Ableton Forum

Does it really make a difference? Performance wise, is there something that audio interface does better than the built in one? Does Firewire, USB 3.0, thunderboldt effect anything? I'm not really recording more producing using synths and plugins.

I get dropouts 4-5 instruments deep and have to constantly freeze everything and wondering if this would make a difference.

I suppose you are on windows, have you tried using the Asio4all driver?

A good driver can give better stability to a system and make proper use of the resources, specially at low latencies but overall performance depends a lot in the CPU.

Thanks, I'm on OSX

Hi imagineowl,

What buffer size (latency) are you running?

What instruments/plugins are you using that causes your system to falter with 5 tracks?

With a MBP Retina + SSD + 8GB you should be getting MUCH MUCH better performance, regardless of the audio hardware.

Something's seriously not right here. More info please...

Yes, it can. I don't know the solid details of it, but for my OSX experience it seems like when the sound (soundcard) processing is done externally, it can take a load off the general cpu.

Results are lower latency and lower (no) dropouts with my fireface UCX, firewire or usb connected. OSX 10.5.8 or osx 10.9.5

Steve Glen wrote:Yes, it can. I don't know the solid details of it, but for my OSX experience it seems like when the sound (soundcard) processing is done externally, it can take a load off the general cpu.

Results are lower latency and lower (no) dropouts with my fireface UCX, firewire or usb connected. OSX 10.5.8 or osx 10.9.5

Just to be clear: No processing is done in the audio interface.

The difference is that the audio application will use the interface drivers wich are better designed for working with audio and make better use of resources.

The only things that are done in the interface is the AD/DA conversion.

Pitch Black wrote:Hi imagineowl,

What buffer size (latency) are you running?

What instruments/plugins are you using that causes your system to falter with 5 tracks?

With a MBP Retina + SSD + 8GB you should be getting MUCH MUCH better performance, regardless of the audio hardware.

Something's seriously not right here. More info please...

I'm at 512 buffer and usually use a mixture of Massive, Omnisphere(big CPU hog), Sylenth. I use FabFilter eq pretty much on every track along with a couple others.

I wonder if switching to the 64-bit version of live may improve some of these dropouts.

Disable spotlight, turn off wifi, disable FileVault protection (if enabled), disable all energy saving settings (computer sleep & hdd sleep).

AFAIK 64 bit is all about ram, not cpu. But since you have 8Gig ram, i think you should use 64 bit. At the moment you can only use 4 Gig with live.

Just to be clear: No processing is done in the audio interface.

The difference is that the audio application will use the interface drivers wich are better designed for working with audio and make better use of resources.

The only things that are done in the interface is the AD/DA conversion.

Good to know

Hi there

Just to make a worthy mention

In Lives preferences,you can use the built in tone,to set the correct buffer size,but adjusting the slider

Also grab the free Latencey checker,(non commercial use,of course)
that will look at your system for any high latency that could cause glitches etc

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

I had problems like this,but I had to adjust the power management settings on my PC.

Hope that helped