Hey guys. I recently bought a new laptop and have been having some audio stutters in my live shows. I use a Traktor Kontrol S5, and I have a Lenovo Ideapad 500 Laptop (A10 8700p CPU, 8gb ram, 1tb HDD). I also run my usb latency at 4 ms, at 256 samples. This gives me an 18 ms Buffer (Massive and nearly unacceptable), and yet i still get audio stutters with this setup. I do use 2 FX banks, both with reverb/delay/Iceverb. I do not use keylock. Does anyone have any ideas? My laptop runs windows 10 and i’ve optimized it strictly for audio. Let me know if you have any recommendations. Thanks everyone.
Up the latency, see what difference that makes. You need a balance between processor and latency for a smooth operation. Using a processor like that, running at max spec will drive the audio engine hard, and something will give.
Are the stutters happening when the FX banks are active? or can you ‘make’ the stutters happen?
I’d say the latency is set too low for the processor to cope.
Don’t know how you find 18ms unacceptable.. that’s pretty good tbh.
Is 18ms setting it high? I thought if its running at say 4ms then it has to get the information out sooner? 18ms is alot higher than any other dj ive seen. What would you recommend i set them to? No i cant quite seem to recreate it, its mainly when i adjust those MS/sampling that i can get it to do it worse.
I actually just double checked what im running. I am at 512 samples, in a 3ms usb buffer, with a total output latency of 18ms. I have relatively consistent spikes into the red.
It’s not down to what other DJ’s use. It’s down to your setup, you need to adjust the latency to prevent that stuttering What type of DJ’ing do you do?
Super high latency is essential for turntablists, but not necessarily essential for everything else. Certainly good latency is desirable.
Latency will never be eradicated on current setups, we’re talking milliseconds here. 3ms is great, recreate the glitch, raise the samples. Try to recreate the glitch again, then see how that affects things. Watch the ‘load’ meter too, this will jump up when you start using samples and FX, when the load meter maxes out, you’ll notice a dropout..
This has been super helpful. I guess im a little confused, would a high demand be a 1ms usb with 128 samples? I dont know which extreme is demanding and which isn’t. I was pretty sure 512 samples at a 3 ms usb buffer was extremely NOT demanding?
Not necessarily demanding, but once you start adding processor intensive stuff like various FX and especially multiple FX over various decks, and even moreso, samples, the processor will bow under pressure. Also consider any background processes. Sometimes background programs can have an impact. Turn wifi off and turn off progs or apps that you don’t need.
Yeah ive got all unneccesary background proccesses off, all fancy transitions in Windows 10 off, and pretty much all the optimization recommendations by NI. It just seems like im running pretty low on the spec sheet for this laptop. Do you think the a10 is just getting bogged down? Its nearly 1:1 in power to an i5. It should be flying.. given the relatively high 18ms im getting. The other thing, and while i know i shouldn’t compare my setup to someone elses, but everyone else i know, their load bar isn’t even visible for the most part. Yet before im even activating effects, samples, or using stems, im already spiked in the red. Forget about stems. lol
Honestly i can live with the 18ms, its the fact that im already sacrificing that, and im still stuttering. If i could just do 18 ms with NO stutter then i can live with the delay, which will work okay. But it seems like i’ve got my settings on really low, and the stutters are still here. Thanks for all the quick replies.
Are you also mixing your tracks internally in Traktor? Hooked up to an audio interface? I notice a huge jump in CPU usage when I’m mucking around just on my laptop without connected to my Audio 10 running through my xone92.
I personally notice my mac chugging a lot more when I’ve tried using traktor with my friends S4. Cause all the mixing, EQ, filters, and FX are all processed in the program rather than being changed through an analog audio signal coming from a DAC Interface.
Funny thing is, even when mixing externally with Traktor, all of the internal EQ & filters are still being applied in the signal chain. All that is missing is the final process of mixing tracks. But, that is also the advantage - you can midi map some EQ stuff on a separate controller if your mixer doesn’t support it.
I would have thought by selecting “External” under mixing mode, this would bypass the internal EQ and Filters, as they are no available while engaged in this mode. That seems very redundant if processing power is being used on a feature which is disabled.
