Live 7 crashing (mac mini, trigger i/o, oxygen 49, firebox)

[analogdrummer]

Hello

I've been having difficulty with Live 7 for some time now, and I wanted to ask the experts before I took more drastic measures...

Anyway, my setup consists of Live 7.0.16 running on a 2 GHz mac mini w/ 1 GB RAM (i know...humor me), an oxygen 49 keyboard, an alesis trigger i/o (which connects to three dauz and one pintech pad), and a presonus firebox. My current live setup has and ultra lite piano, electric, string ensemble (lightweight version), a multisampled organ-like pad, a number of drum racks with 3-4 custom samples each (different electric drum "kits"). The mac is used exclusively for running Live - nothing else.

The system uses midi effect racks (chain select) to switch on and off instruments per scene, which allows me to change drum kits and keyboard patches with a single enter stroke. Key: green is "on", red is "off".

http://f.imagehost.org/view/0045/IMG_2590

I like to avoid using a mouse, as they tend to scamper while I'm playing drums... Everything seems to work fine with the live set, until I get to one of the songs which uses just the piano (no electric drum patches). The piano sounds start acting like they are gated, cutting off early even as I hold down the sustain pedal. The system usually locks up after this, showing the beach ball until I hard restart. The process usually repeats after I reload the live set.

The strange thing is, I call the piano up in other scenes, and it works fine (with the occasional skip as I start playing - annoying but I can deal with it). I have tried repairing the permissions (which worked for a while), repairing the disk, removing the offending scent, and even reformatting the drive and reinstalling everything. Nothing seems to fix the random crashes (it always crashes the day before a show or during the show itself...and when it otherwise wants to). I took the mac to the local genius bar, and they said nothing was wrong with it.

Now, I know the initial response - get a Macbook Pro. I'm working on it... But while I save up the money, I'd like to make sure that there isn't something else going on. Has anyone else had problems with the ultra lite piano? How about running an oxygen keyboard and an alesis trigger i/o simultaneously? Is this just a RAM issue, a processor issue? Is this the wrong way to set up a live set for live performance? Could this be an issue of overheating?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Morgan

http://www.myspace.com/bewareofsafety