Studders/Glitches in audio playback on OSX?

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
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keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

20 Jul 2015

I was hoping someone could help me figure out what is causing this on my MacBookPro.

I play Reason like a keyboard-rig on my church worship band.
Our sets are sometimes over an hour long, so I'm not sure if that is a contributing factor, maybe I'm running out of ram, I don't know. But for an hour or more, I've almost constantly got some sound coming out of Reason. Mostly from Combinators containing Thors, and NNXT's and Malstroms, and Radical Pianos.
Also as of late, I've been playing back an audio track from the sequencer as well, while playing one or two combinators back at once over it.

Yesterday, I noticed a glitch sound while sustaining a pad. I've heard this glitch before.
It usually happens after I've been playing for a while.


As a side-note (possibly related) I ran the latest Reason 8.1 stress test song, and I got pretty pathetic results.

My MBP is not the latest and greatest, but it's not slouch either, with regard to specs.

It's a 2.9Ghz Core i7
16GB of Ram
256GB SSD

And my interface is a Motu 896Mk3.


Any thoughts why my MBP is performing poorly on the test?
Any thoughts about the cause of the occasional glitch sound?
Any idea if the two are related?



Thanks in advance!


edit: As a side note, my 896Mk3 can connect via USB 2.0 or Firewire. I am using USB 2.0 only because I haven't bought a firewire cable yet.

Also I have 2 midi controllers (M-Audio Axiom 61 & M-Audio Oxygen-49) connected to one usb port via a passive USB hub. And then the other usb port has my 896Mk3 connected.
Once I get a firewire cable, that will free up a USB port and I can stop using the hub. I don't know if that will make a difference or not, but I thought it worth mentioning.

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Puckboy2000
Posts: 265
Joined: 22 Mar 2015
Location: SoCal

20 Jul 2015

I have noticed this too on my older MBP. To me, even though I heard otherwise, this has to do with the cooling and/or battery. My Mac would be OK for an hour, then it would really start getting hot and the fans would work overtime, then it would glitch (going as far as saying the computer was too slow). Same thing when the battery would get low. The reason I think they are related is that when my computer would heat up and the fans would get overworked, the computer said it was not charging (while plugged in). I never resolved the issue. I bought a new Mac. But, you might want to check your battery if it's an older Mac (3 years or older). Also, I am not sure how the system works, but, if possible, check the cooling. Good luck and let me know if u resolve it, as I a sure I will eventually run into this issue again.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than than that" - George Carlin

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Puckboy2000
Posts: 265
Joined: 22 Mar 2015
Location: SoCal

20 Jul 2015

And I boosted to 16GB ram and it still did not help.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than than that" - George Carlin

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

20 Jul 2015

I wonder if you can upgrade the cooling fans?

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

20 Jul 2015

That still doesn't explain the poor stress test results.
I have tried that when the computer was cool.

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Puckboy2000
Posts: 265
Joined: 22 Mar 2015
Location: SoCal

21 Jul 2015

This is a head scratcher. I only know enough about computers to be a little bit dangerous. Hopefully some other forum users might know. Like I said, I am very curious on if it can be resolved as i don't want to buy another Mac if it starts happening again.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than than that" - George Carlin

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

21 Jul 2015

If it were a PC I would know plenty of things to do to speed it up.
But this is my first MAc, and I am not terribly familiar with OSX, other than an operational knowledge.

I bought this thing thinking it would be all the computer I would need for a long time. At least 4 years or so. But it's not turning out that way. I almost think I should've bought a PC. I could've got a Gaming Lenovo or ASUS for less money.

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

05 Aug 2015

So at the recommendation of several forum members, I wiped my hard drive and installed OSX Yosemite fresh.

It seemed to make an improvement at first. I got much further in the Benchmark song.

But then when I tried to run just a simple combinator, with a Radical Piano, a Thor and a Malstrom, after I played a bit, something happened, and the RadPi was tuned differently than the Mal and Thor even though they were all in the same combinator, and transpose=0 on all of them in the combinator programmer.

And I have two midi controllers hooked up, and both of them had the same issue so I don't think it was my controller.

I restarted Reason and after a little while it did it again.
This was using a project file that I normally use for playing live, which has lots of combinators.

So I started a new project, added that same piano/pad combi and played a bit. It seemed better.
But then my computer was acting really slow. My mouse and keyboard kept disconnecting and reconnecting and they were really slow.
And the computer it'self was just acting like it was running some cpu-intensive app in the background, but as far as I know it wasn't.

What did I do?
My laptop was working better before the clean install of the OSX.

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QVprod
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05 Aug 2015

Wow that's definitely crazy behavior. One thing though? Did your laptop come with Yosemite? Not sure old your laptop is but sometimes Newer OS apple puts out are compatible with older hardware but not efficient for it. Personally I Have a 2010 MBP Intel core 2 duo with 8GB ram. When I upgraded to Yosemite, I had audio driver issues with even the default audio card (it would just randomly go silent until I rebooted) and crazy cpu spikes with mainstage. Few months ago I wiped it clean and reinstalled Mavericks and I no longer have those issues.

I doubt you wanna wipe it clean again though, so a quick google search of "high cpu usage" brought up this. ]Maybe one of these links can solve your problem https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... bp&es_th=1

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

05 Aug 2015

QVprod wrote:Wow that's definitely crazy behavior. One thing though? Did your laptop come with Yosemite? Not sure old your laptop is but sometimes Newer OS apple puts out are compatible with older hardware but not efficient for it. Personally I Have a 2010 MBP Intel core 2 duo with 8GB ram. When I upgraded to Yosemite, I had audio driver issues with even the default audio card (it would just randomly go silent until I rebooted) and crazy cpu spikes with mainstage. Few months ago I wiped it clean and reinstalled Mavericks and I no longer have those issues.

I doubt you wanna wipe it clean again though, so a quick google search of "high cpu usage" brought up this. ]Maybe one of these links can solve your problem https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... bp&es_th=1
I only use this MBP for audio, so wiping isn't a big deal if it would help me.

It's a 2011 I think, so I'm sure Yosemite wasn't original.

If I wanted to try Mavericks, where could I find an install file for it?

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QVprod
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Joined: 15 Jan 2015
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05 Aug 2015

keeverw wrote:
QVprod wrote:Wow that's definitely crazy behavior. One thing though? Did your laptop come with Yosemite? Not sure old your laptop is but sometimes Newer OS apple puts out are compatible with older hardware but not efficient for it. Personally I Have a 2010 MBP Intel core 2 duo with 8GB ram. When I upgraded to Yosemite, I had audio driver issues with even the default audio card (it would just randomly go silent until I rebooted) and crazy cpu spikes with mainstage. Few months ago I wiped it clean and reinstalled Mavericks and I no longer have those issues.

I doubt you wanna wipe it clean again though, so a quick google search of "high cpu usage" brought up this. ]Maybe one of these links can solve your problem https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... bp&es_th=1
I only use this MBP for audio, so wiping isn't a big deal if it would help me.

It's a 2011 I think, so I'm sure Yosemite wasn't original.

If I wanted to try Mavericks, where could I find an install file for it?
If you had ever downloaded it from the App Store yourself you still can. If not then you'd have to find it somewhere or get a friend to download it for you. Since it was free there should be no problem about where you get it from. Here's a link a friend of mine used recently http://www.techspot.com/downloads/6268- ... ricks.html

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

05 Aug 2015

The link seems to be working.

Thanks!


edit: I think that link is just an update installer, not a full installer. It's not large enough to be the full installer.

I wonder where I can get it.

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

05 Aug 2015

This is a pain.

Maybe I should just sell it and get a used Korg M3. lol

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QVprod
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Joined: 15 Jan 2015
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05 Aug 2015

keeverw wrote:The link seems to be working.

Thanks!


edit: I think that link is just an update installer, not a full installer. It's not large enough to be the full installer.

I wonder where I can get it.
There's only one install file for Mac OSX. Updates and full installs use the same file.

Just checked, apparently I sent a different link
yeah, http://getintopc.com/softwares/operatin ... -download/

keeverw
Posts: 131
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

06 Aug 2015

I think I figured out my problem of different tuning on my piano and pad sounds.
Really it was Radical Piano that was out of tune. Everything else seems fine.
I think maybe when I downloaded it, somehow it got corrupted.
Not only is it out of tune, but when I sustain it the samples kinda wobble and sound strange (this is on several different presets I tried)
Because I replaced it in my rack with an NNXT-A-Grand piano and it sounded fine.
And everything else worked fine. So I will try to just re-download RadPi later.

And I do think I will try Mavericks as well.

Thanks!

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