Possible causes of sudden CPU spikes?

[soundsliketree]

Hello,
Does anyone know of published list of possible reasons Live's CPU would suddenly spike and cause momentary dropouts?
I'm on a C2D 17" Macbook pro running 10.6.8 using Live 8.2.2. I've done all the basic stuff - quit all other apps, turned off airport, unchecked "put hard drives to sleep when possible" - and still...

My set is pretty slim - only playing 8 clips at a time plus a single sampler (East West's play instrument). The sampler's sounds are streaming from an external drive and the clips are playing from the laptop drive?

Suggestions of any resources out there of things to do to optimize ones system for live performance?
Thanks!

[cotdagoo]

Are you sure it's a CPU issue causing the dropouts?

Could it be lagging getting the samples from your external drive?
Is it USB, Firewire, or eSATA? USB being the slowest, Firewire faster, and eSATA fastest (like having an internal drive speeds).

Check the size/quality of the East West stuff - if they are high quality WAV files they could be very large and slowing down if you're playing them real time along with streaming clips from your internal drive.

[soundsliketree]

Thanks for the reply.

However, my problem is still occurring... even after eliminating all instruments and effects, raising the buffer to 900, confirming all files are 16 bit (not 24), streaming from an external 7200rpm...

i've just got 6 tracks - some are even mono - going in a cascading follow-action sequence in session view. Sometimes when switching to the next row of clips there is a hitch. not consistently. i'm tearing my hair out because of this. i've got a gig tonight and a band will be playing along to the sequence. fun!

[luddy]

I've been getting some momentary audio glitches with our live show set that sound a little like what you are seeing, on a similar setup ( 17"mbp, 8.2.2, 10.6.8 ). It doesn't happen consistently, but every now and then when new clips are launched there is a hiccup in the audio output. I don't think in my case that it's a disk thing; I have an SSD holding the audio files and there aren't that many audio tracks. Live recovers from it fairly quickly when it happens and keeps going.

That's not much help, I know...

-Luddy

[soundsliketree]

That behavior sounds identical to mine. Still troubleshooting...

[laptopdragon]

CPU can spike b/c of any reason...

if your on windows, let me know what version (xp,win7) and you should be able to monitor what programs are drawing CPU by its draw.by either process or service.

without going into all the steps i would take,that is the 1st,

i:
start in selected startup mode everytime
never run A/V
turn off automatic updates
turn off wifi, and any other service
basically only start in the bare minimum mode and prevent any program from starting with windows...


im a linux admin, and have to work with windows everyday,and i can state that i wish with all my heart ableton would be supported under linux.

[soundsliketree]

I'm running Mac OS 10.6.8 using Live 8.2.2 on a 17" C2D MBP.
I've stripped it down and optimized it in all the ways i know how.

One question I have involves the way I'm using Live. In a given song I have anywhere from 4-8 16bit stems (mostly stereo but a few mono) rendered fully for the length of the song, then separated into clips every 8 bars or so, loaded into session view and set with cascading "play next" follow actions in all tracks - so all stems advance from row to row automatically much as they would if i were triggering each scene at the right time - thus reconstructing my arrangement but also affording random access to all parts of the track.

Based on my understanding, each clip - thus each start point relative to a few, single, long audio files - has it's own buffer loaded into ram, and once a clip is triggered Live then goes at streams the rest of the clip from disk. In my scenario, each time a tune advances via follow action from one row to the next a handful of clips is triggered at once... but this is normal for triggering a scene. Yet could the follow action schema have something to do with it? Also, is there any difference between having a single, song-length stem audio file with many clips referencing it vs. each of those clips being a separate (i.e. "consolidated") audio file?

[Scaper7]

What audio interface are you using?

[soundsliketree]

MOTU Traveler

[noahbird]

Did you guys ever figure this out? I'm experiencing similar issues.

Thanks!

[pwoolar]

Did you guys ever figure this out? I'm experiencing similar issues.

Thanks!

Yes, ghosts. We all unanimously agreed on it. Don't dispute me.

[p1pp1p11]

I've had some similar dropouts, running a pretty hefty session (song length files over 16 tracks for about 15 songs) and best I can tell, when audio drops out, it picks back up in time. I have exhausted my own troubleshooting skills and deduced the problem to be "it's a computer, no one really knows how these work anyway" haha.

I know it's not helpful but even with only mp3 files, playing off of a FW 800 SSD, separate OS install for Live, etc, I can't put my finger on it.

All that to say... I feel your pain. And if I discover anything I'll absolutely share it

[noahbird]

What interface are you using? My Ultralite is getting repaired so I'm using an MBox (ugh!) as a backup and I'm starting to think it's a combo of the shitty MBox 002 along with the USB connection to it. I get my Ultralite back any day now, I'll post the results when I switch back to the better interface.