Drum Racks dropping MIDI notes all the time.. ???

[mholloway]

I recently purchased a brand new 2015 Mac Book Pro, the latest model with the highest possible spec-sheet, etc etc. 16 gig ram, all that. It's running the latest Yosemite.

So, since installing the latest version of Live on this new system, I'm repeatedly encountering a problem that I never experience with my old 2011 iMac: drum racks, when playing back MIDI clips, are occasionally dropping notes. That is, certain sounds in the midi pattern just won't play at random times. So the scene is looping, and a kick just drops out, then plays normally, then drops out again, etc.

The CPU meter shows no problems at all, no spikes, etc. The drum rack is loaded with a bunch of samples (30 to 40) but that has never caused a problem before, on far older computers.

It sounds like an audio dropout, but it's (so far) specific to the drum rack device only, so it's not really an audio dropout. I tried with two different audio sound cards just to be sure (a MOTU Ultralite and NI Komplete Audio 6) and the behavior is the same with both.

Obviously I will submit a support ticket tonight, but I was just wondering if this problem is known / has been experienced by anybody else here. Surely lots of people are running Live 9 on current MBPs.

thanks,
-Michael

[Stromkraft]

I recently purchased a brand new 2015 Mac Book Pro, the latest model with the highest possible spec-sheet, etc etc. 16 gig ram, all that. It's running the latest Yosemite.

So, since installing the latest version of Live on this new system, I'm repeatedly encountering a problem that I never experience with my old 2011 iMac: drum racks, when playing back MIDI clips, are occasionally dropping notes. That is, certain sounds in the midi pattern just won't play at random times. So the scene is looping, and a kick just drops out, then plays normally, then drops out again, etc.

The CPU meter shows no problems at all, no spikes, etc. The drum rack is loaded with a bunch of samples (30 to 40) but that has never caused a problem before, on far older computers.

It sounds like an audio dropout, but it's (so far) specific to the drum rack device only, so it's not really an audio dropout. I tried with two different audio sound cards just to be sure (a MOTU Ultralite and NI Komplete Audio 6) and the behavior is the same with both.

Obviously I will submit a support ticket tonight, but I was just wondering if this problem is known / has been experienced by anybody else here. Surely lots of people are running Live 9 on current MBPs.

Hello Michael. I've had this issue only in Live 9.1 and earlier, not in 9.2, where the first beat of a clip in a drum rack failed to play. In most cases it turned out to be me having set up clips with the grid snap to off which resulted in the clip start point being milliseconds after the the first beat, but there were also a period where frozen clips either failed to play the first beat or there was an additional click noise at the first beat.

While your problem sounds to involve not just the first beat, my experience might put you off in a fruitful direction. I think it's unlikely to be a hardware issue, but it's good if you can rule that out by trying affected projects on other machines and/or with other audio interfaces.

[mholloway]

Hello Michael. I've had this issue only in Live 9.1 and earlier, not in 9.2, where the first beat of a clip in a drum rack failed to play. In most cases it turned out to be me having set up clips with the grid snap to off which resulted in the clip start point being milliseconds after the the first beat, but there were also a period where frozen clips either failed to play the first beat or there was an additional click noise at the first beat.

While your problem sounds to involve not just the first beat, my experience might put you off in a fruitful direction. I think it's unlikely to be a hardware issue, but it's good if you can rule that out by trying affected projects on other machines and/or with other audio interfaces.

Thanks for the reply and info. Sadly, my problem is bigger than this. It's not just the first note that is cutting out, it's random and can happen to any note in the clip for the drum rack. What's especially weird is that I noticed today that it's always the kick drum sample, which I tested with two completely different drum racks! No idea what is going on there. In both cases, only the drum pad containing the kick sample would randomly cut out. The other pads played fined. Super weird!

It's also happening with 9.2, I'm using the current version.

[Stromkraft]

What's especially weird is that I noticed today that it's always the kick drum sample, which I tested with two completely different drum racks! No idea what is going on there. In both cases, only the drum pad containing the kick sample would randomly cut out. The other pads played fined. Super weird!

It's also happening with 9.2, I'm using the current version.

Well, that's indeed weird. I assume you have ruled out polarity or phase cancellations that sometimes can arise from advanced routing with filters and what not? I have at least weakened my kick by layering a few times in the buildup phase where I hadn't gotten around to EQing it yet.

[kikass]

Hi

this problem is real, you need to try a quick finger drumming of 1/16 notes in 120 BPM.
Ableton drum rack is skipping notes while playback is running!
I tested it with a simple project with basic dram rack settings, no choke groups no FX.
The problem is not related to CPU or buffer size

It's a very big problem for professional finger drumming.
Let me know f you need to make further testing.