Cracks & pops when starting or stopping playback

[copong]

I'm on 8.0.9. There's a couple of projects in which Live behaves weird when starting playback, or when stopping.

Basically the first 3 or 4 seconds after hitting play, the sound crackles and pops while the CPU meter actually goes over 100%. Then it normalises at whatever the real usage should be (70-80%) and plays back normally. When I stop playback, the same thing happens for all the duration of the leftover audio (eg a delay tail).

Any ideas?

[copong]

As additional info, I've just upgraded to windows 7 home premium 64bit, the installation is absolutely clean save for the production software. The issue also happened in Vista 32 home premium anyway.

Latest drivers on everything, Intel core 2 duo P840 (2.26GHz), 4GB RAM, Cakewalk UA-25EX audio interface. The issue happens to a lesser extent when using ASIO4ALL as opposed to Cakewalk's ASIO drivers.

The disk is defragged, and a quick one at that, plus the disk overload light in ableton is not coming up anyway.

It happens only on very busy projects. What dazzles me is that only happens when starting or stopping playback, and between those two it's all click free.

[bazgria]

I second that, it happens also to me on Mac pro 8 core 8gb ram snow leo live 8.1.3

[copong]

Okay so more data, looped sections on the arrangement view show this behavior every time playback goes back to the start.

Also, the CPU meter in ableton doesn't seem to be connected with the actual reality - I mentioned earlier that shoots up over 100% (127% right now), however windows' task manager says CPU usage does not change substantially when it goes back to the beginning of the loop, hovering around 70%.

[mcalldp]

Okay so more data, looped sections on the arrangement view show this behavior every time playback goes back to the start.

Also, the CPU meter in ableton doesn't seem to be connected with the actual reality - I mentioned earlier that shoots up over 100% (127% right now), however windows' task manager says CPU usage does not change substantially when it goes back to the beginning of the loop, hovering around 70%.

Interesting, I am using windows 7 64 bit and I get the crackle sound after I play through 4 or 5 songs so I was thinking it must be eating up ram but I have several gigs of ram and CPU usage is never over 30% I have to restart the program to continue, this is a killer for live use...trying to sort it out myself still.

I wonder if there is something going on in the way the program interacts with RAM (or CPU) through Windows 7 64 bit....huh... something to keep an eye on anyway. Don't even get me started on the "auto volume control FEATURE" that seems to plague more than one user of this operating system.

[sambo66]

Yep, same problem here as well except mine happne while looping.

I am using 8.1.3 and Some midi loops are glitching and crackle on the bar changes, seems to happen on 2 bar loops and is being triggered by another grouped audio track.

Very frustrating

[copong]

@mcalldp wondered as well about if I was running out of memory, but happens with about a gig free, as reported by task manager; also it's not particularly a windows 7-64 issue as there's a mac user here and it happened to me in vista as well.

[bazgria]

Come on people it's another ableton issue, let's hope it will be fixed 'cause my speakers don't love those CRACKS.

[stockylocky]

Has anyone had pops and clicks and got rid of them? I will try anything. Ableton just got bored of helping me

[androgene Collective]

Check out some forums to completely streamline your computer for audio production.
a few tips..
- Get the latest drivers for your sound card.
-Disable all virus scanners and programs that access your ram while making music.
-Try putting your music on an external drive for faster data streaming.
-Put the Audio buffer on 5 or 6 seconds ( a lot i know)
- Turn off system restore and all backup software.
- Start with a very small live set and add more and more , see when the problem occurs to give a more detailed report that people can help with.
- try the live sets on someone else's computer and see if theres still a problem.

My solution (though it is expensive)
Buy a pro audio computer only designed and made for music production and only have audio software and plug ins installed, never plug it into the internet unless you need to update. That normally solves all the issues.
Good luck
Mark

[copong]

My computer is powerful enough and with an absolutely fresh installation of Windows 7 with only music production software, all non-essential devices disabled. I have plenty of free RAM and 5 seconds of audio buffer is not even in the ASIO control panel options! There's no way you can work with that anyway. RE on external hard drives you might want to stop putting your project files in there as it will actually be slower.

I'm not buying a new computer due to broken software plus someone above has a huge Mac system so this is not performance related. There's obviously something wrong in this department and Ableton needs to fix that.

[bazgria]

LOL i have a mac pro with 8 2,8 cores, 1,5 terabyte of hard disk, 8gb of ram (but ableton sees only 4 cause no64bit) a motu ultralite, and even with 512 of audio buffer it clicks when i press stop and the meter goes to some crazy 130% looool. This mac is only for pro audio, so N O - E X C U S E S. Oh maybe i have to buy another better machine? From nasa i think.

[copong]

Precisely my thoughts. My studio brain is not as powerful as that but when Live is cracking and popping the real CPU usage as measured by task manager, processhacker etc never actually gets higher than 85% and this is with over a gig of RAM free and no disk streaming issues, so deffo it's not the machines running out of steam.

Also, it doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes it stops happening for a while and comes back. Sometimes a Live restart fixes it, sometimes it doesn't. Happens with the computer just booted up, or booted up hours ago, no difference.

I can see the CPU spiking to 120%+ (and the transport position stuttering just the same) even with the soundcard disabled so I don't think it's got much to do with audio buffering and caching.

On my machine the stutter follows a very specific pattern. On the first bar, it will play-stop-play-stop exactly 3 times, then continue stutter-free. That is on playback; stopping however stutters all the way through.

I'll try record a vid tonight.

[copong]

Sent an email to ableton's tech support but so far only received an automated response :/

[sporkles]

Gladly bumping this one, cause this is something Ableton need to look into.

I'm getting the CPU spike when the loop restarts, and it's happening regardless of what your set contains - one track or
40 (though it's obviously a lot more noticeable if the CPU meter is already at a higher percentage):

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... &p=1137593