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Audio Stutters - Windows 7 & Live 8

UPDATE - AUG 31, 2010:

As I figured, the issue was indeed related to a lack of CPU power. I invested in a new power-house of a computer (i7 930, 6gb DDR3 ram, ASUS P6T-SE, etc.) and Live has been working flawlessly since. I'm still on Windows 64bit and I'm using the AudioFire 4 (with Echo drivers). I'm running at a buffer size of 256 samples: these days I never get audio glitches/hick-ups and the CPU never gets close to maxing out. It's awesome

Thanks for the all the help!


******************************************************


Update:

-Onboard FireWire disabled via BIOS (not visible in Device Manager)
-1394b Vantec FireWire PCI card w/ verified Texas Instrument chip-set installed
-ASIO4ALL uninstalled
-Echo drivers uninstalled; PC restarted; Echo drivers re-installed
-Echo drivers selected in Live 8's preferences
-With latency set to 2048, there are still some audio stutters during massive builds (lots of tracks playing at once, tons of automation, lots of channels being send to BUS channels (e.g. reverbs))
-CPU definitely maxes out during these stutters (e.g. sometimes shooting to 120%)

Reminder:

-Windows 7 64-bit
-AudioFire 4
-4gb RAM
-ASUS P5K-VM mobo
-Core 2 DUO @ 2.33Ghz

I guess it's safe to say that upgrading the CPU (and thus the mobo and RAM) is necessary to fix this issue? A friend recommended going with the i7 860 as a (semi-affordable) power-house CPU...

Is it worth trying out Windows 7 32-bit? Is there any reason why a fresh install on Windows 7 32-bit with my current hardware may solve this problem (vs my current 64-bit config)?

Re: Audio Stutters - New PC and/or New Sound-card?

What CPU and how much RAM are you currently running? Also, are you running more than one disk drive?

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker What CPU and how much RAM are you currently running? Also, are you running more than one disk drive?

I'm not at my home PC, but at the bare minimum I remember:

-Core 2 DUO @ (something like) 2.33Ghz
-4gb DDR ram
-one disk drive

u shouldnt need to use ASIO4ALL when using Echo Audiofire as it has its own awesome asio-driver. Try removing Asio4All and use Echo drivers instead imo, get the latest from their website. Also you could try changing your firewire card, i remember i had some problems when using the motherboard�s firewire instead of an own dedicated firewire PCI with Texas chip or something. If none of these helps you could learn the awesomeness of freezing/bouncing tracks to wav.

quote:

Originally posted by 19503 u shouldnt need to use ASIO4ALL when using Echo Audiofire as it has its own awesome asio-driver. Try removing Asio4All and use Echo drivers instead imo, get the latest from their website. Also you could try changing your firewire card, i remember i had some problems when using the motherboard�s firewire instead of an own dedicated firewire PCI with Texas chip or something. If none of these helps you could learn the awesomeness of freezing/bouncing tracks to wav.

I've used the native AudioFire drivers (always the latest updates) for the past 2 or 3 years. They perform more poorly than ASIO4All - surprising, I know!

Re: Audio Stutters - New PC and/or New Sound-card?

quote:

Originally posted by Nick Cenik I'll make this short and sweet. Lately I've been writing some tunes that involve a lot of tracks, serious amounts of automation, etc. In Live 8 (latest version), Windows 7 (64-bit), Echo AudioFire 4, and stripped down OS settings (themes, background services, etc.) the tracks have been stuttering during the parts where a lot is going on (e.g. major builds). Cranking the latency all the way up and using ASIO4All helps a bit, but there are still some serious stutters/struggles (CPU maxing out). My Q is this: if I get a better computer (faster CPU, faster HD, more ram, etc) and stick w/ Windows 7 (64-bit) and the AudioFire 4, is it likely that I'll continue to experience these problems? Or, will it be necessary for me to upgrade the computer *AND* the soundcard to get better results? Thank you kindly

what is your current configuration ?

I'm currently running Sonar on an Intel Core 2 Quad at 266 with 8GB and Windows 7 64bit and, having maxed out my ASIO4ALL's latency, rarely run into problems - and I have to really run a heavy load to get it to that point. I should point out that while I close a number of services, such as the HP Printer driver, before starting work on music, I still have a suite of anti-virus software running in the back-ground.

I also have only one drive.

Although I'm still working for it, it would be preferable to have a dedicated sound-card rather than the stock one I'm using (hence the ASIO4ALL WDM wrapper). I'd also like to be using two more drives.

While I'd say going with an upgrade would improve your situation, your problem might be resolved more cheaply with a decent PCI sound-card. When you do upgrade, you can always put the sound-card in the new machine, as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Nick Cenik I've used the native AudioFire drivers (always the latest updates) for the past 2 or 3 years. They perform more poorly than ASIO4All - surprising, I know!

thats weird, i always had problems with asio4all. glad im finished with the whole PC experience, shit like this takes too much time.

i would think it is the firewire chip on your motherboard then.

dont forget abletons freeze track settings this can save loads on cpu

there can be alot of things causing this

windows 64 bit for one is probably not such a great idea
your audio device
background services
anti virus programs are a really bad idea

until you give more specific details, there isnt much anyone can tell you. it could be a conflict between your main board chip and the soundcard.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad until you give more specific details, there isnt much anyone can tell you. it could be a conflict between your main board chip and the soundcard.

If this is stupid, let me know, but my thinking just now was that the settings on the sound-card's driver and the project settings weren't in agreement. If the sound-card driver was set to 48,000 Hz but your project rate was 96K, could that cause the issue?

quote:

Originally posted by 19503 i would think it is the firewire chip on your motherboard then.

That's a good bet. I would start with your FW card and make sure that it has a TI chipset - if it doesn't, that is most likely your problem.

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik That's a good bet. I would start with your FW card and make sure that it has a TI chipset - if it doesn't, that is most likely your problem.

Will you please elaborate a bit on the TI chip-set issue?

-How do I tell if my mobo has a TI chip-set?
-Why is it important to have the TI chip-set?
Etc.

Cheers!

**Edit:

A quick search on Google suggests that the TI is most preferred b/c it supposedly supports the greatest variety of FW audio cards.

**Edit 2:

Considering that Device Manager reports "VIA 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller" under "IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers", I take it my mobo does not have the TI chipset.

Hmm, so I guess the first step is to install something like this --> http://www.pcpartscollection.com/tichpcitofii.html and then disable the mobo's oboard FW? Do you guys have any recommendations re: some of the 'best' PCI TI to Firewire cards?

Cheers!

are you going to post your setup or are we to imagine what you are using to fix your problem. List your components ffs. Chances are you issues has very little to do with your overall cpu power. Upgrading is incredibly stupid if you don't know what the problem is in the first place.

as far as best, there aren't really best. It either has a Texas Instrument chip or it doesn't. You won't find that many choices. But for the love of god, post your setup specs.

quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad post your setup specs.

Windows 7 64bit
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33Ghz
ASUS P5K-VM (VIA 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller)
Echo AudioFire 4
4Gb DDR Ram
Ableton Live 8.14

What else would be helpful to know?

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker If this is stupid, let me know, but my thinking just now was that the settings on the sound-card's driver and the project settings weren't in agreement. If the sound-card driver was set to 48,000 Hz but your project rate was 96K, could that cause the issue?

Not a stupid question at all. Ableton renders audio in real-time, and it changes all samples to the project settings. If there are lots of different sample rates being used it does cause a bit of a lag. There is also an option to save the sample in RAM instead of on the HDD, trying to load too many will cause it to stutter when the disk load gets too high.

Freezing a track works well, will save a bit of CPU load as it precomputes all the calculations and just plays it back again.

Also, Mad for Brad was correct on all points there, they all major issues.


I'm busy sorting out my second HDD at the moment to be my music OS, I'm going to reinstall XP on it and strip it down, install absolutely nothing except my music software, and planning for it to access the first drive for samples and things. Should help reduce my load quite a bit. Next thing I need though is a decent soundcard.

quote:

Originally posted by Nick Cenik I've used the native AudioFire drivers (always the latest updates) for the past 2 or 3 years. They perform more poorly than ASIO4All - surprising, I know!

I'd say that this is an issue... So are you monitoring through your onboard sound then or using the ECHO with the ASIO4ALL..? The card's drivers should be the best to use for it, you don't buy a card for hundreds of dollars just so you have to use ASIO4ALL IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips I'd say that this is an issue... So are you monitoring through your onboard sound then or using the ECHO with the ASIO4ALL..? The card's drivers should be the best to use for it, you don't buy a card for hundreds of dollars just so you have to use ASIO4ALL IMO.

May be a stupid question, but, when you used the "native" drivers, did you use the direct sound or the asio drivers. You don't wanna use direct sound.

The E6550 is possibly the cuplrit, although that depends on what exactly was running when the track got busy. Is it mostly VST, audio, do you have any CPU intensive look ahead mastering plugins running?

Another culprit could be the buffer settings on the ASIO driver (the soundcard drivers really should perform better than ASIO4all). I suspect a lot of the issue is there. You not mentioned them so I suspect they've not been optimised.

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker If this is stupid, let me know, but my thinking just now was that the settings on the sound-card's driver and the project settings weren't in agreement. If the sound-card driver was set to 48,000 Hz but your project rate was 96K, could that cause the issue?

this is why you should use the Echo driver. because then Ableton is master and whatever settings u set up there will be automaticly adjusted in the driver for the soundcard. when opening up the Echo sound-manager thing u cant adjust anything because Ableton is in control and the settings with therefore always match. Asio4All sucks imo and should only be used when using internal MOBO soundcards. I would do both that and get a PCI with Texas firewire chipset. U might as well go for firewire 800 (1394b) incase u need that in the future. Oh and u might wanna disable the MOBO soundcard too in device manager!

my tip concluded:
- Get TI chipset Firewire card (1394b).
- Uninstall Asio4All and use Echo Asio drivers (Ableton will then occupy all sound, and youtube etc wont work while producing).
- Disable MOBO soundcard and firewire.
- Work 16bit 44.1kHz and latency at 512 or 1024 frames (this seemed to work best at my old crap computer).

Should do the trick. Again im so glad i switched to mac lol, coreaudio is great.

Download DPC Latency Checker. If you get lots of red spikes then your firewire chipset sucks. If you are on a laptop and you can't replace your firewire chipset you may need to disable pretty much everything that makes your PC a multimedia hub (camera, keyboard backlight, wireless etc).

Okay, to address a number of the above posts:

-I'm using very few VTSs these days; the vast majority of all my sounds are samples (one-shots + loops). The stutters happen when there is a ton of automation happening (e.g. sending many channels to reverbs on BUS channels) and lots of clips playing at once.
-When I would use the Audiofire 4, Sample rate in the Echo control panel is 44.1kHz w/ a Buffer size of 512 (increasing Buffer size doesn't help).
-24-bit selected for Sample rate in Live's preferences.
-Direct sound in Live is never selected.

quote:

Originally posted by 19503 my tip concluded: - Get TI chipset Firewire card (1394b). - Uninstall Asio4All and use Echo Asio drivers (Ableton will then occupy all sound, and youtube etc wont work while producing). - Disable MOBO soundcard and firewire. - Work 16bit 44.1kHz and latency at 512 or 1024 frames (this seemed to work best at my old crap computer).

These are exactly the steps I plan to take! I'll report back once the new setup is established.

Thank you sincerely for all the help guys

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative Download DPC Latency Checker. If you get lots of red spikes then your firewire chipset sucks. If you are on a laptop and you can't replace your firewire chipset you may need to disable pretty much everything that makes your PC a multimedia hub (camera, keyboard backlight, wireless etc).

Yeah or get a PCMCIA firewire card.

@ the OP: Send an email to echo, its really their problem. You shouldn't be getting stutters with your setup. Maybe they have a forum you can post in? It sounds like a hardware issue either way.

What are you automating when the stutters happen?

My setup doesn't like automating the filter cutoffs in IIEQ Pro for some odd reason, for example.

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