Ableton Forum

5.03 does not solve my problem of the glitches after 1 hour.
I have a Powerbook 1.5 Ghz / 1GB Ram with no other software running
when i DJ with Live at a club every friday night.
I use 10.3.9 and ESI Maya USB and Evolution UC17 Controller.

I am a professional musician, i do also teach in computer music
at the college. So i know how to setup my computer
and i don't have any unneccessary appz running during the gig.

And it's a big problem for me that when do the gig, after approx. one
hour it happens, that i have huge dropouts and glitches, and then nothing
helps exept rebooting Live. And that during the DJ set.

And i can do nothing about this.

All i can do is to use a CDJ or a turntable.

But then why the hell do i buy Ableton LIVE?

I use LIVE because i can do things with it what i cannot do with CDJs.

So plz help us Djs that we can use LIVE without having nightmares
about blowing a important gig!!!

Hi hodge,

did it only happen to you on stage? Or can you easily "reproduce" it at home too by just playing about an hour with Live?
On stage, do you use the Powerbook via the power supply so we can exclude some kind of energy saving issue?

regards,
/Alex

that was a fast reply~ ^^
It's not that easy to have the same situation at home like in the club,
but i had these problems at home too.
I don't remember if it was like an hour after the begin.
But i will try to find out, if it's the same thing at home.

Could it be a problem of the Audio Interface and the Midi controller
using USB?
I thought it could be an issue with buffering, like that after an hour
the buffer is too small to handle all the data with Audiointerface and
Midi Controller. But one guy wrote that ge has the same issue with an
Firewire interface.

I use the Power adapter in the club. I would like to try if it's better
without the poweradapter but i am afraid my battery can not stand
an 2 hour gig. I will try to find out, if we have continous Power in the club.

I give you my data.

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: PowerBook G4 15"
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.5 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.6f0
Serial Number: W84220R5QW3

I have 5GB free space on my main Harddrive (5400rpm original part
from Apple USA).
I don't have memory resident Appz running like Virus Progs.
And it's not long ago that i formatted the Harddisk.
And i don't have any problems with my Audio interface with Logic Pro 7.

When i have more data i will give them to you
I am just afraid what will happen on the gig next friday.
(You must understand that it's not a nice situation... ^^)

I mean i have a NI Traktor too but i don't like it very much,
i like Live more you know.

I tried Live 4.14 but it doesn't recognize the asd files from the Version 5.
I would have to recreate them with Verion 4 and that is too much work
for all the songs.

hodge wrote: Could it be a problem of the Audio Interface and the Midi controller
using USB?
I thought it could be an issue with buffering, like that after an hour
the buffer is too small to handle all the data with Audiointerface and
Midi Controller. But one guy wrote that ge has the same issue with an
Firewire interface.

this is probablly completely unrelated,but you should disable SMS

if the clubs you are playing in are loud and bassy, there is a chance
your apple is locking up the harddrive when it detects too much
vibration.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300724

http://www.kernelthread.com/software/ams/ams.html

last night i tried it at home.
I tried to simulate the same situation as in the club.
After 70 minutes i thought it's ok but 5 minutes later
"Boom!" Here is it again!

So i didn't stop right there and tried to find out something more.

I could'nt find out what the problem is, but got some ideas about it.

- These Dropouts are not issues coming from the harddisk because
i don't get any flashing Harddisk Overload signs.
What i get are CPU Meter peaks. So i thought it's an CPU issue and
tried to do other things while like launching other Programs while playing with LIVE
and i got (sometimes) dropouts very similar to them i described before
and with peaking CPU meter too.

- When the dropouts begins at first there are very heavy -
i mean these are no glitches i get when i have to low latency settings
these are Dropouts like stopping playback for a short while and suddenly
coming back (sounds like after the stop LIVE tries to playback the Samples
again in the right tempo so that when it comes back for a short while
he plays faster than 44,1 kHz until he is in tempo again, so that it sounds
very weird - i wished i could have recorded that but i had not the
opportunity - sorry)

- Now i unplugged my Evolution controller and then after 1 minute i plugged it
in again (of course LIVE is playing on) but the error doesn't disappear.

- But after 10 minutes of playing with these Dropouts the Dropouts came
less frequently than before and after approx 30 minutes they were gone.
So at the end of the 2 hours session i could'nt hear a dropout.

The problem still remains, that for 10-20 minutes everybody knows that
my computer freaks out and it's nearly impossible to dance to it.

By the way - My powerbook has no SMS function, so that is no the
problem - thanks anyway.

And Alex, of course i have my energy saving options set to
Highest performance - in battery mode and in Power adapter mode.

One more thing (Steve Jobs mode) - While LIVE is playing
(bye the way i don't play lots of Loops while DJing, it's only
2 songs at the same time) the CPU meter show like 12-14%,
and then suddenly it goes up to more then 50% and sometimes
to 100% and in both cases i get Dropouts.
So it's not an issue of an overall performance of my MAC.

Maybe it helps when i tell u which FX i use.
- Bus 1 - Filter Delay (with only the L&R Delay in use)
- Bus 2 - Chorus
- Masterchannel - One Autofilter in LPF mode
- Masterchannel - One Autofilter in HPF mode
- Beat repeat
- Track 1 & 2 - EQ three as isolators.
That's it.

So after the last night i still don't have an answer what i can do
exept playing with CDJs while rebooting LIVE.

The good thing about this is that i get better and better with CDJs.

hodge wrote: Bye the way - My powerbook has no SMS function, so that is no the
problem - thanks anyway.

1.5ghz 15 inch then?
what?

heh
ohwell

hodge,

could you send me Live where you experience this problem (only the .als file, no samples). Please also send me the log file of Live:
"~/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 5.0.3/Log.txt"

Do you use the ESI Maya interface for in and output?
And what is your which sample rate setting?

regards,
/Alex

Sorry for the late reply,
i was very busy.

OK, I'll send you these files though i do have nothing special in my ALS file.

During the gigs i only use the 4 Outputs of my Maya USB interface.
And the Sampling rate is 44.1 kHz. I use only WAV files.

Hodge