Sound Drop Outs In Club Environment

Funkatron · Post by **Funkatron** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 8:26 pm

Hi,

I have been using Live 6 for a few months now, and finally took it to a gig a couple of days ago. When playing Live through the club sound system at relatively low volume, everything was fine, but when the night got going and the club sound system was turned up, there seemed to be periodic audio drop outs where the sound would vanish for a split second and then return. This is odd because it doesn't happen at home at all, or when the clubs sound system is turned down.

I am thinking that it might have something to do with the vibration of the bass from the club's sound system. Is this a common problem, and if so, what is the best solution? I am using a 2.2 Ghz HP DV8387ea AMD Turion64.

Also, how do you deal with using a mouse in these situations because it bounces around on screen making it very hard to drop tracks into arrangement view?

Thanks

membrain · Post by **membrain** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:25 am

that's really hard to diagnose. My first question would be - are you sure it's live and the computer? Could it be the sound system?
Next guess would be hard drive access. Defrag your hard drive. Next would be soundcard - what are you using

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 1:04 pm

Funkatron wrote:I am thinking that it might have something to do with the vibration of the bass from the club's sound system.

Also, how do you deal with using a mouse in these situations because it bounces around on screen making it very hard to drop tracks into arrangement view?

You need to use a piece of foam or something under your laptop to keep it from vibrating. Also, placing it on a turntable helps too, as their feet are designed to help minimize vibrations. I don't use a mouse live, not enough room usually. Learn to use the trackpad, much, much easier to deal with live.

jbodango · Post by **jbodango** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:44 pm

Also, how do you deal with using a mouse in these situations because it bounces around on screen making it very hard to drop tracks into arrangement view?

I'm all about the trackball. I use a logitech thumb trackball. I know lots of people don't like em, but IMHO it's much easier to manipulate than a mouse or a trackpad. plus you can have it somewhere away from your laptop on stage. i am a drummer and i keep it by my floor tom during gigs.

Funkatron · Post by **Funkatron** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:42 pm

Thanks for the tips, will give it a go the next time I'm using Ableton Live ...

Funkatron · Post by **Funkatron** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:48 pm

membrain wrote:that's really hard to diagnose. My first question would be - are you sure it's live and the computer? Could it be the sound system?
Next guess would be hard drive access. Defrag your hard drive. Next would be soundcard - what are you using

I'm pretty sure the hard drive is fine because I'm able to mix with no problem at home, and on smaller sound systems. Also, the soundsystem worked fine using CDJ's and SL1210's, it only cut out when using Ableton, and this only happened when the volume was turned up, at lower volume earlier on in the evening, there was no problem.

I defragged and cleared up my system before the gig, so it was in tip top shape. Currently I use the M-Audio Firewire Audiophile which was recommended by someone who uses it themselves. Is that soundcard ok, or not up to spec ?

jamesm1985 · Post by **jamesm1985** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:24 am

sounds like the vibrations from the bass are causing the acuator on the harddrive to to skip. maybe either try putting the laptop on the tirntable, or select the option to load the song to RAM. do you see the 'drop' indicator come on when in ableton?

as for minimising mouse usage, have you considered getting a midi controller like the BCR2000, or using the midi on the clubs mixer (if they have pioneer djm-800 for instance).

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:26 am

Boy, won't it be nice when laptops don't have hard drives any more?

jake · Post by **jake** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:07 pm

Had the excact same problem when using Live at a gig! I put a bit of padding under the laptop (a soft guitar case) to see if that helped but it didn't, perhaps it needed more padding? It almost appeared to be skipping in the short silences rather than just going silent but I couldn't guarantee that.

The problem doesn't occur at home, I share your fustration and need to sort this out!

venomkid · Post by **venomkid** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:49 pm

First off, for god's sake, put some kind vibration damping pad under your laptop when you've got a big system hooked up to it! I've killed a laptop with vibration (It was 2 drummers, but still...). Vibration can kill HDs dead, and that laptop never worked right again even after I replaced the HD... I mean, screws fell out of it! A pillow or something soft runs the risk of suffocating air-vents, but a good hardish piece of foam, or better yet a board with foam underneath will go a long way toward protecting your investment. I like a previous poster's idea of using a turntable, good idea!

On to the topic... One thing you guys might want to check... I ran into this same problem, my laptop (Thinkpad Z60) has an inertial detector that parks the HD heads when it gets bumped or shaken. It's there in case you drop the laptop, you're much less likely to crash your HD if the heads aren't over the platters during impact. This, of course, makes it stop reading for a short time. A good strong bass hit... CLICK! And Ableton's got nothing to read.

Mine has a system tray icon, and I can lower its sensitivity for when I'm pumping heavy sound. Check your laptop's documentation to see if you have one of those.

ciw · Post by **ciw** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:30 pm

just a thought (i've not experienced this) but it could also be to do with heat, not vibration. i presume the club is getting hotter as the night goes on. maybe the laptop fan isn't designed to cope with this, in which case it may throttle back the cpu to prevent overheating, which will cause a glitch. if that is the case, you can buy external fan units to keep the laptop temperature down.

komodo83uk · Post by **komodo83uk** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:44 pm

Im getting this problem as well...

Seems to be once I get into the range of some Tearout tunes (such as Breakfastaz - Sickness) that the laptop starts skipping like a bitch!!

On mine, the whole OS locks up so the mouse freezes and then releases once the audio is back...

What's weird though is that this is while the laptop is balanced on top of my laptop case which is also sat on top of a pair of decks!! No hard-disk overload indicator either....

I'm guessing its either HD or temperature.....???

Ableton experts, the floor is yours!

vinkalmann · Post by **vinkalmann** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:43 pm

venomkid wrote:
On to the topic... One thing you guys might want to check... I ran into this same problem, my laptop (Thinkpad Z60) has an inertial detector that parks the HD heads when it gets bumped or shaken. It's there in case you drop the laptop, you're much less likely to crash your HD if the heads aren't over the platters during impact. This, of course, makes it stop reading for a short time. A good strong bass hit... CLICK! And Ableton's got nothing to read.

Mine has a system tray icon, and I can lower its sensitivity for when I'm pumping heavy sound. Check your laptop's documentation to see if you have one of those.

DEFINITELY check this one out! When I got my new t60P I couldn't figure out why I kept getting dropouts until I figured out it was the HD protection being activated. Turning the sensitivity down did the trick.

Sound Drop Outs In Club Environment

Sound Drop Outs In Club Environment

Re: Sound Drop Outs In Club Environment

Audio Skipping