What has happened to Latency in live 6?

[pribeh_tom]

Okay,

Appreciate most of live 6. The new features are fab!

However, on a macbook pro core2duo (using either internal audio or an x-station's interface) I'm experiencing dropouts with clip recording/launching, as well as, cracks/pops with latency settings Live 5.2.2 could handle easily. Lastly, under Live's audio preferences, the overall latency of 126 samples is displayed as 18ms?. (Just to note, I'm running the same projects that I ran with live 5.2.2.)

Now, I'm pretty sure that the incorrect display of latency is simply that, however I'm getting mixed latency results recording and playing live shows with different interfaces (the ones mentioned). I sequence an MPC to Live, midi/audio-wise, and would love it if I could keep the latency down below 6ms (that's why I bought a macbook pro). I could achieve this in live 5.2.2 by simply using the internal audio of the macbook.

Anyhow, I've checked/unchecked the multi-core option, set plug-in buffer size to "same as...", tried multiple sample rates, removing all midi assignments, etc like I've seen suggested, but to no avail.

Additional specs are: 2 gig ram, 5200 rpm drive, 7200 rpm firewire400 external.

Any help would be uber appreciated. Danke!

[justin]

the cracks, pop and drop outs dont sound too good... not sure what could be wrong ther cos i have an mbp coreduo1 and it runs fine using the internal sound card. but then again i'm not bothered bout changing buffer size cos i dont need to (mine is at 512)

i'm not sure if i follow how u work with mpc and live.
do u sequence midi from live into mpc and record audio back into live?

if so could you not compensate for latency and buffer size vs cpu, and go for the midi track delay...

sorry if i'm off the mark, i'm just not sure how u work it!?

[pribeh_tom]

Thanks for the response Justin.

I use an MPC and Laptop in a performance environment. I slave the MPC to the Laptop via midi (in/out) while simultaneously sending an audio signal from the MPC to the Laptop (via digital spdif). I use Live to play sequenced melodies and beats, with clips and plug-ins, all while feeding the audio signal from the MPC through some plug-in FX in Live.

As a result of having to sequence the beats coming out of the MPC with those in my laptop I've found (as well as others who try to do this) that you absolutely need the lowest possible latency setting available - somewhere below 6ms. My drummer, who I record into live, can feel any latency above 6ms.

This is why I picked up a Macbook Pro -switching to MAC from PC. Supposedly, OS X is better for latency than Windows XP because XP's kernal gets in the way of audio processing. OS X's (and supposedly Windows Vista's) kernal does not impede throughgput (or whatever), thus allowing for lower latency. At least, this is what I've found out. I've yet to try Vista (RC1) on my Macbook to see if the same results apply but will do so, although, I'm going to wait until Vista goes commercial before I go bootcamping.

I have noticed a number of people reporting latency problems with live 6, plus, I don't know of anybody that is using a Macbook and live 6 with such low buffer sizes successfully. I do know of many that do so with live 5 however.

[phatcrazesk8er]

ive been on the forums a bit lately and i found that many people are having this problem and i think i have a vauge hypothesis... its the 5400RPM speed of the HDD, apperantly Live uses more of the HDD this time around... theres tricks and things beyond my scope but i know anything live will not produce such low latency results... u can however reocrd the tracks, freze them, and load them to ram and play along to that instead of playing over so much, though this might not be the point...

[pribeh_tom]

Yah,

I've even tried loading all the samples into ram suspecting this - that my 5400 rpm drive might be at fault. I might try purchasing a 7200 soon, maybe even today, and see if that helps. I know people that are working with ultra low latencies with live. I just hope ableton (who have made a super product! already) will be able to make this version of live more stable at low latencies. I mean, if I could run this program at low latencies I would sleep much more easily at night.

I did test live 5.2.2 on this new macbook pro which I hadn't done yet and discovered something weird. The latency, seemingly, shows up incorrectly just like in 6.01. I have my buffer setup to 127 samples (with internal audio) and the overall latency shows up as 20ms! I think this may be an issue with my macbook!? 127 samples should equate to around 3-4ms.

Strangely, when I use reason or any other plug-in standalone the latency amount shows up correctly.

If anybody else is experiencing this I'd be glad to hear your response.

[Pepehouse]

128 samples show up 7.21ms here, but that's with ASIO drivers, what are you using?

[pribeh_tom]

I'm using coreaudio on OS X. So it's a little different.

My bud who uses a powerbook (older mac laptop) with internal audio shows 5ms latency with a 128 sample buffer size. And it runs flawlessly with live 5.

Even though his powerbook can't handle running half as many things as my macbook pro his runs reliably without any glitches with 5ms latency!

I'm jealous.

[flavor32]

Dude, I just sold my powerbook 1.33 ghz which I used for live drumming via Live's Impulse module with excellent results for years and I had the latency on that old machine at 4ms with no problems. I buy the best laptop Apple makes, the 17" 2.4 duo core intel and install Live 6 and now it says there's like 7 ms at the least! What the?!! 7ms is not acceptable for e-drumming. Got ta be 5 or less or you feel it for sure! This is a major drag. This is a Live 6 thing or Macbook Pro? Geez. I'm not gonna be happy if my nearly $3000 put me back 8 years!