Ableton Forum

I'm getting glitches and clicks on scene launching

I'm running a live set with 5 groups each with 3 tracks.
2 return tracks with two separate fx racks.
It's worse when when I arm a track to play a live instrument over the set.
The CPU shows only 40-50% usage when the glitches start.

Is it just that I am running Live 8 on a G4 12" Powerbook (1.25RAM)?
Is it cos I have 2 controllers connected (SL25 and FCB1010)?
Is it my clip warp settings?
Buffer size?
Should I hit repair permissions?

Increase buffer size.

sgreene wrote:Increase buffer size.

Thanks Sgreene. Seems to have helped, though I still get the odd click.
Will go through the list...

5 Groups of 3 = 15 tracks, that could be pushing what the G4 will do.

Live was never optimised for Altivec/Velocity Engine (the G4's big selling point) so along with running Live 8, which is really a product of an Intel world, you _could_ be starting to push it.

Some additional strategies to try...

Render appropriate clips or samples into mono and/or 16bit for live performance.
(mono will halve the disk access, and using 16bit uses two thirds the CPU of 24bit, for that clip)
Disable all unused MIDI ports in Live's MIDI prefs.
Disable any unused inputs/outputs on your audio interface, at any possible MOTU level, as well as Live's Audio prefs.
Disable any effects routings (sends etc) that you know will not be using.
Render any Complex and Complex Pro warp settings to Beats/Tones where appropriate.
Swap any exotic 3rd party plugins/instruments you might be using for a native Ableton one if possible.
Also, what speed is your HD? It may be 5400 or god forbid 4200, which may not be helping.
Make sure you have lots of space free on your HD, like 10's of GBytes.

As a last resort, print more submixes...

hope this helps!

Pitch Black wrote:Render appropriate clips or samples into mono and/or 16bit for live performance.
(mono will halve the disk access, and using 16bit uses two thirds the CPU of 24bit, for that clip)

This is a great suggestion I hadn't thought of.

Pitch Black wrote:Also, what speed is your HD? It may be 5400 or god forbid 4200, which may not be helping.

Not sure about HD speed. Where do I find that? Couldn't see it on the System Profiler. It's a 12", so the smallest powerbook.

Pitch Black wrote:Make sure you have lots of space free on your HD, like 10's of GBytes.

Sigh I keep doing this and it just keeps filling up.

Pitch Black wrote:As a last resort, print more submixes...

This is what I'm resorting to primarily.

Pitch Black wrote:hope this helps!

Thanks dude!

EliotShort wrote:

Pitch Black wrote:Make sure you have lots of space free on your HD, like 10's of GBytes.

Sigh I keep doing this and it just keeps filling up.

Yeah, tell me about it! When I first moved to Live 8, it coincided with me being down to about 3-4 GB free on my internal HD, and I was getting the odd glitch and drop-out. After I upgraded my HD to a 500GB, with the same system all was fine. Realistically you should be running with at least 10 (or better 20) percent of your HD empty, for OSX and apps swap files. When HDs get too full they start fragmenting files all over everywhere, which takes longer for the drive heads to physically seek and access.

EliotShort wrote:Not sure about HD speed. Where do I find that? Couldn't see it on the System Profiler. It's a 12", so the smallest powerbook.

System Profiler should list the model no. of your HD. Copy/paste that into google along with "+ rpm" and you should get an answer immediately.

[/quote]System Profiler should list the model no. of your HD. Copy/paste that into google along with "+ rpm" and you should get an answer immediately.[/quote]

Thanks to you, I now know I am the proud owner of a G4 12" Powerbook with a 5400 rpm HD speed.
Ta mate!