Very short audio drop outs at 3-4% CPU

[iwasborn]

Hi all

I'm a new Live user. I'm using it for very, very basic stuff for performing live - its playing a couple backup tracks and sending samples to a drum and keyboard controller. the CPU meter is at 3-4%.

I'm using a new Macbook Pro with a lot of hard drive space and not a lot of applications installed in general and an M-Audio Profire 610. We have the buffer down quite low, in the The first month or so, this worked perfectly. Sometimes Live wouldn't see the M-Audio interface and I'd have to "re-find" it in the preferences, which seemed a little odd, but not a major problem.

Recently, we've started experiencing very short (less than a second) audio drop outs at seemingly random times. I can't understand what is going on, though I'm guessing it's either a preferences thing or the M-Audio box is not playing nice. I did try restarting and rebooting the computer, Profire, and Live itself in various combinations, but the drop outs continued. I *am* using a firewire 400-to-800 adapter to get from my laptop (which is 800 only) to the Profire (which is 400 only). I suppose a dedicated chord that was 400 on one end and 800 on the other would be a better solution, and the adapter COULD be the source of the problem... but again, it was working fine until yesterday.

Anyone else have this kind of problem with M-Audio, or 400-to-800 adapters, or Live in general? I'm stumped.
I'm considering just returning the Profire and getting a MOTU UltraLite or maybe an Mbox 2 Pro (if I can find one!), though again, I can't be sure where this issue is coming from.

Thoughts?

I really appreciate your help!
Otherwise, Live has been pretty great so far.

[iwasborn]

A little more information, I am powering the Profire via the firewire port, and a single MIDI chord (from a drum pad) is running into the Profire. Otherwise, we're using one USB chord for the (also M-Audio) keys controller.

[anamexis]

Have you tried increasing your audio buffer?

[iwasborn]

yeah we tried changing it higher, than back lower, and it still had the random dropouts. i do want to keep the buffer fairly low for latency's sake, as we are triggering these drum and key samplers live. i don't anticipate that should be too much of a problem since Live is doing so little. It was doing the drop outs thing even when the backing track - a single, stereo 16 bit file - was playing by itself.


thanks!

[Pasha]

Have you tried with a 400-to-800 cable instead?

[iwasborn]

i haven't tried a 400-to-800 cable yet, as i don't have one though that is definitely on the list. have others experienced problems with the adapters?

[Undercover Soul]

I get the same drop outs. Totally random.

[Pasha]

Can we assume you are running Snow Leopard latest patch?