04-01-2012, 05:36 PM

i have a 2006 macbook 13 in. white 2gb/320hd (aftermarket) and over the past month i have been experiencing problems when im making music in ableton live 8. problems such as: breif moments of loud static (whether it be from the headphone port or when i'm running my m-audio usb interface) & when i'm recording MIDI with 3rd party plugins, it will freeze up on me, making it nearly impossible to make my music. i just recently performed a backup to my 1tb external hd to free up space on this laptop, i'm not proficient when it comes to the inner workings of my macbook, so i may have to take it in for service... but - if anybody here on mac-forums could give me some tips or advice on how i may resolve it without having to take it in - it would be much apreciated! thanks in advance!

04-08-2012, 06:00 PM

Strange that it just started doing this...

It could be a few things. It could be that your out of RAM which can cause the freeze ups (2GB is low for music production). You can buy more Ram for cheap online or at any computer store in your area so that's not a big issue.

It could be your CPU just not being powerful enough to run the stuff anymore. You can get around that by raising the audio buffer or any audio/MIDI latency settings that Ableton has (I never use Live so I don't know). If you raise the latency settings, you will start to notice a slight delay from when you press a key on your midi keyboard or activate a MIDI note in the computer to when the sound associated with that note starts playing. It can be frustrating for live MIDI performances but it will use significantly less processing power so it's a compromise.

Lastly it could be a hardware failure somewhere else in your computer which might be bad. That would involve taking it in for repairs.

Do you use your USB interface for playback and recording? If you have it selected in sound preferences (under system preferences) for both input and output, then your computer's internal sound card is completely inactive which would rule it out as breaking.