Hey,

I´m a bit fucked up at the moment. Running the latest release of Ableton Live on a modded Win7 system (Ice Edition) on a PC with a i5 processor with 8 gb of ram. My Audiophile 24/96 is set to 512 samples and 44.100 hz and I´m getting constantly crickle-sounds with just running one audioloop, a Ableton drumrack an and one instance of Lush 101...CPU usage is about 50-60%

Any advice what is running wrong?

Thx!

 

LUSH is a massive CPU hog.. probably most of your problem right there.

 

Also try setting your global sample rate to at least 48 kHz. I can't explain to you technically why, but for me it solved many problems. It also will reduce your global latency.

UPDATED!
It might also be a latency problem of your PC in general.
That being written here's what I'd do: check your PC with a latency checker (more on this will follow). It will tell you when a drop-out occurs.
After that free some system resources and recheck your system again with the latency checker: on audio workstation PCs it's best to turn everything off that is not necessarily needed. Like for example hardware (a DVD drive, internal sound cards and also very important: printer ports and also virtual printers. Always try to disable all of that kind in your BIOS and if that's not possible, use your System Manager in Windows.) but also software: you don't need ATI's or nVidia's managers to run your hardware. Only the drivers are needed. If you have done that, use a latency check software to analyse how your PC works under various conditions: without any software started and then with your DAW and your favorite setup, but only one piece of software a time so you can tell how any of them alters your PC's behaviour. The software I used to analyse my PC is "DPS Latency Checker" (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml). It's old and not officially compatible with Windows above 7. So maybe "LatencyMon" (http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon) is more suited for other users. It's free for home use and a Pro version is available if you want to use it commercially. I didn't test this one though. Please keep in mind that you'll have to keep your PC and the latency checker running for some time for the tests as latency problems often occur once in a while. A latency checker can't predict when a latency problem aka. drop-out will occur. So remember to cook some coffee.

Another thing I'd like to add to my initial first two lines: if you're using your external soundcard as main source for windows audio, also make sure that you change the sample rate in your windows audio options under "Output Devices".

Although I don't think that it has too much impact on audio, the variable size of the pagefile.sys can also cause trouble to a flawless workflow, because it changes the size and physical position on the hard drive which forces the hard drive read and write in different positons. This might only change a little bit but every little bit makes your PC work smoother. So If you think it's necessary, you should change your pagefile.sys to a fixed size.

Power Management in BIOS and Windows is important as well. Make sure your PC gets full power when you're working with audio.
(after posting this, i read the same from user "muciones" some posts below.)

 

Last edited: Jan 24, 2016

I hate to be bearer of bad news, but those heavily modded (unofficial versions) of Windows are not all that stable. Somethings get "modded", and who knows how that affects your PC performance. Are you Running Ice Edition with the full animation desktop in the background? You mentioned a "crickle-sound", is that different from "crackle" ? Is it stuttering? Are you getting it on just that one loop sample, or is it on all of them? There could be a million things affecting your sound, and trying to narrow them down to a single causation is somewhat difficult. I am on the beta Test team from Ableton, te newest Beta might solve your issue - https://www.ableton.com/en/help/article/live-9-beta-release-notes/

 

I've said it several times, I have such problems when Power Management is on Balanced profile, somehow my Ableton is not using full Cpu power. Simply put Power Management to Performance, it solves the problem for me

 

Just set your 'Audiophile 24/96 to '1024 samples' instead of your previous setting of '512 samples'... and normally you should get a better workflow in terms of 'crickle' sounds.

'1024 samples' is probably the best setting when you listen (playback) to audio material through almost all the Audio Interfaces/Sound Cards.
For 'live' recording, that's another story, but for listen '1024 samples' is well enough... and will avoid you most of the 'crickle' sounds you can get with lower settings.

 

It's no fun working with such high latency. Neither in a studio environment. Just try to record your keyboard play and you'll know what i mean. If you have to work like this then there is no point in buying an external sound card if you ask me.

 

unload LUSH and watch the 'crickle' go away.. its def. not designed for an older i5.

 

Sage advice, ,though LUSH might have a lush sound to you, it too is quite a lush when it comes to guzzling cpu, and an i5 might be too jive to keep you in stride. Try even running 88.1 though and give that a try. Crickle be gone.

 

Thx guys...I will test your advices later and come back then

And yes...crickle=crackle

@superliquidsunshine: What do you mean by "running 88.1"?

 

Hearing people talk about this stuff just makes me so grateful to my friend that built my computer for me (for free out of spare parts). Put in i5x4... I don't think I've ever been above 70% cpu.

 

I have had some problems with my workstation as well on Win 10 but resolved them the way koenich pointed out.
In addition you should turn off CPU throtteling in BIOS settings.
At this point my crackling problems went away.
To further optimize overall latency, when I use my Desktop as music workstation, I run a batch killing all running apps an services I don't need for that purpose. Like that:
...
taskkill /f /IM TSClientB.exe
taskkill /f /IM TscHelp.exe
sc.exe STOP ReflectService.exe
sc.exe STOP PSI_SVC_2_x64
... and so on, where sc.exe... stands for killing services and taskkill of course for killing tasks ;)

At the end, there only remain apps in the taskmanager, windows definitley needs.

Before starting a session I run the batch and all latency problems are done. No crackles anymore.

p.s.: Downloaded and installed LUSH (Wild thing ARP loaded) + Drum Rack, CPU usage (not playing) goes up from 4% to 17% with Lush UI open (GUI big, quality high), playing random midi notes on drums and Lush results in around 28% CPU usage.

p.p.s.: When I use my old Mackie control, CPU usage goes up 3-4%. It's connected via Midi not USB.

 

Last edited: Jan 24, 2016

you can try doing the usual as in making sure pc power options are set to high performance and running latencymon to see if you have a ill behaved network driver or gpu driver causing high dpc latency.

but i think you may be better of just retiring that almost 20 year old audiophile as it has know issues with running on a lot of Nehalem and beyond mobo's due to the pci slots being bridged off of the pcie buss.

 

Back again

Finally the whole problem was indeed the Lush 101...tested with a few other plugins and the CPU usage was under 5%

Thanx for your help

 

From one Liquid to another, no charge!

 

What CPU clock?
Any energy-saving CPU throttling active?
The clock frequency is much more important than if it's an i5 or an i7, at least if we're talking about a single instance of LuSH.

 

As mentioned above I don´t have the problem with any other vst-synth. So I guess it´s a Lush problem. But for your question here comes a screenshot

 

Really Really sorry as this is completely off topic and innapropriate for me to ask......"but im gonna soz"........"How does one start one of these topics as ive looked at the various options on the homepages but the answer still illudes me as there are natrually some topics i wouldnt mind starting..............Apologies for my innappropriatness "and for the mispelt stuff"...any quick how 2 would be appreciated.......sorry guys.........jnx

 

Thanks, and yes, LuSH is simply much too hungry I would say ;-)
Have you tried:
[OPTIONS] ==> Synthesis ==> Default realtime Quality = Normal
and Current realtime quality = Normal?