Back in the 90s, the requirements for running a Pro Tools system were quite 
strict. Not only were there specific hardware requirements without which you 
couldn't even launch Pro Tools but there were system and software tweaks that 
bordered on voodoo. Today, much of that nonsense is gone but there are still 
some specific requirements that need to be observed. Since Avid decided to open 
the third-party interface door, there is the added task of installing drivers 
but I guess that's a necessary evil. Also, the iLok presence precludes any 
dongle-free designs anybody might have.

On the system side of things, I must admit, I used to be watchful of potential 
conflicts under OS 9. One had to be fairly vigilant about certain settings. 
With OS X, a lot of that stuff went away. Sure, even during the installation of 
recent versions of Pro Tools, one was reminded about certain potential 
conflicts. Even so, one could say, "Yeah, yeah, whatever," and still get away 
with using Pro Tools without a hitch.

With Pro Tools 11, the standard installer package is a thing of the past. 
Consequently, that reminder of potential key command and system settings 
conflicts has gone by the wayside but they are nevertheless still lurking in 
the background. The Pro Tools documentation certainly points this out but some 
of you might want to visit this web page instead:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/troubleshooting/Optimize-10-8
Here you'll find step-by-step instructions when you follow the various links 
for optimizing the Mac OS. Currently, it's geared toward Mountain Lion so 
you'll have to improvise a bit. For example, rather than going to "Software 
Update" in the System Preferences, under Mavericks you'll find the automatic 
software update preference under the "App Store" pane instead.

Some of the stuff might affect you, some of it might not. For example, I've 
never found wiFi to be a problem with Pro Tools but some others swear that 
having it enabled causes all kinds of problems on their Pro Tools machines. 
You'll have to decide what's important and what's worth risking.

Here's a key conflict that I recently discovered that didn't affect me before 
but I just encountered the other day and, frankly, I doubt it's even mentioned 
in the key conflicts list in Avid's documentation because it's sort of esoteric 
but it hugely affects VoiceOver users in the Fades dialog:
When cycling between fade-in curves with the Control-left and right arrows, the 
Next and Previous Space shortcut is called up. I'm not sure when this key 
command was enabled by default but it's certainly a conflict for a VoiceOver 
user. Here's the solution:

1. Go to the Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard pane in System Preferences.
2. go to the category list and arrow down to Mission Control.
3. Move over to the table and arrow down to the "Move left a space" and "Move 
right a space" items and uncheck them. You'll notice that their shortcuts are 
Control-left arrow and Control-right arrow which are the shortcuts for cycling 
through preset fade-in curves in the fades dialog.

While I'm at it, for those who are partially sighted and use the Zoom feature 
in OS X, be aware that there's a conflict with one or two of the Zoom shortcuts 
that use the Command and Option modifiers and the Pro Tools shortcut for 
cycling between preset nudge values with Command-Option-plus or minus on the 
numeric keypad.

There are other system optimizations on that page that are kind of important 
like Spotlight indexing which should be disabled for audio drives. each 
category has it's own link and there are only a handful.

Happy tweaking!

Slau



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