Ableton Forum

I don't have a problem with Maschine's audio quality in stand alone mode, or even when it is opened as a vst in Sonar X3, but when I open Maschine in Ableton Live, the cpu load meter in Live is hovering around 40% when the sequencer is stopped. It varies from 25% to 52% when the sequencer is running, and it's not like I really have a sophisticated project running in Maschine. Also, I can hear audible "pops" and "clicks" in the playback. The Maschine Project only consists of 3 Groups. Two of the groups are NI Maschine factory groups, and the other group only contains two instances of Massive, and one instance of Rapture. This is nothing sophisticated by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not using ANY effects, other than the ones that are native to the two instances of Massive, and the one instance of Rapture. I also opened the "Task Manager", and it shows that Live is only using a mere 7.2% of the cpu when the sequencer is running, which is nowhere near what Live's cpu meter is reading. Just so that there is no confusion, this is in an empty Live set.

My computer is running Windows 8.1 64 bit. I have a 4th Generation I7 4770 @ 3.4Ghz with 16 GB of ram. My soundcard is a Motu Audio Express which is set at 44.1 kHz, 64 Samples Per Buffer. I tried changing the Samples Per Buffer to 96, and still didn't make difference.

Has anyone else experienced this problem in Live with Maschine opened as a vst instrument?

Just for comparison, I opened the same exact Maschine Project in Sonar X3, and I don't hear ANY "pops" and "clicks" whatsoever.

Sooo, I guess no one else is having any issues like this???

Haven't had any problems like that with M2 in Live (but I am on OSX).

Does anything change when Rapture is taken out of the equation? (just a guess) and also, what version of Maschine are you running (2.1.1?)

Im guessing your on live 9? I'd def say up your buffer quite a bit to 256 or so. I know for me, when using 9, i have to have a latger buffer than v8.

Mike

I'm using the latest version of both Live and Maschine. The problem is there whether I use Rapture or delete it. It seemed like the problem went away when I set the buffer to 256 or more. Then I gave every output in Maschine it's own audio track in Live, that's when I still noticed "hiccups" and "pops/clicks" even when the buffer was set up as high as 1024. I did the same thing in Sonar X3. I gave every output from Maschine it's own audio track in Sonar, and set the buffer all the way down to 64 samples, and didn't have any issues at all. The audio was smooth with no stutters/hiccups at all, and there were now pops/clicks.

I think I solved the problem. I went on Youtube and found a video callled "Tweaking Windows 8.1 For Audio and Music Production" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhQVkv3NM3k

It's a great video. The guy explains everything he does and why he does it. I didn't do everything he said. I didn't change anything in the BIOS or the registry, but I did almost everything that he shows in the Control Panel. I really think that what he says about the memory usage, and cpu performance made the difference. Now my cpu meter in Live seems to be reading much lower, and I'm not having any audio glitches whatsoever. I think it's well worth the time to at least watch the video to see if some of these tweaks may help to optimize your system.

Glad you got it sorted

kb420 wrote:I don't have a problem with Maschine's audio quality in stand alone mode, or even when it is opened as a vst in Sonar X3, but when I open Maschine in Ableton Live, the cpu load meter in Live is hovering around 40% when the sequencer is stopped. It varies from 25% to 52% when the sequencer is running, and it's not like I really have a sophisticated project running in Maschine. Also, I can hear audible "pops" and "clicks" in the playback. The Maschine Project only consists of 3 Groups. Two of the groups are NI Maschine factory groups, and the other group only contains two instances of Massive, and one instance of Rapture. This is nothing sophisticated by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not using ANY effects, other than the ones that are native to the two instances of Massive, and the one instance of Rapture. I also opened the "Task Manager", and it shows that Live is only using a mere 7.2% of the cpu when the sequencer is running, which is nowhere near what Live's cpu meter is reading. Just so that there is no confusion, this is in an empty Live set.

My computer is running Windows 8.1 64 bit. I have a 4th Generation I7 4770 @ 3.4Ghz with 16 GB of ram. My soundcard is a Motu Audio Express which is set at 44.1 kHz, 64 Samples Per Buffer. I tried changing the Samples Per Buffer to 96, and still didn't make difference.

Has anyone else experienced this problem in Live with Maschine opened as a vst instrument?

Just for comparison, I opened the same exact Maschine Project in Sonar X3, and I don't hear ANY "pops" and "clicks" whatsoever.

Not having this problem on a Mac and I have a similar spec'd system. That said I used to have latency issues on Maschine 1 but not much problem on version 2.

That said I have been using mainly Drum Racks lately.

Is your hard drive near full. Sonar probably does a better job of managing memory.

Are you showing high disk usage?


How is X3 btw?

Haven't used Sonar since X1.

jlgrimes wrote:Is your hard drive near full. Sonar probably does a better job of managing memory.

Are you showing high disk usage?


How is X3 btw?

Haven't used Sonar since X1.

I already solved the problem. It was a power setting that was keeping my cpu at a lower speed. No problem at all with hard drive storage.

X3 seems to be fine so far. I haven't updated Sonar since version 8. I had some old projects that didn't seem to work when I installed Sonar 8 on Windows 8.1 64bit. At first I wasn't a fan of the X series, but now it's growing on me, and it comes with a ton of effects plugins.