Live is freezing up during my live sets!

Dave Robertson · Post by **Dave Robertson** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:25 am

I'm using ableton to perform live sets on a regular basis. Whilst at home everything seems to be fine. When I get to a club, I boot up, get going and all seems to be ok. Then at a some random point in my live set the music stops. I can still navigate around the screen but i can't play or stop clips! Also in the top right hand corner of the Live screen you have the light which shows when Live is recieving midi messages, this stays red at the time when live freezes! Has anyone got any ideas??

Dave

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Tue May 03, 2005 11:34 am

Dave, as far as I know, the "Midi In Receive" lights are only green or yellow. (unless there is a skin I haven't cracked on to!) If you have a red when frozen, that is probably the Disk Overload indicator. Thats the only red in that corner as far as I'm aware.

Does your Red light have a "D" in it? If so, then its your hard drive that is choking/freezing.

How many clips are you trying to play at the time of the freeze? Is your HD very full or fragmented?

Can you give us some specs of your system... computer, CPU, OS, hard disk, RAM, soundcard etc

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:07 pm

i think pitch black is right, the red light is probably the "disk overload" light, and a reason for that, is that when you play in clubs, the music is very loud and causes vibrations that make your hard disks skip.
there are 2 solutions for this problem: try to isolate your computer from bass vibrations as much as possible.
put clips in RAM.

the bad point is that you'll need to be in situation (ie performing in a club) to check any improvements....

Dave Robertson · Post by **Dave Robertson** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:14 pm

Hi guys,

The light doesn't have a D in it. I don't think its my hard drive, I seem to have plenty of free space and its not happeneing at home.

Toshiba Satellite Pentium 4/2.8
Windows XP
756 Mb DDR Ram
40 Gig Hard Drive

The thing I find strange is that I can still move around the program, it doesn't completely crash. Its just that the clips stop dead! I'm never playing more than 3 or 4 clips!

Dave Robertson · Post by **Dave Robertson** » Tue May 03, 2005 12:50 pm

I also thought it could be something to do with heat. It gets hot in some of these clubs! And my sound card is M-Audio 2496 Usb Audio Interface!

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Tue May 03, 2005 1:08 pm

I've had a lockup due to heat once, the tibook froze, I force powered it off intending to re-boot, but it wouldn't even power up until the next day...

If the problem is definately not happening at home, you'd have to suspect the club environment, all other things being equal.

I always raise the back of my lappy up on a couple of bits if foam, and if its really hot, fold the tibook keyboard open for more ventilation and use an external usb qwerty.

glaive · Post by **glaive** » Tue May 03, 2005 1:30 pm

There are also angled risers on the market that lift the laptop up so it gets more air underneath.

Dave Robertson · Post by **Dave Robertson** » Wed May 04, 2005 10:55 am

Right, i found out which light is going red, its the "Midi Track In Indicator". I know you said that they normally flash green & yellow but this one goes red at the point of freezing. Its definately not the Hard Drive! Also I was on Live for about an hour and a half last night and had no problems! Any Ideas!!??

Dave

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Wed May 04, 2005 11:03 am

What MIDI controller and interface are you using? Are you hammering it at the time of the freeze? If not, I would suspect an unstable driver for your MIDI interface.

(Now I expect you're going to say you're not using a MIDI interface at all!

That would be interesting.......)

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Wed May 04, 2005 11:21 am

maybe there is a feedback loop in your midi setting. do you use some virtual midi ports (eg midi yoke)?

but then i don't know why it would only reveal itself when you're performing live... to me, it really sounds like a heat/vibrations related issue...

Dave Robertson · Post by **Dave Robertson** » Wed May 04, 2005 11:50 am

Hi,

I'm using an Oxygen 8 Controller Keyboard (USB) /M-Audio 2496 USB Audio Interface/USB Mouse. Beacause I only have 2 USB ports on my Laptop I use a USB Hub with 4 inputs.I use the Oxygen 8 constantly through out my set.

If it was an unstsable driver why would it only happen in a club. Maybe some sort of cooling system would help.

http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/OM-UNK115.htm?x=19&y=22

I think I would go mad if I paid for something like this and it still happened. I could just give up music and become a fisherman!

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Thu May 05, 2005 12:56 am

Dave Robertson wrote: If it was an unstsable driver why would it only happen in a club.

Weeeellll, perhaps there could be the "performance" factor... going harder on the controllers in the heat of the moment.... But if you can torture-test your set at home in a simillar way and it doesn't crash, I would suspect heat is the problem.

However, USB is the worst interface to be using for audio, as it ties up a lot of the computer's CPU. If you are using mouse and Oxy 8 and audio interface AND a hub I would strongly suspect its a USB crap-out. The drivers could be fighting each other or just exceeding USB bandwidth.

Is it possible for you to borrow a friend's non-USB audio interface and do some torture-tests?

Dave Robertson · Post by **Dave Robertson** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:39 am

I could try using the oxygen 8 as midi through my m-audio 2496. Then I would only be running 2 usb ports on my laptop! Thanks for the help Pitch Black!!

Dave

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:50 am

Dave Robertson wrote:I could try using the oxygen 8 as midi through my m-audio 2496. Then I would only be running 2 usb ports on my laptop!

Good idea. Make sure you un-check the Oxygen8 in Live's MIDI Preference pane [ins and outs] to make sure its out of the system. If you wanted to get really brutal on it, you could also un-install the Oxygen8 driver at your computers OS level. (This may or may not be feasable for you, but be good to try it as lean and mean as possible).

HTH

paulcousse · Post by **paulcousse** » Sat May 07, 2005 8:34 pm

I've had the 'freezing' problem too. Is your 'computer keyboard' an 'active device' for MIDI input ? Try turning this off. It seemed to improve it a lot for me. As if there is interference. Also, try keeping the MIDI OVR switched 'off'. No guarantees !
paul