Ableton Forum

Getting jumping spikes that crushes and distorts the master sound.

Cpu between 15 - 20 % on avrage work. Only Live plugs, only few tracks.

2GHz centrino M. 5400rpm. Newly brushed and cleaned fan, and two extra laptop fans under the laptop for cooling suport. High quality sound card: Mackie Onyx. Tried all latency settings available.


The spikes appear only when live has been stoped for about 30 seconds or a few minutes. After that has happened it apears a few times with about 30 seconds interwalls. And then it can roll probably for hours whitout hickups, as long as we dont stop-wait and start the projects again.



Might be time again for a defrag though. Ill do it as soon as I can.


It runs fine, then when we stop to do some edits, it spikes on restart/play. Then we have to stop it and start it a few times until it gets warm, and then it runs fine again until next time we stop. Just like an old car!


It jumps from a steady 20% cpu to 100%->

Try again but with out the audiocard plug.And see

Ram?
Do you have many tracks?Are they warped?in complex mode?

DJ VAKIS wrote:Ram?
Do you have many tracks?Are they warped?in complex mode?

Not complex, mostly wav clips and some midi. But it happens in any project reasantly, regardles of soundcard. 1gb ram.

It has to be atleast 20% cpu used though, it seams.

DJ VAKIS wrote:Ram?
Do you have many tracks?Are they warped?in complex mode?

What is a complex warp, btw? HI-Q?

At the sample view where you can see the wave,there is a function warp(beat,repich,complex.......)The complex mode uses more cpu that the others.
Warp is function and you use it when you have a loop lets say 90bpm and you want to play this loop at lets say 100bpm or ........then you need to warp this loop using beats,complex,text,tone,repich.

DJ VAKIS wrote:At the sample view where you can see the wave,there is a function warp(beat,repich,complex.......)The complex mode uses more cpu that the others.
Warp is function and you use it when you have a loop lets say 90bpm and you want to play this loop at lets say 100bpm or ........then you need to warp this loop using beats,complex,text,tone,repich.

Oh, that bugger! I never use complex. Use beats for beats and tones for well tones...

Try again with out the audio card.Do you have the latest drivers for your audio card?

From the looks of it, it just might be a problem with old faulty Windows. Although you didn't give enough information on your hardware and drivers for any special treatment.

Also,

You should begin with simple maintance steps. Cleaning up your PC.
You should check for Bad Sectors on your Drive, which by the way, 5400RPM's is too slow for todays world. Defrag your drive.

After that you should run msconfig by going into your comand promt... START -> RUN...

Turn off all Services and Starup options you dont require. Like me, i use my Studio Computer for Music only, so there's no reason to have any networking options on.
Be sure to know a bit of before venturing off here though...

Reboot your computer...

Now about your Mackie Onyx... Are u using it to monitor too... Because if your using it as inputs and not to listen to the mix, then its ure factory soundcard.
DO NOT USE that one... Seriously... M-Audio sell's interfaces real cheap... However if there's no way around it:

Try increasing your Output Buffer Size...

Try my little Get Up...

-----
Open up the Preferences Menu and Go to Audio...
Set the CPU Threshold [On 5.2.2] or the CPU Usage Simulator [6.0.1] to a high NORMAL WORKING CONDITIONS RANGE... I run at 1.8GHz and run it Under 60%... You can do the same or lower since u have a 2GHz...
Now LOWER THE VOLUME EXTREMELY LOW... CAUTION: LOW LOW LOW...
Turn On the Test Tone and Give it a boost to around -6 Db and -32Db [Reg Working Range]...
Do you hear that horrible noise... if you dont skip down... If you do...
NOW: Increase your Output Buffer Size
-----

Now if this high latency is not acceptable... Again... M-Audio sells interfaces like the Transit, Fast Track Pro, or for a controller combo, the Ozone for cheap... They use the ASIO Driver... The best driver for low latency...

Or you can download ASIO for All and give it a run...

How ever... You can shove 3k fans under your rig, but with a 5400rpm Hard Drive, your still gonna see a performance loss... the min u should go for is 7200RPM's...

OK, fans are cleaned, and windows runs only Live. Its a minimal system, only for audio working.


Still the same problem, and its only in this one project. Its about 13 tracks, a few of them are 5 minutes long audio clips, recorded in 24bit/48khz.

What happends is when you stop it, and start it again, running at around 38% cpu in Live, it gets masive spikes, and bouth the cpu blinks, and the drive icon blinks orange!! Sound just crack up a few seconds, and goes back to normal. It happens a few times every hour of working. This is very anoying, thoug we can still work..

We tried to loade all the tracks into ram, some of them, and none of them. No differance.


I opened the laptop, brushed the fan REALY well, no difference.



Is it maybe so that a 5400rpm drive just cant handle 13 stereo audiotracks on a PC?

My old 800mhz powerbook run 37 audio tracks on a 5400rpm disk with no problems.


edit: and ram use with this project is at about 850 megs in total, including the system. I have 1 gig instaled. Might be the problem?

edit2: what if I use my external 7200rpm firewire disk instead of the internal 5400?