"Lagging" Sound from Reason

I posted this question under a different heading, as my questions relates to changing settings in OSX, but perhaps someone here can help me.


I got a Macbook, 2.16 Intel Duo, OSX 10.4 in August of 2007, and it has always treated me well. However, recently I've been having some problems when running some music production programs (Propellerhead Reason, Ableton Live, and DigiDesign ProTools): When I play complex songs in these programs, the sound comes out "clippy" and "laggy". I would like to start using Logic, but I didn't get it installed when I bought the notebook, and I don't have the cash so much right now. I've changed the buffer settings in these programs, I've upgraded to my maximum of 2GB RAM, but still popping and lagging.


From forums intended for those music programs, I've narrowed it down to a couple last troubleshooting options. The first is to change the buffer size in the Mac Core Audio Drivers, which I can't find. Anyone know if this is an option I can adjust? The second option is someone else's suggestion that I have too much information running down one IDE channel, causing the unwanted lag / pops. I only have one hard drive, but it's running out of space (4GB left of 160GB). Could this be to blame? If so, would it be suitable to grab an external hard drive to move all of my music and schoolwork over to?

Does this sound like the right path? Any other suggestions?
Any help would be appreciated, as I can't afford a new notebook, and I'm trying to get these songs finished for my first album. Thanks!

It could be that your lack of hard drive space is to blame. Mac os uses space on your drive as temporary storage when running applications, and a minimum of 5 to 10Gb is recommended.
A faster (7200 rpm) external drive is a bonus when working with music files, and it sounds like you could do with one, But before you go down that route.. By any chance do you have airport running while using these programs? I ask because this is what caused the same problem for me! The last airport update breaks most audio programs so you get crackles and CPU spikes. The solution is it turn airport off when using these programs, or revert the update to AirPortExtremeUpdate2007004. Hope this helps

HUGE help

Tweaked,

Thanks for the help. I freed up about 10 more gigs on my hard drive by sacrificing a bunch of my least played cd's, and that did help some, but the Airport tip was a true winner. I will post back later if anything changes, but after a half hour of crackle-free jamming, things are looking very good.

Thanks again man, big gold star and bragging rights to you.

I work a lot with those progs you listed before, I would DEFINITELY look into an external hard drive as your next purchase. I personally think the best set up for you would be to throw everything on the external except those recording progs. Therefore when you're running them, the main hard drive is going nice and easy allowing the best performance. I had the same problem for a while.

Phi.Lion said:

Tweaked,

Thanks for the help. I freed up about 10 more gigs on my hard drive by sacrificing a bunch of my least played cd's, and that did help some, but the Airport tip was a true winner. I will post back later if anything changes, but after a half hour of crackle-free jamming, things are looking very good.

Thanks again man, big gold star and bragging rights to you.

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No problem Phi.Lion, I'm glad that worked for you!

Happy jamming!!

Jmurr187 said:

I work a lot with those progs you listed before, I would DEFINITELY look into an external hard drive as your next purchase. I personally think the best set up for you would be to throw everything on the external except those recording progs. Therefore when you're running them, the main hard drive is going nice and easy allowing the best performance. I had the same problem for a while.

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Seconded, keep your recorded audio on a separate drive. Better stability and you wouldn't want to lose those files!