Topic: FF 400 FW Crackling + Noise + Pitch alterations for 3 sec random Live8

Help !!

Me and a friend of mine are using the same Fireface model (400 Firewire)
with Ableton Live 8 Suite.

After starting to use Live 8 some months ago, we are experiencing a random crack + noise + pitch scaling that lasts for 2/3 seconds
during recording and during a normal Play.

We had this problem years ago only using a crappy PC without enough memory/CPU power to keep the firewire bus high.

Never had this problem anymore using Live 6 or Live 7 on new Apple machines.

I'm currently using the 15" MacBookPro released before the last ones, with OSX Leopard.

My RME Drivers are the ones released before the current recent release.

My friend is using the latest RME Drivers, with the first generation of MacBookPro with Intel
getting the same results.

We can observe randomly CPU usage peaks occurring during recording and play (monitoring with top from Terminal),
that are not linked to any manual or automated operations on the project.

We tried changing buffer and latency configurations on both Fireface/Ableton, but without success.

Someone can please tell us if this problem is already known ?
and if there is a fix we can do... or if it's a problem within Live that is actually not working correctly on a certain OS/hardware configuration.

Actually i think that Live is running in 32 bit mode. But i can check more precisely if this can be related.

I can say that i have lot of Ableton crashes during the work, and recently also opening projects!!

"Kernel Bad Access"....

I can't test my new CME Bitstream 3x controller because of the regular crash of Live occurring while switching the MIDI options in the Preferences panel.

(SYNC - REMOTE etc)


I'am actually trying to use ProTools 9 HD to see if the problem will occur again.

I have never used PT before, so it will take some days for me to create a complete setup test.

Let us know, we are really sick about that sad

Thanks anyway,
sincerely


K

Re: FF 400 FW Crackling + Noise + Pitch alterations for 3 sec random Live8

Try trashing the Preferences.cfg in /Users/Library/Preferences/Ableton/

This will reset *all* Live preferences.

Re: FF 400 FW Crackling + Noise + Pitch alterations for 3 sec random Live8

Hi Timur.. glad to hear you.

Is this hint related to the frequent Ableton crashes (MIDI panel / opening project / sometime during play or adding effects), or is also for the strange noises occurring while recording/playing (randomly - CPU usage peaks) ?

Re: FF 400 FW Crackling + Noise + Pitch alterations for 3 sec random Live8

It should be tried for both (you can backup your original Preferences.cfg and copy it back later). I can also offer you to send me your Live set and I will see if I can reproduce the dropouts/CPU peaks and analyze where they come from. Just send me a PM with a link to download from (I suggest compressing it with 7z first).