firewire 410 and LIVE 4.04

masturfader · Post by **masturfader** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 10:32 pm

how dee, i recently got me a firewire 410 and am using it mainly with live 4.04 on a 1ghz titanium powerbook with a gig o RAM. thing is, and im wondering if anyone else has had this prob, knows what the deal is..um well, when the main outputs are set to 192k in live, the processor goes to like 230 percent and craps out the audio. if im not mistaken dosent the firewire 410 take care of the output signal processing? or am i doing something wrong? please help.

thanks

monosite · Post by **monosite** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:10 pm

the cpu % increase as you increase the khz at which you are processing audio. I also have a FW410 and I found out that at 96khz the cpu % jumps out of control.

I tried to get some advice from live users who are playing at 96khz, like what gear they are using etc... but still dunno how they achieve it.

masturfader · Post by **masturfader** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 2:57 am

are you using mac or pc? im wondering if it is a live issue. i dont seem to be getting that problem with other soft i tried as an expierement like reason adapted.

come on and help us out here!

monosite · Post by **monosite** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 9:38 am

I am using a mac G4 with 1GB of RAM, M-Audio firewire 410, Evolution UC-33 controller. Live 4.04.

mcconaghy · Post by **mcconaghy** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:17 pm

I'm having the same issue with my FW410, and not only in Live, so I can safely say it's not a Live issue, it's an M-Audio issue. Whenever I set a rate of 96kHz in Logic Pro my system slows down to a creep, I can wait up to a minute and a half for a mouse click to register, and I get "System Overload" messages.
BTW, the FW410 doesn't support 192kHz, 96kHz is the maximum.

masturfader · Post by **masturfader** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:53 pm

interesting. maybe its the driver?must bug m-audio. only 96k for multiouts but you can have the main outs 1 and 2 be 192k. at least with mine, i have noticed tho on the display at the store the sample rate only goes to 96k..it was on a pc

mcconaghy · Post by **mcconaghy** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:49 pm

I think it's the FW1814 that can do 192kHz, pretty sure the FW410 only goes to 96... anyhoo, I think it's a driver issue, since I noticed that a MOTU 828 Mk II I borrowed didn't seem to tax the CPU as much as the FW410.

Edit: You're actually correct, stereo 192kHz out.

nolus · Post by **nolus** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 10:33 pm

Try setting the buffer size to 2048 and it's not too bad as long as you don't want to use any plugins.

My PC is a 3.3Ghz p4 HT, I just tried my fw410 at 192 and 176.4 with a 2048 buffer and it handled 8 simultaneous audio loops no problem - about 20 to 30% cpu. Adding the built in reverb took the cpu to 60% - still ok. Change quality from economy to Comfort - 80 - 85 % occasional cracking up. Change to First Class... oh dear, press space bar and wait for it to stop.

I get the feeling that If I could set the buffer to 4096 it would have been much better, but 2048 is the max available.

At 192Khz you are shipping more than four times as much data arround the system (compared to 44.1) - for a marginal increase in quality. Each part of the signal path working at that speed needs to do >4 times the work. Reverbs and Delay effects use >4 times as much memory and, if you don't change the buffer size, the cpu needs to talk to the firewire bus >4 times as often.

Basically it's a trade off (for now), you can get the quality but only by using huge amounts of processing power.

masturfader · Post by **masturfader** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:22 am

thanks for the buffer tips nolus, where do i change the quality? comfort? economy?

im trying just to work in 44.1k now and im still crakling away. using 4 midi tracks with 1 impulse and 3 simplers. feeling a bit giped at the moment. i saved for this ting for a while and want some damn 96k! at least ..

masturfader · Post by **masturfader** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:32 am

btw, do you guys set your clock to internal or external?

nolus · Post by **nolus** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 8:17 am

The Buffer size setting for the 410 are on the hardware tab on the m-audio control panel - You can't change it while live is running.

The Economy/Comfort/First Class settings are actually on the ableton reverb plugin, on a little drop down list in the center.

I use iinternal clock (Just kept the default setting).

I Normally work at 44.1Khz with a 512 sample buffer for stable operation and reasonable latency. A 256 buffer will give lower latency but the system starts to crack up sooner under load. If latency is not an issue, use the maximum buffer size for best results. I tend to use low buffer sizes when recording and high buffer sizes for production and mixing.

make sure you are using the M-Audio ASIO drivers. (Not direct-X, WMA or ASIO4ALL ). (sorry don't mean to insult your intelligence, but I often use ASIO4ALL with the built in sound card and then when I plug in the 410 I find that Lve is still using ASIO4ALL driver with it)

Disable on demand virus scanning, This made a big difference on my system.

Mix down your synth parts or heavily effected audio parts to another audio track and then disable the cpu hungry plugins.

Read this thread on KVR about PCI device latency http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=849651, My old PC constantly suffered from audio drop outs untill I applied the advice in that thread.