MAJOR issue with audio artifacts in Live 8.1.3 and 8.1.4b

[newstylesound]

Setup:

Newest MBP, 2.66 mhz i7 processor, 10.6.3, 4 gb ram, Metric Halo 2882 interface, external (known good) firewire drive for audio

In some sets, I am having lots of issues with clicking/crunching artifacts, always at the end of a 2-4-bar phrase. The CPU meter shoots upward 10-20%, clickety-click, and then it's back to normal. Any audio that is present has been properly edited/faded, and the crunch is intermittent. Also, I will sometimes get those sounds when simply clicking the mouse, or starting a clip (that does not contain any bad zero crossings/clicks).

The problem seems to go away if I freeze all of the tracks, but it's not localized to any one plug-in or track. Sometimes freezing just one track will alleviate the problem for a bit, but it always comes back. I'm not seeing any Dropout warnings, and the CPU never goes higher than 35%. Many of my sets use complex routing and thus cannot be easily frozen, and every session climbing from a few hundred megs to multi-gigs due to freeze files is a pain.

I'm mainly mixing outside the box these days, so whereas normally I could just do a non-realtime bounce when finished and forget about this, now I NEED totally pristine playback for 5-8 minutes so I can record my mix in real time. This seems impossible, with many sessions.

As an aside, there seem to be large discrepancies between the Live CPU meter and Activity Monitor's take. When Live is showing 22-35% cpu usage, Activity Monitor shows Live taking up 95-100% of one CPU core.

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I have tried playing sets from the internal drive and another firewire drive, have tried swapping firewire cables, using the internal sound outputs, goosing the buffer, everything. Click-crunch city.

Any ideas?

Thanks much,
-George in San Francisco

[newstylesound]

Hmm, no ideas, folks? This is really making things tough.

[cids]

Try deselecting the RAM option for audio clips... helps in my case...

[Torley]

I get issues similar to what you mentioned when I use the Complex Pro warping mode — at the starts and ends of clips, it makes clicks and unpleasant scrunchy noises. Are you using that?

If so, I've seen the Complex Pro problem reported in these parts before (like http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 74&start=0 ) . While I like how Complex Pro treats some material, I find myself frequently freezing (and flattening) as a workaround.

[jok]

Hi George,

is the problem reproducible on your system with a small set, containing 1-2 clips only? If so, it would be very helpful if you could send a self-contained copy (incl. audio) to support@ableton.com , so we could look into the problem.

Best,
Jörg

[ianbross]

I am also having major artifact problems in Ableton 8.2.1. Both with the built-in sound card and my apogee duet. I also have a 2.66 i7 17 inch.

I am trying to record audio from one track onto another. I can't freeze because I have a side-chain compressor. When I hit record on an audio track with the original track routed to it I get lots of artifacts. Especially when I move the buffer to 1024 or higher.

Fact is I'm getting artifacts in all kinds of scenarios of which this is just one. Anytime I have a serious session going I know I can't expect to record vocals and not get strange artifacts like clicks and pops. I don't remember this being the case on my mac pro tower and i don't understand why it's happening to me now.

[ianbross]

I have audio artifacts problems when I record audio and I have all of the above a CPU meter higher than 20% and I have a couple VST plugins loaded, and I have a buffer setting of 128, although this problem can occur at 256 also. I have a core i7 macbook pro and 8.2.2 and a duet.

It's so maddening worrying if my recordings are going to have audio artifacts. weird digital clicking noises. They are very sporadic and it seems to be obviously do to something not being able to keep up.

If anyone knows how i can get rid of this please tell me! would a RME fireface UC USB interface help? or the new duet 2?