Ableton Forum

I hope I've posted this in the right place.

I'm using a MOTU 8pre interface with Ableton. Once in a while my system will - without warning - begin making a DEAFENING white noise sound. It's like a jet engine in my living room - so loud it's painful to my ears, as well as extremely unnerving. I have to turn off the interface to make it stop. Turning the volume down in Ableton does nothing.

It was happening once every few months before but the other night it happened twice.

I'm not 100% sure but I suspect it's the interface. Could it be Ableton? I need to know because if it's the interface I want to buy a new one ASAP. It's impossible to work now, because sitting at my desk in front of my monitors feels like I'm waiting for a bomb to blow up in my face at any minute.

The weird thing is that I can't ever remember what precipitates the event because when it happens it's so traumatic it blows out all thoughts from my head!

Has anyone had a similar thing happen to them? What could cause this?

that blows i cant help yo im sure someone here will, if i were you i wouldnt use it until you sort the problem, might damage your hearing along with your speakers, and frame of mind good luck

i had a couple of experiences in the past..

1. sudden increase in volume (not white noise).. turned out to be faulty plugs/circuits in apartment i was living in.. flick the lights or when the fridge kicks in, volume would increase.. i would have to flick the lights on/off before starting any session to prevent it from happening..

2. white noise.. this was due to a audio card/bad drivers.. in my case, it was incompatibility between my operating system (i was a noob at the time and updated my os when it was first released) and the driver.. i contacted the manufacturer of the audio card and they gave me beta releases of the drivers whiched helped until I finally switched audio cards cuz they we're slow in the driver developement..

I don't have any real evidence to back this up, but I recall reading on some forum that people were having trouble with MOTU Ultralites (and similar interfaces) occasionally blasting white noise. Given that, I'd start investigating the interface, get in touch with MOTU, and trying out other interfaces if you can.

nuxnamon wrote:
2. white noise.. this was due to a audio card/bad drivers.. in my case, it was incompatibility between my operating system (i was a noob at the time and updated my os when it was first released) and the driver.. i contacted the manufacturer of the audio card and they gave me beta releases of the drivers whiched helped until I finally switched audio cards cuz they we're slow in the driver developement..

Similar experience. Explosion of white noise. Was couple of years back, dont remember which model but it was Echo - express DJ or Audiofire, It was definitely driver related, the support solved it somehow but cant remember what exactly it was and/or solution (kind of experience you dont want to remember).

Unregistred Fab Filters will do that to you. Check your licenses...

I used to get this whenever I tried to use Sample Tank with Live. In the end I stopped using ST and it stopped happening.

I've had this with a fairly different audio interface (NI audio kontrol 1) caused by old drivers, went away with updated drivers.

My first thought also was some plugin in demo mode, but that should be affected by the volume controls in ableton. What happens if you just quit ableton when this happens? What about hardware volume controls on the audio interface? If these steps don't affect the noise then it is unlikely to be ableton or any plugins.

Did anyone get to the bottom of this issue?

It's happening to me in 2020.

I've emailed Ableton and Focusrite (I'm using an 8i6 audio interface).

Just wondering if anyone found out why this was happening?

Running unregistered and or demo VSTs will do this as well. You need to check them.

Thanks Mark.

I'm not running any unregistered or demo VSTs.

All VSTs fully licensed and registered.