Audio Clipping/Chopping/Skipping problem

Captain Comeback · Post by **Captain Comeback** » Tue May 15, 2007 10:56 pm

I am running Ableton 6 on my Sony Vaio with 220 gigs on vista

Recently, live's audio has been cutting out on me during playback of a recorded track. The most cpu usage that I ever get to is around 40-50% at any time....yet the sound continues to clip out and chop throughout the song....even if the usage is like 15-30%.

I am using the ASIO4ALL v2 driver that was offered on download in the lessons menu, and have the buffer sizes maxed out, but still have this problem.

Any light someone can shed on this?

mister_doctor · Post by **mister_doctor** » Wed May 16, 2007 3:09 pm

there are vista threads all over the forum....

I've had trouble with onboard sound lagging out on laptops, even Macs. If you want it to run reliably, invest in an external card. Go FireWire if your laptop has a 6 pin port. Otherwise, RME makes a nice and reasonably priced CardBus interface.

Captain Comeback · Post by **Captain Comeback** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:21 am

it's this stupid ass ASIO4ALL driver I installed.....I know it

I have switched back and forth from my sigma CODEC driver on my Vaio to the ASIO driver, and the audio skips only happen when the ASIO driver is in use.

But, I can't use the other driver, because Ableton goes thru that god awful Midi Delay when THAT is in use.

Srsly...I'm going to put my head through the wall with this thing. Someone please make me not want to stick needles in my eyes when I think of the word "Ableton"

ewistrand · Post by **ewistrand** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:37 am

ASIO has nothing to do with MIDI; it's an audio driver model. And, you're talking about an audio delay; not a MIDI delay.

The only time you'd be seeing a MIDI delay if you're not playing the tracks live would be with external hardware- ALL external hardware has slop. If your polyphony's not being exceeded, it can be up to 10 ms fairly easily between the first and last notes of a chord, and if you go over the poly limit, it gets real bad real fast. Playing softsynths live, you'd see the time from the first to last note-on with a chord- maybe 2 ms max. Playing them from MIDI clips, it's sample accurate as far as MIDI timing goes.

ew

Captain Comeback · Post by **Captain Comeback** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:27 pm

thanks for the help, guys

unfortunately, it looks like all my efforts are for naught

I just picked up my M-Audio Trigger today to start work on DJing with Live, only to find out that most M-Audio products won't even work with Vista because of the lack of drivers.

Bill Gates has officially jammed his fist up my ass.......sideways

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Sat May 19, 2007 4:59 pm

Check to see if you're hard disk light is on. if you see a blinking light in the top right corner of the live window while you're playing your track, when your hear the clicks or pops that means that you're hard disk can't handle the load.

If that's the case let me know and I'll tell you what to do.

Captain Comeback · Post by **Captain Comeback** » Sat May 19, 2007 8:50 pm

pribeh_tom wrote:Check to see if you're hard disk light is on. if you see a blinking light in the top right corner of the live window while you're playing your track, when your hear the clicks or pops that means that you're hard disk can't handle the load.

If that's the case let me know and I'll tell you what to do.

the light never comes on

the cpu usage never goes past 50% for me

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Sat May 19, 2007 10:54 pm

Captain,

regardless, try switching on the ram button (found in the clip window) for every track or at least the recorded tracks.

by the way, how much ram do you have?

I would also recommend an external audio interface. Don't get m-audio, almost none of their interfaces are compatible with vista yet.

Captain Comeback · Post by **Captain Comeback** » Sun May 20, 2007 7:27 am

pribeh_tom wrote:Captain,

regardless, try switching on the ram button (found in the clip window) for every track or at least the recorded tracks.

by the way, how much ram do you have?

I would also recommend an external audio interface. Don't get m-audio, almost none of their interfaces are compatible with vista yet.

I forget the specifics, but I have a brand spanking new Sony vaio laptop...the 17 inch one with I think 220 gigs of ram.....I bought the laptop solely for performing and producing with live. Now I feel like I made a mistake and should have bought a mac cause none of the midi controllers I need to perform with are compatible with vista.

I will try clicking on the ram button and will let you know if it works. Thanks for the help!

Captain Comeback · Post by **Captain Comeback** » Sun May 20, 2007 7:35 am

wait....where is the RAM button in the clip window?

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sun May 20, 2007 3:44 pm

what about ditching vista

pribeh_tom · Post by **pribeh_tom** » Sun May 20, 2007 6:15 pm

the ram button is in the clip window (when you click on a sample/clip the window to the bottom opens up with the settings of that clip visible). In the clip window, look toward the bottom left corner and you will see a few different buttons for ram, quality and the like. Just make sure to go through all your files and click on the ram button.

By the way, the maximum amount of ram you can stick into a sony laptop is 2 gigs. you might have 2 gigs but I would check to make sure you have at least 2 gigs, especially for performing with ableton live 6.

Captain Comeback · Post by **Captain Comeback** » Sun May 20, 2007 8:54 pm

The ram function is only available in audio tracks

I'm not using audio tracks....just all midi tracks

mauriziodami · Post by **mauriziodami** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:29 am

I updated Live to 6.07, I installed the latest driver for my Indigo I/O, no way. I always get at least one interruption in audio (from half second to 2 seconds) while DJing. It's a very annoying situation.
The usage of CPU is ever less than 4%
Vista is the problem, I think.
Or ther's something deeply wrong in the Live code....

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:01 am

try uninstalling and reinstalling the asio4all driver, or using an earlier/different version of it if you can. i had v2.7 of it running fine until my hard drive died. had the drive replaced and reinstalled 2.7 and it wouldn't work right, uninstalled it and tried v2.8beta2 and everything works fine now...