Surprise crackles during performance
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 3:04 pm
I played a set onstage using Live 8 yesterday, and one part of it had such severe crackling that I had to stop that part and play something else instead. Fortunately the audience liked the end product...but I'm still trying to figure out what happened.
Live 8.1.3, Windows XP SP3.
Here's what I know for certain.
1) I had tested the same Live set on the same laptop a couple of days before the performance. No problems.
2) I tested the same Live set on the same laptop again the night after the performance. No problems.
3) Before the actual performance, I set up everything, tested it (but unfortunately neglected to test that particular Live set), and put the laptop in standby before taking it onstage. In my home testing afterward, I did as much of the same stuff as I could remember.
4) I looked at the cpu meter while the problems were going on and do not recall it going above 50%.
5) I was running with 12ms latency. In my testing I could reduce it to 4ms before crackling started.
The Live set that failed was the one that used the most cpu of anything I did. The others all worked fine, which suggests that it was indeed a cpu problem. But what? Right now, all I can figure is that (a) Perhaps I inadvertently set the laptop's power management to something other than "maximum performance" and (b) the laptop became disconnected from its AC power source, therefore throttling back the cpu. But that's a pretty far-fetched theory.
I've heard about bugs that cause the machine to come back in slow-cpu mode after going into standby, so something like that could also be the problem. However, iin either this case or the last one, I would think I would see something anomalous about the cpu meter.
Any other suggestions for troubleshooting or experiments to try will be welcome.
Live 8.1.3, Windows XP SP3.
Here's what I know for certain.
1) I had tested the same Live set on the same laptop a couple of days before the performance. No problems.
2) I tested the same Live set on the same laptop again the night after the performance. No problems.
3) Before the actual performance, I set up everything, tested it (but unfortunately neglected to test that particular Live set), and put the laptop in standby before taking it onstage. In my home testing afterward, I did as much of the same stuff as I could remember.
4) I looked at the cpu meter while the problems were going on and do not recall it going above 50%.
5) I was running with 12ms latency. In my testing I could reduce it to 4ms before crackling started.
The Live set that failed was the one that used the most cpu of anything I did. The others all worked fine, which suggests that it was indeed a cpu problem. But what? Right now, all I can figure is that (a) Perhaps I inadvertently set the laptop's power management to something other than "maximum performance" and (b) the laptop became disconnected from its AC power source, therefore throttling back the cpu. But that's a pretty far-fetched theory.
I've heard about bugs that cause the machine to come back in slow-cpu mode after going into standby, so something like that could also be the problem. However, iin either this case or the last one, I would think I would see something anomalous about the cpu meter.
Any other suggestions for troubleshooting or experiments to try will be welcome.
) beats me why it was playing up.