Upgraded to Live 9, experiencing a lot of crackling

[ThirdPerson]

I recently upgraded to Live 9 and am now virtually unable to record audio from my keyboard. I'm playing a microKorg through an Mbox 2, recording in Live 9.1.9. I've messed around with buffer size and sample rate, both at the highest and lowest settings, and nothing changes. Whether playing one note or a chord I'm getting a lot of crackling through the audio channel. It comes through when I record. I've downloaded the latest drivers for the Mbox and still no change. I'm working on a Macbook, OSX 10.9.5, 4 GB of RAM. I'm seriously frustrated here and have no idea what to do. All help is appreciated. Thanks!

[H20nly]

I feel like I read somewhere recently that there is a firmware update for the MBox, have you applied that?

[ThirdPerson]

I feel like I read somewhere recently that there is a firmware update for the MBox, have you applied that?

I downloaded the most recent drivers for the MBox 2, but I can't seem to find anything about updated firmware. There was a firmware update for third-generation MBoxes, but mine isn't covered in that.

[[jur]]

Does it only happen when you're recording?

[ThirdPerson]

Does it only happen when you're recording?

It happens whenever I play audio through a record-enabled track, both during recording and not.

[Angstrom]

I still experience a lot of crackling with Live 9, I use a totally different system to you though. An RME fireface.
L9 has crackled quite a lot since part way through the betas and although they have managed to track down a few of the culprits, I am still left with quite a crackly program when compared to Live8. Which still is smooth like butter.

For example - In Live 9 doing something like moving an EQ8 frequency band makes lots of subtle crackle noises.

Of course I reported all this stuff but after a while punting these things into the void and getting "we cant reproduce this" back just becomes repetitive and pointless so I have simply come to terms with the idea that Ableton Live >8 makes crackling noises. that's just the way it is.

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edit : as you have said - record armed audio tracks seem highly implicated.

[ThirdPerson]

I still experience a lot of crackling with Live 9, I use a totally different system to you though. An RME fireface.
L9 has crackled quite a lot since part way through the betas and although they have managed to track down a few of the culprits, I am still left with quite a crackly program when compared to Live8. Which still is smooth like butter.

For example - In Live 9 doing something like moving an EQ8 frequency band makes lots of subtle crackle noises.

Of course I reported all this stuff but after a while punting these things into the void and getting "we cant reproduce this" back just becomes repetitive and pointless so I have simply come to terms with the idea that Ableton Live >8 makes crackling noises. that's just the way it is.

---
edit : as you have said - record armed audio tracks seem highly implicated.

So does Live record the crackling in when you record an audio source? That's my major problem. The crackling is super annoying but I'd be able to bear it if it didn't come through on my recorded tracks. The problem is that when I record audio, it records the crackles. I can't record any external audio right now because of this.

[Angstrom]

No, it doesn't record. My problem is somewhere between Ableton and the RME driver I'd say. As I said I've become resigned to it. They have got rid of the worst offenders, so for me it's now less than a tenth of the issue it once was.

Your issue sounds different. I'd wiggle all your cables and tap all your plugs!

[ThirdPerson]

No, it doesn't record. My problem is somewhere between Ableton and the RME driver I'd say. As I said I've become resigned to it. They have got rid of the worst offenders, so for me it's now less than a tenth of the issue it once was.

Your issue sounds different. I'd wiggle all your cables and tap all your plugs!

Yeah, I've already tried switching out cables, unplugging, etc. Nothing's working. Outside of ableton, my knowledge of audio hardware is pretty weak, but could this be an indicator that I need a better soundcard? I've just been using the stock card on my MacBook Pro, which seemed to be fine until this upgrade to Live 9.

[H20nly]

Do you still get the crackling without your MBox, when you just use your onboard audio?

Any chance you could get your hands on another interface to test?? Maybe take your laptop into a retail outlet and ask them to let you try a display model? You, of course would be *thinking* about buying a new one.