Time Machine Audio Dropout

Gig Performer on Mac OS X
1

Just started using Time Machine and noticed audio dropout. I unplugged the storage back up and audio dropout stopped. Any idea why this is happening?

2

Wanna tell us about your configuration? Computer, os version, audio interface, RAM, sample rate, buffer size?

3

Current Hardware:

  • Novation 61SL MkIII

  • Novation 61SL MkIII (Yes, I use two of the same controllers)

  • PreSonus AudioBox 96

  • MacBook Air 13-inch Laptop - Apple M4 chip - 24GB Memory - 512GB SSD (My first Mac, have been a PC guy for years)

  • VSTs - Mainly Trinity VST & Sforzando

Not sure on sample rate & buffer size. Where can I find these?

4

Options → Audio Setup

5

Sample Rate - 48000Hz

Audio Buffer Size - 512 samples (10.7 ms)

6

Some tips: [blog] Optimize your Mac for a gig

7

Maybe try 256 and/or 128 for the heck of it?

8

Found this:

Time Machine backups often cause audio dropouts because the background file transfers overwhelm your Mac’s drive read/write speeds or compete for CPU. When a backup kicks in, it can interrupt your DAW (like Logic Pro or Cubase), resulting in a split-second pause or glitch

9

OK, maybe I’ll just run Time Machine once a day when I’m making changes and turn off during rehearsals and gigs.

10

One thing to check…if you just started using Time Machine then it has to start by making a complete backup of your computer. That would be intensive but once that’s done, Time Machine just makes incremental backups of things that change. That’s much less intensive and may not interrupt the audio. It is worth trying.

11

Got it. I will check it out and see how it works while incremental backups are made.

12

That is what we recommend in the article that I linked above.

We recommend that you turn off Time Machine before your gig so that backup operations don’t interfere with your live performance. That said, if Time Machine is not interfering with your audio, it’s worth keeping it running during rehearsals or while you’re designing your Gig Performer rackspaces as it makes it really easy to revert to an earlier version of your gig file if necessary.

13

Personally, I do TM Backups only manually! This is more ‘predictive’ to me and better thean forgetting to pause/switch off background TM while making music :wink: