Live 6 & Tascam Us-144, latency Options

[fluxia]

I wonder if anyone can help me with this one.
I have recently both a mac book pro and live 6 software. I use TASCAM US-144 as audio interface(USB).
i set it all up and works fine with buffer size at 2048 (I/O) but if I try to decrease the buffer size in order to decrease the latency live does not work properly anyymore (the sound crackles); when I brought the buffer to theminimum live froze and I had to force it to quit.

Obviously cannot work with an overall latency of 304 ms!!!
I have never had a Mac before and I cannot figure out what the problem is.

[lepetitmartien]

You're wrong, unfortunately. OS X mays be great for a lot of things but it doesn't like reading/writing at the same time for the system, the virtual memory swap, the apps and their files (hence your audio). The only way to be sure it's not the drive which is too accounted for is to use an external drive only for samples/audio files, preferably in Firewire.

I'm sure it'll like the RAM maxed out too. (more RAM = less swap)

Also, if you have other apps running in the background or networks stuff going on, it may be enough to make the CPU hiccup (your problem is characteristic of either the CPU can't follow or the drive can't or both, the reduced latency heading to force quit is CPU related). Verify your energy saving preferences in the system preferences are set to maximum performance when running on the mains.

I hope you get the big picture of the different issues. It may be all, or some only. Get gat first to a normal buffer and start modding the set up (preferences and apps running, drive, ram)