Ableton Forum

i just got a new powerbook (1.5ghz / 500mb ram) and am experiencing severe glitching when i play four or more loops at the same time and also when i adjust the tempo. on my old powerbook (1ghz / 500mb ram), i could play seemingly infinite numbers of loops without glitching / cpu overload. i have messed about with the latency settings to no avail. any ideas?

also, in live 4, if i save an arrangement and am using absynth 2 in the arrangement, when i try to reopen the file, it crashes and i can't recover my work. this is particularly annoying as i worked all day on a remix that i now can't access. has this happened to anyone else?

twitch wrote:i just got a new powerbook (1.5ghz / 500mb ram) and am experiencing severe glitching when i play four or more loops at the same time and also when i adjust the tempo. on my old powerbook (1ghz / 500mb ram), i could play seemingly infinite numbers of loops without glitching / cpu overload. i have messed about with the latency settings to no avail. any ideas?

also, in live 4, if i save an arrangement and am using absynth 2 in the arrangement, when i try to reopen the file, it crashes and i can't recover my work. this is particularly annoying as i worked all day on a remix that i now can't access. has this happened to anyone else?

I experience this too with a PB 867 Mhz, 768 RAM, Motu 828 mk1, and latency around 6-8 ms - (have to have it that low as I play guitar through that thing)
I get occasional hiccups. These are absolutely unworkable, if that happens during my next gig this Saturday, I'll be in trouble....

Anyone got any help? This is on OS x.3.5

Try this...

Open up the System Preferences--> Energy Saver Panel

Make sure it's set for "Highest Performance" under "Optimize Energy Settings" also uncheck "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible." (if it isn't already). Also, click on the Options tab and set "Processor Performance" to 'Highest'. Give it a try... hope it helps! : )

just5in217 wrote:Try this...

Open up the System Preferences--> Energy Saver Panel

Make sure it's set for "Highest Performance" under "Optimize Energy Settings" also uncheck "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible." (if it isn't already). Also, click on the Options tab and set "Processor Performance" to 'Highest'. Give it a try... hope it helps! : )

Yeah I've set it to that anyway...

Same thing happened to me on a G4/15"/1.5 Ghz/512 MB. Played big festival gigs in Paris and Belgium and experienced severe hickups in the audio - this happend even when playing back just one stereo 16 bit aiff file. Tried using a fast external harddrive, didn't change anything. Does not seem to be related to the CPU load, similar things happen in Logic from time to time which leads me to believe it could be a general problem with the new powerbooks rather than a Ableton bug, not sure about it though. Gonna try to see if same thing will happen on my old 887 Mhz G4 powerbook - ANY SUGGESTIONS? I AM DESPERATE

Hi!!! well, as long as I can see... what U need is much more RAM, try adding another one with 512, or why not 1 GB... and also... do you use a lot of stereo files, or mono? at 16- 44.100 or higher? the buffer size is set at??? try changing it...
good luck...

I doubt it has anything to do with the RAM. The skipping happens even with a CPU load of about 20%, playing back just a stereo 16 bit file as I mentioned earlier, the file being read directly from the HD (not using the RAM option for the clip). I did some testing last nite and it seems that everything is fine in the first hours or so but then LIVE starts to choke, my feeling is that it is heat related - my powerbook gets really HOT after a while. I am gonna do a show with my old 887 Mhz G4 powerbook tonite, hope it performs better. Are there any other Mac/G4/1.5 Mhz Powerbooks users out there? Please let me know what your experiences with LIVE on the new Powerbooks are!

No such thing on my 1 ghz alubook. I must even say I'm impressed by the stability of Live 4. Does it happen with Live 4 or Live 3 ?

Hi thormadsen! It's not that I'm a computer freak, or anything... but some one told me that U need more ram to work with audio in a DAW than just 512 mb, and if U say that U already tried with a faster ext. hd., I can only believe that maybe it's a problem with your machine, or ram (sorry, again with that damn ram)
I'm using a Pbook G4 1 Gb Titanium, 1,5 Gb RAM, M-AUDIO Firewire 410, Yamaha nearfield monitors, evolution UC-16 MIDI controller, evolution MK-249C MIDI keyboard, and no problem with glitching or anything except when I have playing 4 or 5 midi devices and one of them is reaktor, plus effects and audio files... before I added 1 gb ram it was glitchy, but never with 4 or 5 audio files... not even with live 3 and 768 mb of ram, it use to happen with 8 or 9 files...
Sorry I can't help U more than this... Good luck and let as know the answer to this problem as soon as u get it solved... could be usefull.
Did you repaired permissions??? sorry, maybe it has nothing to do... but it's good 4 your pc and system...

I got the same probleme,,,,,,and i fix it by using a external Hd......lasie FW, and i did put all my audio files in it,,,and it run at 7200 RPM.....so now it work like a charm,,so i guess you got to use a external HD......

I'm still considering that FW HD, a LaCie one, but I've read that there are a few issues with M-AUDIO's FW410 audio-interface, as they both goes thru FW, a king of priority conflict, well, I'm not sure... but I' do not want to spend 250 euros and not be able to use the HD and AudioInterface together... Wich saunds silly, as the powerbook have 2 FW ports...Do you know anything about that??? Because if I can use them together, I'll be in heaven mate!!! thanks

ernene, I think this is related to the 2 FW ports using the same bus. What I've read is that if you use both ports at the same time, they both work as FW400. I use a FW800 250 Go with my motu 828 FW soundcard and they go well together.

ernene wrote:I'm still considering that FW HD, a LaCie one, but I've read that there are a few issues with M-AUDIO's FW410 audio-interface, as they both goes thru FW, a king of priority conflict, well, I'm not sure... but I' do not want to spend 250 euros and not be able to use the HD and AudioInterface together... Wich saunds silly, as the powerbook have 2 FW ports...Do you know anything about that??? Because if I can use them together, I'll be in heaven mate!!! thanks

Ernene....I have a pre FW800 Powerbook with only one native FW400 port. So I Installed a PCMCIA card to create two more FW ports. The FW410 sits on the original port and I run a Glyph and a LAcie off the card. This combo has given me no problems.......

make sure u are useing absynth 2.05
reinstall it maybe if you are...
i had 2 reinstall it on mine as did a friend
we had the same problem you described

OK Guys!!!! Thanks a lot for the comments and advises... I have to do something... mostly because I need the space and velocity of another HD... So, I'm taking my pbook, FW410 and some bucks and I'll give it a try before buy... if it's possible... let you know how it goes as soon as possible.
Thanks again.
Have you seen the special price of Applied-Acoustics-Systems for TASSMAN, $290!!! Just saw it a few minutes ago... sorry if I'm dated...