be either external USB 2.0 HDD (USB 2.0 only because I read that USB 3.0 is very noisy...).

 

And then I'll try the script everyone is talking about. Thanks for sharing it by the way!

 

Cheers,

Nuno

find out SuperDad's posts

[Le Concombre Masqué]

i can't recommend enough SuperDad's trick of booting from a SD card ; not only it's way better but you can apply the script to the os version on the sd card only...

[Le Concombre Masqué]

I followed Amarra's recommendation to get rid of spell check system wise and ended up redoing my sd card (Mavericks) ; happy it's not a one and main boot drive...

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Killing spell check sounds like a good idea, I'll look into that...

 

Scott

it seemed to work fine. But since I toggle between ssd boot and sd boot, I found myself incapable to schedule a restart from the sd in system preferences (message stated an impossibility to read or write issue). I could boot by the sake of the alt command though. So did I and went for a permissions repair. It listed zillions of input/output errors, language related. After half an hour of spinning wheel and frozen mbpr 15 I decided to rebuild a, pun intended, sound card

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Disk Utility Permissions Repair in Mavericks will list thousands of "ACL found but not expected" errors. Download and run this program to remove those anomalies. You need only do it once on each boot drive after installing the new OSX.

 

About | ACLr8

 

I used ACLR8 previous to applying the spell check suppression trick and my permissions were clean, no such things as thousands of "ACL found but not expected" errors ; like i wrote : zillions of input/output errors, language (english, french...) related. I strongly advise against this trick on Mavericks

[Le Concombre Masqué]

can't call it an A/B comparison (too much time in between) but it sounds excellent, subjectively better than the previous script. Might be very subjective for I can't see the rational : A+ (that I use to listen to DSD files) seems to benefit more than Amarra that I use for PCM, EQed offline in Alloy2, files.

 

Objectively, the level of idling is incredible : kudos !

 

I tried to install Logmein and could not, neither could i run the package nor the app imported from the ssd. I then found out that the reset script does not work (Maveriks)

 

BTW, could someone tell me what vnc remote iphone app i could use that works with script (it's probably better if i don't have to install a logmein type app on the MBP but rather activate sharing from system preferences, I guess...) ?? free or cheap preferably : all i want to do is skip or select tracks

[Le Concombre Masqué]

 

I tried to install Logmein and could not, neither could i run the package nor the app imported from the ssd. I then found out that the reset script does not work (Maveriks)

 

BTW, could someone tell me what vnc remote iphone app i could use that works with script (it's probably better if i don't have to install a logmein type app on the MBP but rather activate sharing from system preferences, I guess...) ?? free or cheap preferably : all i want to do is skip or select tracks

 

 

to install Logmein package i simply had to paste

 

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.PackageKit.InstallStatus.plist 2>/dev/null

 

in Terminal

 

Works great ; might be useful to have fun with a visitor

 

However, using Logmein defeats the whole idea of this optimization (look at my screen shot : 99.80 idling before Logmein !!): huge toll on the cpu, idling is several % less, globally...

 

you guys, Is it the same for your VNC remote solutions ? Then, i'd rather move my body to skip tracks...

[Le Concombre Masqué]

can't call it an A/B comparison (too much time in between) but it sounds excellent, subjectively better than the previous script. Might be very subjective for I can't see the rational : A+ (that I use to listen to DSD files) seems to benefit more than Amarra that I use for PCM, EQed offline in Alloy2, files.

 

 

think i know what happened : it became obvious that for the files i was playing trough A+ I had to toggle the Absolute Polarity switch ; I did it without a second thought and forgot it as the parameter causing the afore mentioned discrepancy.

 

btw : found out you can't set a general polarity inversion in A+ for dsd files. And as a guy who until recently converted dsd files to pcm for eqing, I have the strong suspicion that DoP fed files from A+ to TEAC 501 get polarity inverted in the process ; won't waste time investigating, and just mind AP on a record to record basis, but this might be a parameter to take into account when comparing dsd and pcm

[Le Concombre Masqué]

I shouldn't go so long without running Linux or FreeBSD, I forget my command line syntax.

 

Yes, with quotes around "ResetOSX v1.2.2.command" since there's a space in the filename (you should consider renaming the script ResetOSXv1.2.2.command to eliminate the space and the consequent need for user renaming or quotes), the reset script runs.

 

So what needs to be eliminated or commented out in the optimization script?

 

P.S. If you guys wanted to be extra specially nice, you could tell me if there's a way to get the optimization script to skip my "RAMdisk.app" script when eliminating items that run at login. My wife uses the laptop also, so I'm always re-running the reset and optimization scripts.

 

Hi Jud, why don't you just run the script as an app from the dock (since i understand you don't just put in back as a login item for you share with your wife) ?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Normal !

Here NO KEYBOARD, NO MOUSE, NO MONITOR !

Just screen sharing from other computer. My Mac mini is just for audio use !!!

Best wishes

Saving my system after I stupidly thought tipunch's trick would do for a MBPR has been quite an ordeal (well, since even Textedit would not open a file with repair lines, I had to call Word from my SSD so I could copy/paste repair lines in Terminal...)

 

You also loose authorizations to do this and that : it's plain bad even if you don't have external keyboard, mouse, monitor to deal with

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Oups…!

Excuse-me...

 

Authorizations:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locum.plist 2>/dev/null

Open files (for text edit) :

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.FileCoordination.plist 2>/dev/null

 

After that you can copy/paste repair lines in Terminal.

"le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" : I'll stick with CAD's script, thanks

[Le Concombre Masqué]

 

I am looking forward to testing 1.2.2 later this week as Le Concombre Masque's screen-shot of a record-setting low number of processes has me very excited!

 

Best,

Alex C.

;-)

[Le Concombre Masqué]

I don't want to be naughty but I feel like claiming that operating headless computers with remote agents that take a huge toll on the cpu is a nonsense when one is using CAD's script.... Here is a capture of my MBPR actually playing a big fat DSD file, not idling... and the wifi is even turned on...

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Le Concombre:

Are you using Mavericks? I am puzzled as to how you have managed to get down to just 61 processes (with A+ running). My Mavericks--with the latest script plus a few of my own tweaks, with Finder Quit, no apps running except Activity Monitor, and a local monitor connected--will only idle down to 72 processes. Please tell me your secrets! Also, can you post an image of just active processes? Mainly I just want to see how many processes your Kernel Task is running.

 

If you are playing that DSD file to a DSD DAC--via DoP or otherwise--and not transcoding to PCM, then that is no extra load for A+. But that Miles "In a Silent Way" album is one of my all time favorite late night pleasures (since I was a teen). I also enjoy "The Complete IaSW Sessions" box, but the new SACD and 24/176.4 are indeed wonderful.

 

With regards to screen sharing taking a big toll on the processor load: I do not find that to be the case, at least not with Apple's Screen Sharing (actually for some reason I use the Remote Management option instead of Screen Sharing, but it is really the same). I have compared, and on my machine, Screen Sharing adds only 2 active processes. I have also closed my eyes and closed the screen share session while music is playing and can hear no difference. And you know I can hear little things…

 

I am surprised you still use wi-fi in your system. Now there is a potential source of pollution…

 

All the best,

ALEX

Hello Alex,

 

Now I follow your good advice and have ccced my sd card but I have redone it thrice so I know the recipe : I start with a fresh brew of OSX Mavericks, then, back to my ssd, I delete all superfluous (obvious) programs (iTunes included) and then look for the heavy stuff with Diskwave and delete delete (speech etc), back to the SD I run Monolingual, Mavericks cache cleaner, CAD's script, maybe another repair permissions through ACLR8 by sheer paranoia. I boot from the sd card with the script I left somewhere in your thread that builds on Souptin's. It starts by unmounting every drive but the one bearing the os( might not suit your system). A+ is set at max priority and I was playing a rip from MFSL SACD sent via DoP to a TEAC 501.

 

Can't think of anything else...

 

If I was to enjoy the Remote Management option, what app should I have on my iPhone ?

 

As of the wifi, I switch it off at night out of "feng shuism", but, though I think I can hear little things too, I can't hear any negative side effect. I will get you a capture of active processes that should, incidentally, besides the kernel run tasks, show that the wifi totally idles on the MBPR when not solicited. As of the source, I use the latest Time Capsule (which holds my music files) that runs in the 5 GHZ band that is supposed to avoid intererences

 

all the best,

 

Le Concombre

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Le Concombre:

Thanks for the reply. Yes, we do almost exactly the same things. Maybe the OS X kernel for your MacBook Pro does not need as many processes to run…

 

 

 

Regards,

 

ALEX

Thank you Alex,

 

Well... I have not been able to reproduce the 61 record... Before I established it I listened Schubert's Death & the Maiden through Amarra 2.6 (which means i had to manually set the sound output to the DAC ; don't know if it matters but i try to be exhaustive...) then I quit Amarra and launched A+. btw I too set the monitor to sleep once I'm done).Quite stupidly, instead of simply enjoying the gorgeous sound (note that A+ was running for over 14 minutes), I felt the urge to click to wake the screen, launch Activity Monitor... et voilà !

 

Please not that the idling % is as good with 71 processes.

 

Was just lucky to capture a state your system probably reaches too ; unless it has to do with Amarra cutting certain processes that A+ does not call back. But I could not show it by a short experiment.

 

 

Regards,

 

Le Concombre

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Pocobear,

 

I was having trouble as well with the script disabling internet access and the iphone/ipad remote. What I found to work is commenting out (#) the following line in the list of launch daemons:

 

# sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.alf.agent.plist 2>/dev/null

 

Running the script I answer:

Yes to turning of wifi

Yes to disable system Launch Daemons

Yes to disable system Launch Agents

 

This has brought back internet access and remote.

 

Thank you, it saved my day. However it leaves with the feeling that OSX is running through a roundabout...

 

Everything was great till I got bored of making sure (activate/deactivate until...) my mbp connected in 5GHZ to my Time Capsule. I did the relevant trick and then outed all previous connections from my network preferences. Perfect. Till I found out I could not print for my provider's provided box did not appear any longer in the "Shared" section of the Finder (my non wifi printer is connected to that box and granted me wifi print). I then fiddled with network assistant, Mavericks Cache Cleaner... Not only did I never regained access to the provider's box when booting from the SSD but then I also lost access to the TC (holding all my music files) when booting from the SD card. I redid entirely the SD card and, for the first time, I met a problem with the script.

 

ckpiv's trick saved the day but the script is not to blame, probably something the Network Assistant and/or Mavericks Cache Cleaner did at such a low level that it affects both boots...

 

Anyone, a suggestion to restore my system ? (No..aargh, I don't want to....go that far as a clean install ; can probably live with what is...)

[Le Concombre Masqué]

The following command will turn everything back on subsequent to a reboot, and makes a backup of the current file:

 

sudo perl -pi.bak -e 's|true|false|g' /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist

 

 

Thank you. But is it an alternative to running the reset script or the miracle solution to get rid of any corruption that might have occurred in my network settings ? May I run it in my "work" boot (ssd, no special tweak for music) as well as on my sd card (trimmed os, script...)?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Neither. I may have misread your problem, but I thought that for some reason things were remaining turned off even after you run the reset script, and that you were considering a clean install of the OS. Before doing that, you could simply edit that file and turn everything on that is turned off to try to recover. I am not recommending it otherwise. But if you are messing with these settings, you should know that the master settings are stored in /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist. The script that is distributed really ought to work by first creating a backup of that file. Alternatively, if you have time machine, or made a backup of your original system, you could fish out the original. It would be a worthwhile alternative to try before reinstalling the OS.

 

 

Thank you, I can not find /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist but when running sudo defaults read /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist \| perl -p -e 's|{\n|{|g' | grep "Disabled = 1" | awk '{print $1}' it lists, to my surprise, a few things.

 

Among them, com.apple.AppleFileServer, though I have 2 existing plists. it's beyond my expertise but I feel that relaunching that service would restore access to my lost box, (so I don't feel too much OT, I think it would also allow to run the script without the internet + remote loss issue for me and others concerned)

 

Would you, could you please recommend a safe action?