Reference Manual

567 Computer Audio Resources and Strategies
Chapter 32
Computer Audio Resources and
Strategies
Real-time audio processing is a demanding task for general-purpose computers, which are usu-
ally designed to run spreadsheets and surf the Internet. An application like Live requires a pow-
erful CPU and a fast hard disk. This section will provide some insight on these issues, and should
help you avoid and solve problems with running audio on a computer.
32.1 Managing the CPU Load
To output a continuous stream of sound through the audio hardware, Live has to perform a
huge number of calculations every second. If the processor can’t keep up with what needs to be
calculated, the audio will have gaps or clicks. Factors that affect computational speed include
processor clock rates (e.g., speed in MHz or GHz), architecture, memory cache performance
(how efficiently a processor can grab data from memory) and system bus bandwidth — the com-
puter’s “pipeline“ through which all data must pass. For this reason, many people involved with
pro audio use computers that are optimized for musical applications.
Fortunately, Live supports multicore and multiprocessor systems, allowing the processing load
from things like instruments, effects and I/O to be distributed among the available resources.
Depending on the machine and the Live Set, the available processing power can be several
times that of older systems.
If you are working on a multicore or multiprocessor system, you will want to enable support for it
in the CPU tab of Live’s Preferences.