hmmmmm Apc40

[Donnie]

Having the same problem where the Shift key causes glitches in audio. Track Select buttons also cause glitches in audio. Funny, with APC connected, selecting tracks with the mouse also causes glitches but not when APC is disconnected. I tried deleting (renaming) preferences file as suggested but this did not solve the problem. Have unplugged other USB devices... used different USB cable and ports... Installing 8.0.4 now to see if that helps but I'm betting it wont. I wonder why Akai used the USB Audio CODEC for midi communications. The APC is not an audio device. Maybe all USB Midi devices use the USB Audio CODEC and I just didnt know it. Anyways, anyone found a solution to this problem? My newly built AMD quad core runs Ableton like a dream... a dream I've had for a long time. The APC is icing on the cake but not if it causes audio glitches. I've raised the audio buffer just to see if that helps and it doesnt. Wouldnt matter if that helped because I'm not sacrificing low latency for the APC.

Akai suggested installing the APC Edition of Live but I really dont want to do that. For one, I truly dont believe that edition has anything special about it that would resolve the problem. And even if it did, I'm not going to use that limited edition of Live so whats the point???

I'll post back if I find anything useful. If I cant find a solution looks like I'll have to drive two hours to Charlotte to return. Oh, and two hours back home... yay!

Did you try what I said in my post above? Sounds like the exact same issue.

[LesC]

Donnie, I did try that. I was excited to see your post because it looked like that was probably going to do it for me. I am going to try it again though, just in case... thanks

[squelcht]

Having the same problem where the Shift key causes glitches in audio. Track Select buttons also cause glitches in audio. Funny, with APC connected, selecting tracks with the mouse also causes glitches but not when APC is disconnected. I tried deleting (renaming) preferences file as suggested but this did not solve the problem. Have unplugged other USB devices... used different USB cable and ports... Installing 8.0.4 now to see if that helps but I'm betting it wont. I wonder why Akai used the USB Audio CODEC for midi communications. The APC is not an audio device. Maybe all USB Midi devices use the USB Audio CODEC and I just didnt know it. Anyways, anyone found a solution to this problem? My newly built AMD quad core runs Ableton like a dream... a dream I've had for a long time. The APC is icing on the cake but not if it causes audio glitches. I've raised the audio buffer just to see if that helps and it doesnt. Wouldnt matter if that helped because I'm not sacrificing low latency for the APC.

Akai suggested installing the APC Edition of Live but I really dont want to do that. For one, I truly dont believe that edition has anything special about it that would resolve the problem. And even if it did, I'm not going to use that limited edition of Live so whats the point???

I'll post back if I find anything useful. If I cant find a solution looks like I'll have to drive two hours to Charlotte to return. Oh, and two hours back home... yay!

Did you try what I said in my post above? Sounds like the exact same issue.

Donnie---Are you running a PC or Mac?

[djwack]

Weird.. I've been using my APC for two days now and I've not experienced any hiccups. Using OSX 10.5.7 on an older Intel MBP.

Hope you get your problems sorted out - I'm loving my APC experience so far! Try this for example, when launching clips in "gate" mode, I can keep a clip button depressed, scroll down to other parts of the set and the clip keeps on playing until I let go of the key even though the clip is no longer visible on the pads! Small details like this tell me they weren't slacking off with the design

Now, for the last piece of the puzzle - M4L!! Bring it on, my wallet is waiting

[LesC]

I just tried messing with the latency again. And it will operate glitch-free at latency of 42ms or more. Thats better than nothing but really not good enough for me. WITHOUT the APC I can monitor 8 (probly more) live inputs with software monitoring complete with compression and other effects at 4ms latency, making it very useable in a Live scenario. I can also run more tracks, virtual instruments and processing than I would have ever thought possible (before building my new pc) all at the same time. I've been hard pressed to hit more than 15% on my CPU with most projects riding around 8% on average. In other words, my system f**cking rocks until I hit the Shift button(or most any other button) on the APC 40. What a bummer...... well, at least I have about 30 days to see if a fix manifests itself.

[jab]

Hey Les,

we'll have a look at the problem. One thing, though: could you check
that the APC's ports are set to MME in Live's preferences?

In case you haven't done this before: just unfold the ports on the
MIDI/Sync page of the preferences. There is a button among the unfolded
detailed settings either saying 'MME' or 'DirectMusic'.

We have had some reports about problems with DirectMusic drivers in the
past, so please make sure everything is set to MME.

Thanks,
Jan

[LesC]

Thanks for the attention to this problem. I have tried changing from DirectMusic to MME and back again, but this did not resolve the problem. I got an email from someone else in support that said to check IRQ conflicts. The audio card has its own IRQ, though the USB hosts do share with other devices. But all my other USB midi devices work without a hitch. And I dont think the APC 40 is really using much more bandwidth than the other devices. I just moved my PCI audio card to the only other slot available (total of two on the MB) to see if that helps. I'll post back when I see what happens.

[LesC]

Hi Jan,

Just moved the audio card to the other slot and performance was the same. Also verified using MME for all midi ports.

Les

[LesC]

OK, just grabbed a PCI slot USB interface from another PC and installed as an alternative to the on-board USB. No improvement

[House of God]

I am experiencing the same symptoms as Les. Bumping up the latency causes better results. This observation here leads me to believe that the root of the problem lies somewhere in the handshake area. Let's observe the facts we know to be true:

1. The HDD is fast and the system runs flawless pre-APC
2. Boosting the audio buffer leads to better performance
3. The hiccups mostly seem to occur during actions that require a greater demand from the handshake. Moving channels left or right requires a lot of resets on the LEDs and mappings. Hiccups occur when this happens. Holding the shift to switch banks requires a complete remapping of the 8 knobs and LEDs. Hiccups occur when this happens.

I think the demand the handshake requires is the main culprit of our issues.

[LesC]

Why I didnt try this earlier is beyond me. I remembered my "old" audio machine still works. Its a completely different machine except that I have the same audio interface installed as my new machine. Anyhow, I hooked up the APC 40 and the exact same problem occurs on the "old" audio machine. So, this is not machine-specific. And I really dont think its a problem with my audio interface (Aardvark Q10) because others are having the same problem with other interfaces.

I think what's happening here is that alot of Ableton users dont use/need ultra-low latency and so it is not a problem for them. If you are not monitoring live audio sources(vocals, for instance) through Ableton or not playing live virtual instruments, then super low latency is not really needed. Again, I'd really love to hear from someone using ultra-low latency and the APC 40 together without issue. I'm starting to think its a design flaw in the APC or the software code that talks to it. I'd also like to know why Ableton/Akai chose to use standard USB Audio CODEC drivers when this is not an Audio device. I'll bet thats at least part of the problem. If they'd written good USB Midi-only drivers, or some enhanced version of that, I'm guessing the audio stream would not be affected...kinda like how all my other USB Midi devices work

[LesC]

Hooked up a USB audio interface instead of my PCI card interface. DirectX drivers instead of ASIO. No improvement. So, its not related to my audio interface and its not specific to anything else on my PC. So, I'm done troubleshooting. Obviously there's a problem with the device/drivers that is beyond my control. I'm going to hold onto it for another week or two to see if this is resolved by Ableton/Akai. If not, I'll be getting my money back. Thanks to all those who have been helpful.

[dunc]

I was having the exactly same problems you describe (running Windows XP). Tried all sorts of combinations including removing almost all usb connections but no joy.

I tried deleting the preferences.cfg file as suggested by Ableton but at first this didn't help. However, after deleting the unused midi driver files from my pc using the Korg removal tool (described in drchoc's post above (drchoc - thanks a lot for this tip)- downloadable from the Korg site as part of the nano software bundle), and then removing the preferences file once again, the APC was up and running perfectly. I also have a Nocturn, Remote 25 and Trigger Finger connected to the same pc and all seem to work alongside the APC no problem.

[LesC]

dunc,

I want to give it a try but I dont see the software you speak of Korg's site. Do I download the Editor program or the USB-Midi drivers or something else? Thanks for the help.

[LesC]

nevermind, found it in the USB-MIDI driver package