Cracks and pops in Live

[Mattofix]

Specifications:

Mac Book Pro
OS X 10.6.5
2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
4 GB Memory
Live 8.1.4 (The problem was also present on 8.1)
Audio Interface: Edirol FA-66

The problem:

When I use Live with my FA-66 interface I encounter cracks and pops, it sometimes does this whilst recording, and whenever the CPU is running at >40% it distorts the output. It does record the cracks and pops, they dont seem to show up on the audio wave, but they are in exactly the same places on the recordings during playback.

If I record at a sample rate of 44.1 and have the buffer size set relatively low (300) then I get quite a bit of distortion (CPU <15%), if I increase the buffer size to max (2048) (CPU <10%) then the cracks are much less frequent but the delay on the input is so ridiculous that this setting is unusable.

If I record at a sample rate of 192 then no distortion is present on the recording, but having it at 192 is incredibly impractical because I cannot play along to the other parts of the track since they usually contain pluggins and running them at 192 causes the CPU to be >40% resulting in major distortion on the output.

And setting the sample rate at 96 has similar effects as having it set at 192.

The interesting thing is that when I have the FA-66 set to 44.1 and use Guitar Rig I hear no distortion whatsoever. From this I am concluding that the problem lies with Live, or the combination of Live and the FA-66.

Any advice on how to fix this issue would be incredibly welcome, once I get it fixed I can really start making use of Live!

[Mattofix]

[nuxnamon]

I've had similar issues in the past with a m-audio audio card and it pointed to poor audio drivers.. I was gonna say to take a look and see if your drivers are current, but it seems it's supposed to be plug and play for MAC.. i remember i always had to fidget with the buffer settings.. i finally had to get rid of it and get something more stable for MAC because i couldn't really bear the crackling, latency, unreliability anymore.. Not saying you have to, but that's what i did.. but here is something weird I often noticed when i had my issues.. I would get better results when my buffer settings were multiples of 128.. so basically i could use 128, 256, 512, 1024, etc.. if I did 500, i'd get crackle.. but if i did 512, it worked better.. i know it sounds stupid, but at the time, i did get better results using those numbers.. doesn't hurt to try..

the only other issue that might cause what your observing is having the sample rate setting wrong.. maybe your trying to change to a setting different from what the project was started on..

i know you'll get it sorted soon.. nothing worse than technical hiccups that get in the way of music.. wish i could be more help.. i'm sure someone else in the forum has experience with that exact audio card..

[heavensdaw]

Turn 'Airport' Off..

Hd

[Mattofix]

Just like to say thanks to nuxnamon, 512 saved my ass.

[qbas]

I had a lot interfaces both on USB and firewire, most of them was not soo good on bigger cpu usage than 40% and lowes latency. Now on the same computer I use OCTA-CAPTURE, which has much better drivers. Now I use it on lowest latency (48 samples, 7.4 ms overall) with enabled wifi and cable lan, without optimization on XP. C2D 2.4 , 3 GB XP here. No problems, no drops. But I installed also SSD drive for achieve the best possible performance also from hdd side. I think drivers are more important now for audio interfaces than audio quality.
RME is my dream, but since I have Roland Octa-capture I will use it until next change of interface, or change situation of my pocket .

[LeifonMars]

Specifications:
Live 8.1.4 (The problem was also present on 8.1)

Yeah, it has been present on all cracks.

[jhstark]

See the following Native Instruments application note - it solved my problems:
http://www.native-instruments.com/knowl ... Processing