Audio dropouts, what are my options?

[ScutterBob]

Hi,

I've been using Ableton Live 10 to control a live keyboard rig. It's quite a simple setup with 1 Kontakt instance which contains a piano and a simple pad on seperate tracks. I also have a track for another vst synth, another track linking to an external synth and a click track.

Now while the above setup is very simple and runs ok with the cpu peaking at 30-35%. But if I add for example an instance of Serum / massive / absynth, even with reletavley simple patches I get audio dropouts and the cpu just spikes.

Is there anything I can do with Ableton or the laptop to improve this or should I just get a new laptop (Acer Nitro 5 AN515 I7 11800H)?

Audio interface is a Roland Rubix 24, have also tried a Behringer UMC1820 and a focusrite scarlett 2i2 which made no difference.

Laptop is a Lenovo E595 with AMD Ryzen 7 3700u cpu, 16GB RAM, 512Gb SSD. Following advice I've read on this forum the laptop is set for max performance and the cpu throttling is disabled in the bios.

Ableton info:
Live 10 Standard
Buffer Size = 512 samples (if I put this higher, latency is an issue)
Using ASIO4ALL v2 which performs better than the Roland drivers.

[Mark Williams]

You should really use the correct ASIO drivers for the relevant interface/s and not ASIO4all.

https://support.novationmusic.com/hc/en ... Windows-10

[ScutterBob]

You should really use the correct ASIO drivers for the relevant interface/s and not ASIO4all.

https://support.novationmusic.com/hc/en ... Windows-10

I have tried using the correct ASIO drivers, when I do the cpu usage jumps from the 30-35% when using ASIO4ALL to 50%.

[Tarekith]

Do you get drop outs though? If the CPU is higher but you’re able to work, that would better I’d think.

[ScutterBob]

Do you get drop outs though? If the CPU is higher but you’re able to work, that would better I’d think.

As soon as I add a 4th VST the cpu shoots up to 85% and starts dropping out.

[ScutterBob]

Trying this on my i5 desktop computer everything runs ok with no issues, it's just on the laptop I get issues.

[Mark Williams]

https://support.novationmusic.com/hc/en ... Windows-10

[DunedinDragon]

If you're using Kontakt sample libraries live you're going to need some serious processing and memory to pull that off in most cases. Libraries like The Gentleman or The Grandeur are pretty massive and take a lot of CPU to manage and trigger the samples being played. Most of the synths are pretty reasonable but the specialized atmosphere stuff can also have some pretty sizeable sample libraries. I use that stuff for backing tracks but I create simple audio tracks in live environments to avoid the CPU crunch that comes with them. Things that are synthesized keyboards like Hybrid Keys or the Factory Library/Factory selection are pretty reasonable as far as their CPU and memory demands.

[ScutterBob]

I've been through the Ableton and Novation guides on improving performance before posting on here and I think I've exhausted all options in that regard.

Running just the piano, the cpu usage is between 10-15% and it doesn't seem to matter which piano library I use, whether it's Native Instruments, 8Dio, Addictive Keys etc. I would expect the laptop to be capable of running just 4 VST's without an issue.

I'm beginning to wonder whether it's the laptop itself and wondering if replacing it is the only option! I found a thread on reddit for the Lenovo E595 with the same issue but that didn't end with a solution, and I have also found a number of places that mention the inability to get good performance from the E595 due to the temperature limitations resulting in throttling.

I have run intensive processes on the laptop to see what happens and despite the 3700u having a turbo boost of up to 4Ghz, it has never risen above 2.9Ghz.

If replacing it is the only option, would the Acer Nitro 5 AN515 I7 11800H with 16Gb RAM be a good choice? My budget would be £1000 max.

[lkw01]

I've been through the Ableton and Novation guides on improving performance before posting on here and I think I've exhausted all options in that regard.

Running just the piano, the cpu usage is between 10-15% and it doesn't seem to matter which piano library I use, whether it's Native Instruments, 8Dio, Addictive Keys etc. I would expect the laptop to be capable of running just 4 VST's without an issue.

I'm beginning to wonder whether it's the laptop itself and wondering if replacing it is the only option! I found a thread on reddit for the Lenovo E595 with the same issue but that didn't end with a solution, and I have also found a number of places that mention the inability to get good performance from the E595 due to the temperature limitations resulting in throttling.

I have run intensive processes on the laptop to see what happens and despite the 3700u having a turbo boost of up to 4Ghz, it has never risen above 2.9Ghz.

If replacing it is the only option, would the Acer Nitro 5 AN515 I7 11800H with 16Gb RAM be a good choice? My budget would be £1000 max.

Have you tried resetting the whole system? Maybe there's something eating your processing power.
If you already tried it all, I guess you'll just have to get a new machine.
Imo, if you need portability you should use macbook (apple will launch the m2 next month).
Or desktop if you're not moving around.
I'll guess 4c8t just won't do it nowdays!!!!

[ScutterBob]

Thanks for the suggestions all. After more checking and thinking, I've just pulled the trigger on a macbook pro. Was hoping not to spend that much but from what I have read it will be much better for the intended use.

[lkw01]

Thanks for the suggestions all. After more checking and thinking, I've just pulled the trigger on a macbook pro. Was hoping not to spend that much but from what I have read it will be much better for the intended use.

good to hear it, there's rumors that this year macbook pro will have a build in studio grade dac.

[jlgrimes]

Hi,

I've been using Ableton Live 10 to control a live keyboard rig. It's quite a simple setup with 1 Kontakt instance which contains a piano and a simple pad on seperate tracks. I also have a track for another vst synth, another track linking to an external synth and a click track.

Now while the above setup is very simple and runs ok with the cpu peaking at 30-35%. But if I add for example an instance of Serum / massive / absynth, even with reletavley simple patches I get audio dropouts and the cpu just spikes.

Is there anything I can do with Ableton or the laptop to improve this or should I just get a new laptop (Acer Nitro 5 AN515 I7 11800H)?

Audio interface is a Roland Rubix 24, have also tried a Behringer UMC1820 and a focusrite scarlett 2i2 which made no difference.

Laptop is a Lenovo E595 with AMD Ryzen 7 3700u cpu, 16GB RAM, 512Gb SSD. Following advice I've read on this forum the laptop is set for max performance and the cpu throttling is disabled in the bios.

Ableton info:
Live 10 Standard
Buffer Size = 512 samples (if I put this higher, latency is an issue)
Using ASIO4ALL v2 which performs better than the Roland drivers.

Only thing I'm thinking is maybe processor.

Have you configured Windows for Audio use?

The main two big steps are disabling the Power saving option and making sure the processes are running in the background (can't remember exactly the setting). I think the Power plan is the big one and probably the hardest to implement as many laptops "hide" this option to keep from overloading the battery.

The power plan definitely makes a difference though.


There is another tool to check and see if your PC is suitable for being a DAW (can't remember the name).


Also you probably want to download a program that checks your CPU temperature. If your PC is overheating, it might be a failed fan or cooling mechanism and that will definitely degrade performance.


Kontakt while is pretty resource intensive now, shouldn't be too much of a strain on your system. I would have thought you should be able to use lower buffer settings such as 128 even but what do I know.

How is the AMD Ryzen 7 3700u ranked among single core performance? Some CPUs perform pretty badly in this area (especially older processors with very large amount of Core's as they are better geared for time insensitive offline processes such as Video processing vs a time sensitive process such as live audio, gaming etc). Maybe it's possible to upgrade your laptop's CPU.