new to mac-need advice on how to stop clicks and pops

buzby · Post by **buzby** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:58 pm

hey

im experiencing lots more clicks and pops in general play back in live than when i did in live 5 (which i was running on a pc laptop) - lots of clicks when launching clips and especially scenes in the session view - play back in the arrangement brings out lots of clicks that are nt present in the same sample when played back in the session view

also sometimes - i ´ll launch a scene and the whole scene will get caught in a loop for example half a bar long when the loops are much longer in each individual clip in the scene - this sometimes also happens when previewing clips in the browser..

i always get clicks if i drag and drop a new device into a track - whether the track is playing or not

maybe this is not entirely ableton but maybe the way i have things configured in the preferences and also the audio/midi set up in the mac - im new to mac so maybe i have something not set up right for smooth opertaion between everything

can someone offer some ideas of what to look at which might make things run smoother

cheers - bzzb

buzby · Post by **buzby** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:59 pm

sorry - this should have been in tips and tricks before anyone mentions it - bz

buzby · Post by **buzby** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:47 pm

i ve just noticed how this only happens in the sets where i have recorded stuff myself and not in dj sets with other music

something to do with my recording sample rate and play back rate perhaps? etc etc

bz

plan · Post by **plan** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:33 am

Would be good to understand how to get rid of clikcs and glitches when launching clips on my new macbook c2d 1,83...
I got basic model with 512 ram and when playing some set with not more than 2 audio and 2 midi tracks (impulse and operator) plus some 3-4 effects (one reverb included) I get these annoying pops, cracks clicks and cpu jumps to max for seconds almost everytime when I launch clips.
Is it not enough ram problem?
My audio buffer is set to 640, doesn't matter if I'm using on-board audio or my edirol pcr-1...
any ideas?

buzby · Post by **buzby** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:02 pm

dunno man

sometimes - for example - will launch a scene and get a glitch - or will play back a certain part in the arrangement view and i gets crackles -

however - i can relaunch the scene again or play the part in the arrangement and the glitches will not be there - but will reappear at a later stage

beats me - bz

plan · Post by **plan** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:24 pm

well nobody seems to know/care about our problems...
are you on 2G ram now?
and still gettin same results?!
I want to buy ram too and don't want to be disappointed...

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 4:22 pm

Hey guys,

To begin, Look up towards the top right part of the ableton screen while you're playing tracks and see if you're hard drive light is flickering. That will indicate that you're hard drive can 't keep up with Live. I've found out that live 6 is far more hard drive intensive than previous versions.

Check to see if changing your audio buffer size (in audio preferences) helps. Make sure that you push it past 285 samples or so and see if you're still getting glitches.

I have a Macbook Pro C2D 2.33, with 2gig ram, 5400 rpm hard drive and use the internal audio interface. I've found that I can use a buffer setting of 285 samples while recording and playing back multiple samples without glitches. Now, with an external firewire hard drive I can reduce that to 126 samples without any glitches whatsoever.

What you do in this case is record and play back all audio samples (including from your samplers) from the external drive while you leave your internal drive for your software. I only recommend firewire drives, do not get usb, it takes up system resources. I got a G-Drive firewire 800 (f?@%ing expensive) and it's worth every penny.

You could also try using a well known firewire audio interface as well, such as Motu's or one of RME's (if you can afford it). People seem to be getting really low latencies with them.

Report back when done trying these suggestions.

arctic ranger · Post by **arctic ranger** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:16 pm

plan wrote:Would be good to understand how to get rid of clikcs and glitches when launching clips on my new macbook c2d 1,83...
I got basic model with 512 ram and when playing some set with not more than 2 audio and 2 midi tracks (impulse and operator) plus some 3-4 effects (one reverb included) I get these annoying pops, cracks clicks and cpu jumps to max for seconds almost everytime when I launch clips.
Is it not enough ram problem?
My audio buffer is set to 640, doesn't matter if I'm using on-board audio or my edirol pcr-1...
any ideas?

yeah, dude you got not enough ram, and also upgrade to Live 6. this will take advantage of the other core on your comp

for a while i had only 512 in my imac duo core and with live 6 was able to push it pretty far with reason running as well(and i have the pcr-1)

also make sure there are no other apps running in background caus i heard safari can be a ram hog

chris

buzby · Post by **buzby** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:29 pm

hey pribeh

thanks for the reply

think i might have some configs a bit bent

hard drive light not flickering - my buffer size has been quite high 1046 - in/out sample rate at 44100

record in bit depth - 24 aiff

been using a lexicon omega but it totally died on me - less than a year old - gotta see about getting it fixed - ordered myself a motu traveler

you play all your audio samples from an external hard drive ... ok - do you have stuff backed up anywhere else - i mean what happens if your hard drive were to die - ?

looked at the G drive - looks nice - i am still using external hard drive with usb - been meaning to get another hard drive but traveler and good mic first on the shopping list

bzzb

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:32 pm

Motu traveler will help quite a bit. Stick with firewire, I've had way too many problems with usb drives and controllers with mac.

If you put all your sound files on a separate drive via firewire you'll be providing a different bandwidth for your audio. It's not exactly doubling the bandwidth but does almost as much good. Remember, the slowest thing on a modern computer is your hard drive. And if you're doing a lot of multi-track sample playback/recording you should at least have a 7200 rpm drive for your audio.

As for you're buffer settings: if you're getting glitches at such a high buffer rate try something smaller (of course I'm sure you have). Also, make sure you're not using any other software like ranger said, make sure it's always plugged in, and ram is ultra important. Make sure you have at least 1 gig. I never got good results with ableton with 512 megs. Unfortunately Live is very memory intensive, live 6 more so with you're hard drive like I said.

Just a note, I could get lower latencies with live 5 on a PC. So, there are some trade-offs using live 6 on the new macbook pro for me. I hear some people are getting really good results (low latencies) running live on vista. I'm definitely going to try vista once it comes out regardless of how bad XP was for audio in the past. I'll try anything to get the lowest possible latency.

buzby · Post by **buzby** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:54 pm

thanks for the advice

i have 2gig - i´ll work out after a while - maybe the motu, as you said, will help

i´ll try the tip with using the external drive also

id never go back to pc - i had the worst time with running ableton and pc and asio and all that stuff - partly down to my lack of experience using computers and software in general but using this mac is a dream

cheers - bz

Dan Dare · Post by **Dan Dare** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:17 am

I also have clicks and pops.

It seems to start at any time really but so far I have only noticed when using the MBox.

If it starts to crackle I have changed the output to Mac audio out and it goes away. It makes me think it's a problem with Digidesign Core Audio.

Macbook Pro 2 Mghz intel, 2GHz ram. Live 6, Mbox 2

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 4:40 am

Hey,

I just found out something that may be of use to other's who are experiencing glitch issues. First let me explain:

I had an issue with a project that, unlike every other one, was producing pops. I discovered that by switching off a particular plug-in (live-cut) I actually got rid of the pops. This was weird since no audio was being sent through the live-cut plug-in - I had left a dormant track with it activated. By itself, this plug-in was producing the pops.

So check your plug-ins as well, I suspect that more than just a single (supposedly UB) plug might be causing some pops&glitches for some people.

Just to review how I got my audio-faces to work smoothly for me: I can use my x-station (with new beta driver) or internal input/output with 3ms latency (without ANY pops) while using a (7200 rpm) firewire hard-drive for all my audio (including samples of every type), and 2 gigs of ram of which I tend to designate for my plug-ins. I'm using a Macbook Pro C2D 2.33ghrz, 5400 rpm internal drive. Live 6 works especially well on Laptops when using a separate, designated hard drive for audio.

I'd check the macbook/logic (pro) forums to find out about compatibility issues with other interfaces and to see if anybody else might be able to help. Lot's of mac-swinging audio-headz there who can help!

Good Luck,
Thomas

Good Luck.

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:37 am

pribeh_tom wrote:Hey,

I just found out something that may be of use to other's who are experiencing glitch issues. First let me explain:

I had an issue with a project that, unlike every other one, was producing pops. I discovered that by switching off a particular plug-in (live-cut) I actually got rid of the pops. This was weird since no audio was being sent through the live-cut plug-in - I had left a dormant track with it activated. By itself, this plug-in was producing the pops.

So check your plug-ins as well, I suspect that more than just a single (supposedly UB) plug might be causing some pops&glitches for some people.

Just to review how I got my audio-faces to work smoothly for me: I can use my x-station (with new beta driver) or internal input/output with 3ms latency (without ANY pops) while using a (7200 rpm) firewire hard-drive for all my audio (including samples of every type), and 2 gigs of ram of which I tend to designate for my plug-ins. I'm using a Macbook Pro C2D 2.33ghrz, 5400 rpm internal drive. Live 6 works especially well on Laptops when using a separate, designated hard drive for audio.

I'd check the macbook/logic (pro) forums to find out about compatibility issues with other interfaces and to see if anybody else might be able to help. Lot's of mac-swinging audio-headz there who can help!

Good Luck,
Thomas

Good Luck.

Hi Thomas,

Got a MacBook C2D 2.0Ghz 2Gb RAM.
As you know MacBooks has only 1 FW port.
My FW interface has got a second FW port available so I can plug a FW HDD there. FW overall has 400 Mbit/sec bandwidth. By recording/playing tracks on the external drive am I not reducing Audio Bandwidth ? I have a 2 in 2 out interface.
By using the internal audio at 256 samples I got no pops and clicks and an almost (some delay) acceptable latency to play guitar (via amplitube 2) and VSTi. What is your setup for 3ms?

- Best
- Pasha

new to mac-need advice on how to stop clicks and pops

new to mac-need advice on how to stop clicks and pops

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