I’m using a MBP to run Traktor 2. MBP has 4 gig ram and is a 2.4 ghz core 2 duo (2010 model I think). I’ve got a Kontrol S4 and I have the latency set to 256, which I think is about right for this MBP.
Anyway, lately I’ve been getting a bit of intermittent spiking and sound drop outs. I think it could be because I’m running iTunes and safari in the background. I thought (but could be wrong) that this MBP would be powerful enough to run Traktor and a few other light apps in the background without serious issues. Am I wrong? Anyone else have a similar spec laptop and do you run stuff in the background?
Also, I tried raising the latency to 512 and I still got the popping - after checking Activity Monitor it appears Safari can be a bit of a memory hog!
Safari is a memory hog. My wife’s MacBook locks itself up every few weeks because she leaves safari open continuously with about a dozen pages open. She’s getting a ram upgrade today She only has 1gb though and the machine is 2-3 years older than yours.
What happens if you quit ITunes and safari, reboot and then only run Traktor?
Safari and iTunes are both resource hogs, but the culprit is probably flash. If there’s a flash website running in any web browser on OS X, the whole system can slow to a crawl.
The reason is that Adobe still hasn’t released a stable, efficient version of the flash runtimes for any OS but windows.
If the flash plugin isn’t running, I don’t have to do anything to optimize my system (running chrome with several extensions, quicksilver, spotlight, wifi…even openssh, mysql and web servers). And I can run Traktor, Maschine, and Logic all at the same time, admittedly only processing audio and without any seriously hungry plugins loaded and about 11-15ms of total system latency. (i use Maschine’s step sequencer instead of actually drumming on pads when working this way)
If a website with flash is running, my fans speed up and my CPU temp spikes instantly…and any one of the audio apps by itself can sart malfunctioning.
Fixing it just requires quitting the flash plugin host. Hell…it’s using 20% CPU right now and the only thing that I know that’s using it is a page on the ableton live DJ forums with an embedded soundcloud player. It’s not playing…just sitting there. And it’s using 20%.
I haven’t actually tried this yet. Mainly because the spikes are so intermittent, and also when in the middle of a mix it’s not very fun having to reboot. I’d assume it would fix the problem though.
She only has 1gb though and the machine is 2-3 years older than yours.