Live randomly stop, then starts during session view playback

[Colin And The Clouds]

Hi! I’m an experienced Live user on a MBP M1 Pro 2022.

Latest version of Live is installed. (11.1.5)

My problem:
When running my band’s show the session randomly drops out (no audio, nothing, it just takes a break), only to come back on within a second. It happens every few minute or so.

I have experienced CPU overload before and this is nothing like it. No cracks, no slowing down, just stops and then starts again from the same place.

I’ve scanned the internet the whole day without results, I beg you for advice.

Session is handling 8 backing tracks, a lot of midi automation for lighting (dmxis), a few MIDI clips for external hardware like Kemper and vocal pedal. All on highest buffer size.

On top of this the laptop is also running Resolume Avenue for projections, wich stays in normal tempo, making the visuals out of sync eventuallay.

CPU average around 30%, so pretty tough but NEVER peaking or crackling.

Also tried running all clips in RAM (16gb on the laptop) but still the same problem. Help!

This is my first post, all replies are very appreciated!

[Greenapples2019]

That must be really frustrating and annoying, having invested so much in your set-up. Here’s a few thoughts, that you may already have tried:
1. Try setting the buffer size to 128, it seems to be a sweet spot on the M1 MBPs
2. Is the midi automation for DMXiS to change between banks/presets, or to vary (colour balance, strobe, dimmer etc.) within a preset? If the latter then you may be pushing dmxis too hard; although theoretically it can do that, it functions best to switch between presets, and then use the dmxis controls themselves to provide movement/variations rather than midi automation
3. Can you disable each of your tracks one by one and then see at what point the dropouts occur?
4. Is it definitely ableton rather than your audio interface dropping out? We sometimes had something similar where sound would go but it was the interface dropping out or rebooting.

If I think of anything else I’ll let you know, and good luck finding the cause, it’s the last thing you need to have on your mind while prepping for a gig.

[Pitch Black]

If you don’t have Resolume booted, does the problem still occur? Asking because I run Modul8 on my M1Max MBP along with Live (and both on a 2015 MBP before that). Although it’s always worked in the past I always feel that it could be pushing the system quite hard.

Perhaps Resolume is temporarily tying up all the system resources? Perhaps there’s an SSD access bottleneck. The fact that Live picks up the audio from where the silence began makes me suspect this - if it were a “dropout” or temporary loss of connections to the audio interface, the audio would come back after the gap, but still be in sync with the video.

Could you try running your video content off an external SSD and see if it makes any difference?

Do you have your show computer suitably “lobotomized” for the stage? Wi-Fi off / all unnecessary background processes curtailed? Have a look at this for a fully hardcore list of things to prep an AV computer for stage (from QLab). There’s a script you can run pre-show to turn things off, and post-show to restore them. Most of these things can also be set in System Prefs etc:

https://qlab.app/docs/v4/general/preparing-your-mac/

Just speculation here, I hope it’s some help, the brave new world of M1 Macs really does promise to make delivering AV-audio-lighting shows much more straightforward… in theory…

[Colin And The Clouds]

That must be really frustrating and annoying, having invested so much in your set-up. Here’s a few thoughts, that you may already have tried:
1. Try setting the buffer size to 128, it seems to be a sweet spot on the M1 MBPs
2. Is the midi automation for DMXiS to change between banks/presets, or to vary (colour balance, strobe, dimmer etc.) within a preset? If the latter then you may be pushing dmxis too hard; although theoretically it can do that, it functions best to switch between presets, and then use the dmxis controls themselves to provide movement/variations rather than midi automation
3. Can you disable each of your tracks one by one and then see at what point the dropouts occur?
4. Is it definitely ableton rather than your audio interface dropping out? We sometimes had something similar where sound would go but it was the interface dropping out or rebooting.

If I think of anything else I’ll let you know, and good luck finding the cause, it’s the last thing you need to have on your mind while prepping for a gig.

Thank you so much for a good and helpful reply, I’m happily surprised the replies were so quick!

Tried removing both resolume and dmxis from the setup but still the same lag… It seems when I remove some tracks it works again.

Tried changing interface, no difference.

I am pushing the computer for certain, but CPU is still around 30-40% no peaks…

My thought now is that automations on the tracks are causing the problem, some bug or similar.

I will report back when further investigations have been made

[Greenapples2019]

You're welcome! That CPU usage seems really high for just running backing tracks; our live set has mics, drums, bass, midi, dmxis, backing tracks, clicks, midi controllers, loopers etc etc etc and we never get to 30% on an M1 MBP. Could it be a plug-in or drum/instrument rack? Are they tracks imported from an earlier set i.e. one created on an Intel Mac? I had a problem with this when I got my M1; deleting the track and recreating it solved the issue.

There's definitely something awry, good luck finding it before your next gig!

[yur2die4]

You mentioned trying another interface.

You also mentioned in the original post having max buffer setting.

Have you had any differences by reducing the buffer size as others suggested?