Ableton Forum

Hi,

I apologize, as this may seem a bit of a noob-type issue. But I just bought a MacBook 2 GHz Intel Core Duo with OS 10.4.8 and 512MB RAM and recently upgraded to Live 6.0.3 from version 3, and I find it's not running smoothly on a fairly regular basis. What I've been finding is that Live spikes a bit (to, say, 27%) and audio cuts out a bit periodically. It's not awful or continuous, but it's not smooth either, as it likely should be.

For instance, this happens most when when I play MIDI notes on my keyboard w/ software instruments. Also, sometimes just during regular playback. The problem seems to improve somewhat when I've been playing for a bit, almost as if the drive or program is taking a bit to get up to speed.

I've been trying to isolate the problem some, monitoring RAM through the Activity Monitor, and while my machine doesn't have a ton of freed up RAM (as low as 5 but usually between 25-50 MB or so), what little there is seems fairly stable in that it doesn't look like it's running out of RAM.

While I recognize I could use more, can you give me any tips as to what might be at the root of this? A system preference? Or really, is RAM the issue? I'm a fairly experienced Live user, so this seems a little odd.

Thanks for your help,
Matt

cant go wrong with more ram - especially with live. it eats ram / cpu like no other... especially if u use vst's, altho perhaps not so much with live's own in-built plugs.

also consider that mac osx will use some of ur ram, which doesnt leave u much for live.

j

For sure, I plan on getting more RAM. I'm also trying to see if I can isolate stuff I don't need to be running full time -- in OS 9 in Macs was easier to disable various drivers.

One thing that was really odd was that when I first got the computer, I had a similar problem w/ GarageBand -- it would tell me I had too much processing going on when I had, like, two instruments and nothing else. It makes me wonder if this is a system thing.