A major problem I havehad with Live 4...since the beta days!

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 11:29 am

I wish to know if anybody else is experiencing this or has experienced this. I wrote about it on several occasions during the beta phase and it's still a problem now (on a seperate machine).

I have a very admittedly dense song with lots and lots of audio tracks, the project file for the last 2 weeks has seen the cpu go from it's idle (10%) to idle cpu level of 56%... during playback I have CPU usage of about 65% but suddenly it jumps for 145% +/- 20 and everything comes to an agonising halt until I wait for something like 2 minutes for the CPU to go back to normal.

I can only play 30 second blocks of this particular track which is goddamn frustrating

Emissary · Post by **Emissary** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 1:00 pm

That is very odd!

So it does this on two seperate machines. What do these machines have in common? same soundcard or anything like that. The only other thing it could be is dust on your cpu causing it to run hot and inefficiently. But on both comps?!?! that must be one dusty place if this is the case.

a strange case that I'm sure one of the Ultra Brains here will have the answer for.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:47 pm

yes

my other machine had a layla24 and this one is mainly running with an mbox. most other project files it's fine.. just the odd one gets this problem.

I really hope someone can sort this out as it provokes serious concern about certain aspects of live.

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:24 pm

wow i thought this was just a mac thing but good to know its pc too

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:28 pm

adhmzaiusz wrote:wow i thought this was just a mac thing but good to know its pc too

what's happening with you?

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:53 pm

This is crazy,

I rewire my project to pro tools and most of the problems go away...

louZ · Post by **louZ** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 6:01 pm

sweetjesus wrote:This is crazy,

I rewire my project to pro tools and most of the problems go away...

This sounds similar to the thing I'm experiencing with Live 4.1 and Operator. The CPU usage actually decreases (in the Task Manager) when I add plugin fx.

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:05 pm

You are not the only one. I posted about a similar problem in the bugs forum, I experience basically the same thing except for the track does not have to be very dense.

The cpu can be at around 30% but when I lanch another scene it spikes up really high for a moment - not 2 minutes - then comes back down. It also causes the currently playing audio to drop or glitch for a second. It pretty much always does this when I first launch a set and switch scenes.

Not good for live performance.

I also exprience dropouts and processor surges when engaging a send for the first time.

I will have to pay closer attention, but I think this only occurs when running midi tracks. For the last couple of days I have been working with only audio tracks - nothing too intense due to school and work - but I can not recall these problems occuring.

My normal default setup, and the one under which these problems are occuring, is 8 tracks with 2 audio, 2 impulse, 2 simpler, 2 operator and 3 sends - 1 with reverb, 1 with grain delay, 1 with supatrigga. There is also an apple peaklimiter on the master out. Idle cpu is 10%

Using internal soundcard, live 4.1 and latest version of panther.

drush · Post by **drush** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:18 pm

@ smutek - if you're getting momentary spikes/dropped audio when launching new scenes, esp with all those tracks, i'd say your problem is the internal sound card. not built to handle that much activity. and with 512mb ram i'm guessing you have little or no clips loaded in ram, so the cpu takes the full force of audio jumping... hence the drop-outs or glitch.

starving student · Post by **starving student** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 8:04 pm

adhmzaiusz wrote:wow i thought this was just a mac thing but good to know its pc too

wtf

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 9:36 pm

drush wrote:@ smutek - if you're getting momentary spikes/dropped audio when launching new scenes, esp with all those tracks, i'd say your problem is the internal sound card. not built to handle that much activity. and with 512mb ram i'm guessing you have little or no clips loaded in ram, so the cpu takes the full force of audio jumping... hence the drop-outs or glitch.

Thanks Drush. I will pay closer attention next time and if there is time when I get in from work I will open one of the problem sets and post specifics.

If my memory serves me correctly this always seems to happen at the beggining of a set. I will trigger my first scene - which will usually be only one track, this is fine. Moving on to the next scene is where I experience the problem, and at this point there are no more than three tracks playing, and I am almost certain they are all midi.

i finish work in half an hour, when I get home I will try to recreate the probem and will post back then.

anti-banausic · Post by **anti-banausic** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 11:51 pm

I have experienced what Smutek describes from time to time, but haven't ever figured out exactly what is the problem.

I will switch to a new scene after building up a track by launching individual clips, and the first time there is a CPU spike, and definite momentary glitch/pause. Then audio will resume. If I switch scenes again, or come back to the specific scene in question, no problems.

It is the first switch scene on which this occurs. And not for any particular set, or plug, or what-have-you.

Interesting little problem....for the Abes.

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 2:55 am

ya, here is how it is happening -

8 tracks - 2 impulse, 2 simpler, 1 operator, 3 audio

3 sends, A. simple delay B. Grain Delay C. Apple Reverb

Compressor 2 on track 7 audio
Apple peak limiter on master out

Start live, open the set, fire scene 1
Scene 1 triggers track 4 - simpler, this track starts with effects wet - send a 100% send b about 75%, send c about 40%

No problem

Fire scene 2
Scene 2 repeat track 4 simpler as listed above and also fires tracks 7 and 8 audio.
Processor spikes up to 250% for about a second, audio drops out, then returns to normal.

Stop live. repeat process, does not happen again.

Until I trigger scnene 4, then it happens again. Scene four contains impulse tracks 1 and 2 and audio 7 and 8.

After this it does not recur.

Restart live. Repeat process, does not occur.

It does seem to recur if I have been doing something else for a while, say working in photoshop or illustrator or playing a game.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 6:15 am

so something makes the cpu spike...

and for different people it spikes for different durations.

this is a cross platform issue.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 6:29 am

aarrgh!
even pro tools is registering the cpu spikes and stops every 2 seconds because of buffer overrun ...