Why multicore processor? Help appreciated

[Punky921]

Holy shit that's REAL bad. Was this running while you were doing nothing?

[Artistlife]

When I'm playing notes in Ableton the Current latency is about 220 to 230 "ish".

[radiohead74]

4096 samples buffer size??? If I run my babyface with 128 samples it has a latency lower than 10 ms. If I increase it to 2048 (max) it is over 70 ms.

What is the latency show under the preferences in Ableton? Maybe that is something worth to change and test...

[Artistlife]

Here's everything it says under the category of Latency in preferences.

Buffer Size: 512 samples
input latency: 14.0 ms
output latency 14.0 ms
Driver Error compensation: 0.00 ms
Overall Latency: 28.0 ms

[radiohead74]

M-Audio Fast Track Pro
Sample Rate 44100 (lowest)
Buffer size 4096 (Set to highest as test)
Generally have the buffer set to 512 which seems the minimum the computer can handle. It can go as low as 128 but sound breaks up
Set to 4096 and there is a lot of latency.

with 128 it breaks up? that sounds strange....my lowest possible is 48 and even 64 is good enough for recording drums without breaking any sound.

I don't know the Fast Track, but maybe the settings shown from page 6-8 are worth to double-check: http://de.m-audio.com/images/global/man ... 8EN%29.pdf

[radiohead74]

Here's everything it says under the category of Latency in preferences.

Buffer Size: 512 samples
input latency: 14.0 ms
output latency 14.0 ms
Driver Error compensation: 0.00 ms
Overall Latency: 28.0 ms

I simulated those settings (babyface has 25.9 ms latency with 512 samples) and played in my current project a bass line from trilian with 4x8 midi notes at once...CPU was around 15% with my i5 notebook. So, playing a glissando shouldn't be a problem. Something is very strange on your computer.

[Artistlife]

Just for a test I switched off multicore support.
That definitely sent the CPU into over drive.
No surprise there.

[Punky921]

You need to take a look at what's running in the background of your computer. You really shouldn't be getting 1000 level spikes (and 1000 in DPC is different from 1000 ms latency or 1000 samples in Ableton - they're different measures that measure different things).

You should check what's running in the background with your computer. Turn off your anti-virus. Try turning off your ACPI drivers.

[Artistlife]

I see a lot of different Acpi in the device manager.
Just read online that you have to be careful otherwise you will render your computer unbootable.

[Punky921]

It probably won't brick your computer, but just in case, try this - try taking your battery out of your laptop. If that stops your spikes, it's your ACPI. If it doesn't, it's something else.

[Mervyn_Perving]

i use a packard bell with 4gb and a phenom 3.4 ghz and with about 50-60 tracks am on 80-90 cpu by the end of the session.Ableton is fantastic and the dopest daw by far

[Forge.]

Ableton is fantastic and the dopest daw by far

go on, show us yer tattoo again!

[andydes]

The one that just says "An" after swimming in the sea on a cold day?

[Forge.]

The one that just says "An" after swimming in the sea on a cold day?

Actually I think it was on his neck - the picture must be still on here somewhere

edit - found it:

viewtopic.php?p=1353096#p1353096

[Artistlife]

It probably won't brick your computer, but just in case, try this - try taking your battery out of your laptop. If that stops your spikes, it's your ACPI. If it doesn't, it's something else.

I pulled the battery.
I have been watching the DPC Latency checker. And as I said before the average latency spike is around 200.
The checker says the Absolute Maximum is 784. But that may be due to opening or closing a program or doing some sort of function other than music.

I know the guitar sounds I have been choosing are processor intensive. Guitar-Wide Acoustic to name one.
When I drop it into Ableton my cpu jumps to 10%. If I turn off the patch at the bottom of Ableton where you would drop effects the processor drops to zero.

Was Abletons initial designed really to play audio clips and process audio?
Is midi not really one of it's strong suits?
Was midi an afterthought?

I honestly want to know being new to this program.