Hard Drive or SSD

[jestermgee]

Could be your RAM having a very slow bus speed, do you know the specs/brand of the ram? Dell isn't a brand that makes high end anything really, i'd put them in the bucket of office computers, so corners can be cut in areas of memory, power supply, video card to save some build cost.

Also worth checking your BIOS to see if there is any CPU power settings that could be throttling the CPU.

At this stage it's going to be hard to pin down as it could be a combination of the components together don't gell well.

You have a Scarlett interface, are you using ASIO drivers with it?

[Lar-ZZ]

RESOLVED: I loaded my favorite 6 track song that has a VST on almost every track, and lots of effects.
I started deleting tracks, External instrument, Sequenced bass, etc. I got down to only 2 tracks, the keyboard track and drums, and it was still dropping a beat.

That' when I realized, it's not the complexity of the song, it's not the speed of the computer, something is wrong with the Ableton software. Uninstall and a new install, NO SKIPS YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A fresh install solved everything.

Thanks to everyone for all of the great ideas. I did learn a lot from this experience, (Real Time Performance vs CPU) and found some great new evaluation tools; Focusrite Optimazations, PassMark Benchmark, DPC latency check.

Thanks for sharing. The music community is a brotherhood. When you make music, you are rewarded with the sounds that you create, and the people that appreciate them.

CASE CLOSED

[McAnix]

If the issue comes up a again try reseting LIve. I have had similar issues and a reset usually sorts it out. https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... reset-Live

Glad you fixed it.

[LarZ2]

UPDATE: The software uninstall/install seemed to fix the problem, for a short time, ----- then it came back. Oh NOOOOO !!!
When I bypass the audio interface by sending the signal to the sound card and different speakers, everything works, no skips.

Either the 1st gen Scarlett cannot keep up with this new computer, or it just died.
The old Scarlett 2i2 1st gen has seen better days. I did notice recently that it has a lot of noise and rumble.

I bought a Komplete Audio 6 and have not had one skip since.
The new interface is much quieter also.

After three days of troubleshooting,
I'm ready to make some noise !!
LarZZ

[miyaru]

Glad that it is resolved!!! Have fun making music, 'cause that's where it is all about!!!!

[LarZ2]

Glad that it is resolved!!! Have fun making music, 'cause that's where it is all about!!!!

Yes, Finally it works. I'm glad because as I was spending too much time trying to fix this problem, and all of the time thinking that maybe I cannot use External Instrument with effects,
or Flow Motion synth VST, or maybe too much Delay on all tracks etc. One by one I was thinking about what I was going to have to give up to make this work.

Now, with the new interface, all of my VSTs work, all effects, all at the same time. That what is fun, finding the right synth sound, and the right effects to get the sound you want.
Cheers.