i7 compatibility with Ableton and Traktor

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Level 1

8 points

i7 compatibility with Ableton and Traktor

Hey guys, I have an Early 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 13" (see below my comp setup)

The reason I bought this MacBook Pro is to use performing Live using Native Instruments Traktor and Ableton Live. I have gone back and forth to Apple, Native Instruments, and Ableton Live over the phone about the issues. as you can imagine each kind of blame the other... I bought the latest MacBook Pro to not have these issues. If I am honest it took a lot of energy going back and forth when I need to travel and work so truth be told it was never resolved. I use my old MacBook Pro to tour still and this Mac has been sitting here for maybe 11 months now. Now I want to revisit it as I know that my issues were new news to everyone from Apple, Ableton, and Native Instruments.

The issue:
When I play audio files inside of Traktor (normally 4 decks) every 15/20 minutes the computer will randomly glitch the audio for a split second. Which, as you can imagine, is unacceptable. I can almost make the computer do it on command by pressing cmd+space and searching the computer for something random whilst the tracks are playing. This kicks out the glitch. My computer should be well more than capable of handling these CPU loads. Native Instruments sent me the most stable basic program version of theirs from years ago. They have millions of users that use MacBook Pros, the same outcome happened.

With Ableton, it is the graphics card inside of my MacBook Pro, certain plugins will flicker like a television screen that uses an old antenna. Also it CPU spikes on big projects that it should have no problem with.

Lastly on iTunes the other day to my horror, the audio glitched 4 times on one track. This is what had me worried that it is indeed a problem inside of this Apple MacBook Pro.

After phoning Apple the CSRadvised me to back everything up and update to OS X Sierra. I googled Sierra compatibility with Ableton Live and Traktor and I found case after case, problem after problem.

Does anyone know about this or has anyone found a solution. I understand that I use this MacBook Pro for a very specific reason (to perform with Traktor and Ableton Live) but surely that should make finding the solution easier.

Any ideas, techies?

One side note: I tried this with Yosemite and El Capitan. I updated to El Capitan because there was no stone left to un-turn...

Many thanks,

David

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Nov 21, 2016 8:14 AM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

85,366 points

Nov 21, 2016 8:57 AM in response to ugugpkrefr

Do the software vendors for Ableton and Traktor have their own forums? You might find more people using them there.

Meanwhile you can also check what you have installed to see if there might be other background installed software that could interfere. http://www.etrecheck.com is good at isolating them.

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Answer 2

ugugpkrefr Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 21, 2016 9:21 AM in response to a brody

Thanks Brody

I have been searching the forums with Ableton and Native Instruments (Traktor) to no avail at the moment.

Thanks for the background check software this is something I have wanted to do on all of my Macs

It is however out of the box and hardily been used for anything. Still maybe a plugin that I installed piggy backed some nonsense into a hidden folder etc

Thanks again for replying so quick, I will keep digging

David

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Answer 3

a brody

Level 10

85,366 points

Nov 23, 2016 6:44 PM in response to ugugpkrefr

You can keep whatever operating system functions best on its own partition for your software, and use the newer operating system for software you know works with the newer operating system. Details about partitioning are on my tip:

How to format a drive, or disc for maximum portability?

I recommend using the recommended operating system by the software developer. Newer ones may not works predictably.

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Answer 4

ugugpkrefr Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2016 11:42 PM in response to a brody

Thanks Brody!

In fact I check a bunch of forum stuff and it is a weird concoction of things going on with software and hardware!

Inside the i7 the graphics card isn't compatible with certain parts of Ableton live, this is something for Ableton to sort out.

Separately the Native Instruments Traktor issue I was having was in fact an issue with Apples Core Audio. It was adding and subtracting certain files into the folder attached to core audio (or something like that)

This happens with MacBook Pros that are newer than the 2013 models with software from Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan.

The fix is to update to Sierra, as Apple have apparently fixed this Core Audio issue. I can attest to that as I have updated to OS Sierra and it seems to be working...

Sierra has some compatibility issues with Ableton Live though, apparently. Unless I update to the latest version whose projects cannot be opened of any earlier versions!

Not totally out of the woods yet but this is good to know. I have a £2800 laptop back doing what I wanted it to do a year ago!

Thanks for chiming in guys

D

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