Audio artifacts at 30% CPU load

[smisk]

Hi guys,

I'm just wondering if there is something wrong with the setup of my PC or the preferences of Live, because I experience audio artifacts with only a 30% CPU load, which I find kind of odd. I thought artifacts occured at much higher loads?

My CPU should be able too handle a Sylenth 1, three Dune's and two reverbs, I would guess? The CPU is a AMD Phenom II X6 1055.

Thank you all in advance

[chris vine]

check yr latency settings for yr soundcard?
anything else running on the PC at the same time using lots of memory?

[JuanSOLO]

I get strange behavior at 30% and up too. Always have. I see people in tutorials, or in person using live with a steady 50-70% and it drive me nuts. However most people are just launching audio clips and using FX. I find that using 3rd party synths can easily make Ableton unstable.

[necho]

Me too - on a Mac. If I'm using plugins, 30% = audio glitches. Its not down to inacuracy in Live's CPU meter either.

Always been the case since Live 8. Pisses me off.

PDC? Multicore support fail?

[JuanSOLO]

yeah I forgot to mention, I am using a Mac as well. It's a 2008 pre-unibody, but still, I would think Live could handle it.

I would love to test my set on a newer laptop and see if I get WAY better results.

[JuanSOLO]

For a while I was not using my synths as plug ins. I would use them as standalone and virtually route the midi to them. Live operates much better this way, but if I want to sidechain a synth I have to route the audio back to Live increasing latency, and creating all sorts of other sillyness, same goes if I want to use Live's FX on a synth or something.

[necho]

yeah I forgot to mention, I am using a Mac as well. It's a 2008 pre-unibody, but still, I would think Live could handle it.

I would love to test my set on a newer laptop and see if I get WAY better results.

Mine's an early 2010 unibody MBP. Same shit. Same with built in sound, Firebox and Duet.

Yeah - I ran my synths in Bidule for a while and routed them into Live via Soundflower.

And then I thought: FUCK THIS - for the the amount of money I've paid for this software, I should be able to use the fucking features it offers.

And then I got really pissed off and bought a Reaper license for the cost of a few beers.

But then finally, I realized that I really missed Live's workflow.

So I thought - "Well - it'll be ok. I'm sure Ableton will release Live 9 soon, and all this will be sorted"

But then, after a few years went by, I thought - NO REALLY - FUCK THIS.

And bought a harmonica.

[JuanSOLO]

Yeah I keep telling myself to just deal with it, and when I upgrade computers everything will be great.

Maybe I'll go get a JuiceHarp and we can start a band.

[necho]

I'm still here though. So I still have faith, I guess....

[ARDJ]

i push my 2009 unibody to 60-80% all the time, rarely have glitches. anything weird running the background?

[JuanSOLO]

i push my 2009 unibody to 60-80% all the time, rarely have glitches. anything weird running the background?

Are you using any 3rd Party Synths, FX?

@ sample buffer setting of 215 with an Audio 8 DJ
In my set I have a drumRack with 8 samplers
An instance of Kore (running one synth at a time)
Vectory
The Finger
Operator
And quite a few Ableton FX

my set idles at 20-25% and when playing bounces between 20-40%

When I go over 30% things start to get strange, sometimes glitchy, or with artifacts or added latency issues. My set will run for hours and I can mash it up all day long, HOWEVER if I replace Kore with Operator, Turn off the Finger, and Turn off Vectory, My set idles at 14%, plays at 14-23% and you can obviously see the GUI responding better, as well as sounding consistent.


As I stated previously, If I am running everything native Ableton and more or less doing DJ style stuff, launching clips and using FX, sure I can get away with 60-70% on the CPU. However that has never been the case when using NI plugs.

[memes_33]

same fucking problem here. if i turn my wireless off and other programs, it improves, but still not where it should be.

[ARDJ]

@JuanSOLO what happens if you put your buffer to 1k?

[JuanSOLO]

1k? My latency would be extreamly annoying?

Am I missing something about this question?

[smisk]

check yr latency settings for yr soundcard?
anything else running on the PC at the same time using lots of memory?

The latency is at around 26 ms. with 440 samples. I have a EMU 0202 USB 2.0-soundcard.

And I have no other processes running in the background taking up memory. Besides, I have 4 gb, and a SSD-drive, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm finding myself forced to bounce every track, then run effects, then bounce, then master, and then bounce - otherwise the glitching is just too much.

This is pretty frustrating. Perhaps a clean Windows install would help ...