Soft synths live - have I reached my computer's limits?

[FredOnEarth]

Hello fellow HC members! My first post here! I've searched around for a while and haven't found any threads regarding this, but apologies if there are and I've missed them!

 

I'm a keyboard player in various projects and bands. So far, I've relied solely on hardware keyboards. But for my most recent shows, I started using Ableton Live for its non-linear backtrack possibilities, and a few soft synths were I found sounds that I wanted to play live but my hardware couldn't reproduce. Since I'm now taking my computer with me on stage, I started to investigate the possibilities of moving my whole keyboard rig into the computer, to make it more portable and cost effective.

 

So I bought a Mac Mini late 2012 with a quad core 2.3 GHz i7, upgraded the RAM to 16GB and mounted two SSD's in it. I purchased a Focusrite Clarett 8pre to go with it, and started to set up some layers in Ableton Live 9 Suite. In my mind, this rig would let me run pretty much any soft synths I wanted, and a fair number at the same time for my more advanced splits/layers setups.

 

My test setup included a grand from Pianoteq 5, a quite large string library from Spitfire Audio (running on Kontakt 5), and a pad and a lead from Native Instruments Massive. At 128 samples buffer size, Ableton tells me my overall latency is 6,73 ms (256 samples brings me up over 10 ms, where I prefer not to be). But when I run all the layers, I start to get some cracks and pops, especially when playing forte. Ableton Live has its own CPU meter, but it's peaking at only 40-50% when I experience these problems.

 

I guess the core question of it all is: Am I reaching the limits of what my computer can perform, or should it be able to do more and I'm just encountering some form of technical issue?

 

Maybe I can perform some measuring of my computers performance with some kind of software that can shed some light on this? Or if I'm in fact pushing my computer's limits, is it the RAM och the CPU that sets the bar in this case?

 

Extremely grateful for all help and input I can get! I would love to learn more about this mysterious area where musical instruments meet the computer world! I get the feeling most people are an expert in either field, but for these types of questions and to better grasp this narrow field, you need to have a deep understanding of both musical instruments and the inner workings of the computer - and those people seem rare... But I would love to become one!

 

Have a great day all of you!

[Phil O'Keefe]

First of all, welcome to the forums!

 

Latency can be a real PITB. Small buffer sizes will reduce the latency, but they can play havoc with your computer system, especially if you're really pushing it in terms of the amount of processing you're asking it to do at once.

 

My suggestion would be to strip it down to one softsynth and then start adding others to it until the problem returns. Another way to test things is to vary the virtual instrument you start with... load Kontakt first, then the other virtual instruments one at a time until it starts to glitch... then next time, start with a different synth plugin first, then start enabling the others one at a time.

 

I had issues with Kontakt 5 causing crashes in Pro Tools HD 10 until I learned that there was an issue with it that could be resolved by deactivating the multi-processor support in the Kontakt options menu. Maybe it's causing a bottleneck for you?

 

Another thing you might try is seeing if there are any driver updates available for your Focusrite interface.

 

You have a half-way decent system there in terms of CPU and RAM, and you should be able to get pretty serious performance from it, but at low latency / buffer settings, any system is eventually going to hit the wall when you ask it to do too much at once.

[midinut]

I'm running a MacBook Pro with similar specs as your Mac Mini and I use Mainstage ($30) to host my VSTs and it allows me to create "patches" for each song we play. I'm not having any issues like you describe. I'm also using my Yamaha MOXF6 as a) a backup keyboard in the event something in the MacBook goes south on me, and b) as an audio interface (as you are using your Focusrite). I'm running Komplete 9 Ultimate, the Arturia V-Collection, Ravenscroft 275, Omnisphere & Trilian, and I haven't brought my system to its knees yet. Mainstage will allow you to do most of what you are using Ableton Live for, including playing backing tracks. Because it's an Apple product it obviously plays nicely with the Mac OS. Cracks and pops are usually related to your audio interface. Have you tried maybe disconnecting your Focusrite and coming straight out of your Mac Mini headphone jack (or audio out)? If you still have cracks and pops, then it's something else. As Phil said, the key here is narrowing it down to the basics and adding one thing at a time until whatever is causing it rears its ugly head. Then you can pinpoint the problem and go to the source website or user forum to ask for some help. If you need further help with it, PM me and I'll try to point you in the right directions at least.