Ableton Forum

so this is what I've been going through: eventually upgraded my way last week or so to Live 1.5.2, OS 10.2 on TiBook (550cpu, 768 ram) Reason 2.0 and Peak 3.1, using an M-Audio Quattro and an Elektron Machinedrum (sometimes Mac into Elektron, and vice versa)

problems:

--terrible graphics/screen latency when taxing live, especially if using Reason via rewire and sending Live a bunch of tracks (kind of figured on that as Reason is processor intensive, but it's so bad I could never do it live, and it's really not feasible when just jamming....bummed)
--crackles and pops/etc with Quattro and Live, extremely bad with Quattro and Peak
--Sync and timing weirdness with Quattro, Live, and Elektron when trying to record Elektron into Live

SO, I did a complete fresh install of OS 10.1.2 and Live 1.5.2 and Quattro driver...shit, can't remember, the one they recommend for os 10.1.5...no Reason or Peak yet.

And damn, Live, Quattro, and Machinedrum are behaving and playing very well so far....we'll see what transpires though....Reason re-entered into the equation tomorrow...

I can't wait till Live 2.0 is out and all these annoying kinks are smoothed out with osx and what not....it will be fantastic...

What is everyone else with a similar set-up finding? I liked 10.2 so much, but as I upgraded things just got worse, even with repartitioning and fresh installs/etc

oh, another thing, would get this glitch w/Live where it wouldn't let me save or quit very infrequently, but at the most inoportune (sp? oops) times....

but tonight, with a nearly empty, streamlined 10.1.2 the Quattro/Live/Elektron triumvirate was in attendance....

-Kooky Scientist (if you read this): I was the dork who yelled out "Hey Fred!" to you when you were trying to get into City Club for Jak after the first DEMF (FedEx hat, nice) so: Hey Fred! (still don't know ya...thats why its funny)

from what i hear, the 550's are horrible for audio. you'd prolly be better off trading it for a 400 (when it comes to audio, plenty of posts in here about the 550 situation. many good posts by tjwett). i switched to x.2 for a while but found the performance to be terrible (totally unusable with live + reason, just slow with live running solo). i switched to 9.2 and i'm running smooth as silk on my 400. i will never put x on this machine again. if your looking for the best performance, i say stay away from the cat.

how's that machinedrum? i was thinking about getting one for a while. is it worth the $1100?

k

well, still running better than ever, but no Reason nor Peak yet, so we'll see...


The Machinedrum is incredible. I had a 909 that I just had to sell after a friend showed me Elektron's website last winter....I unloaded the 909 on ebay for $1100, which was exactly what my total was for the Machinedrum....I was on a waiting list for a little while, but it was well worth it....see, it has great sounds/synthesis, and a pretty standard sequencer (but the step lock function is insane, a little cumbersome, but blows away every other drum machine/etc I've ever seen) and they kept in mind live performance when designing it, so it's very quick and flexible in that situation, before I had my TiBook it was the cornerstone of my live tech stuff....PLUS, it has a nice graphic, fully parametric EQ with a high and low shelf (only thing sucks about that is there are no Freq. #'s or guides, and the display is already small to begin with, so you can't say, dial in a cut at exactly 250Hz, but instead have to surf around and use your ears, which is good in a way, but not if you know ahead of time precisly what you want to cut/boost) suitable compressor--odd alias-sounding noise when the release is set too low with a quick attack, grimy verb that can do some cool gated perc stuff, and an echo/delay too...

PLUS, every machine/instrument (up to 16 at a time--you know: kick, snare, etc) has it's own assignable LFO (actually 2 waveforms per) that can modulate any parameter at all....three menus of parameters for every machine, great filters....

it's a noisy box, if you want real/organic/jazzy/type drumz, look elsewhere, if you want a true drum synthesizer (+seq. & efx) that can pump out gobs of noise in every color and hue, it might work for you....actually, I just freaked when I got it...then Live came along, and I forgot about it for awhile, then iBook killed itself, eventually TiBook entered, then Quattro, and now it's back as essential equipment in my rig... it has two 1/4inch inputs, that can be set up a variety of ways, so sometimes I run my two channels out of Live, the monitor one to the mixer cue, and the main into the Machinedrum, where it gets processed/EQ'd and some Elektron machines added on and around, then to mixer....or I run the MD into live/peak at home to record loops/sounds to later be used in Live....

$1100 is a lot for a drum machine, but it's like solid steel, and I haven't had a single problem with it, except it is noisy--not hum/buzz, but just thickness of unidentifiable origin--after first time I took it to a friend's for him to hear/record it, he later insisted that it was analog because how thick and full the sound was (all kinds of freq. matter flying around) like, it fits well along side my roommates Juno, but to my ear it's very much digital, cause it doesn't have that analog dist./harmonic clipping when pushed, stays clean..... it has 24-bit converters, but I can't find out what it's frequency response is anywhere....

yeah it's cool, hours and hours and hours of geekin and tweakin with all those great knob and parameters...which reminds me! The eight knobs that are used for the 8 possible parameters for each of the three menus are fantastic--you can turn them normally for precise adjustment (everything is on a 0-127 scale) or push them down and turn them for super fast changes, it is sooooo cool that they did this....

yeah, if you have the means and it sounds like what you had in mind, hit it up...I don't think I'll ever sell mine for anything, if I ever need a sound that no one else has ever come close to, the Machinedrum is my best bet.....I just hate little screens after the TiBook, but the knobs and buttons...shit! it has midi, but you can't use it as a midi controller to say, assign it's knobs/buttons to trigger loops/etc in live, just sync, sysexdump, etc

btw, yes 550's a terrible model for audio, no backside cache, new models have heaps.

-songcarver