How I tweaked my laptop for MIDI from Aerodrums into Ableton

[drumline97]

For whatever it's worth to the community, here's what I did to make my laptop work well with Aerodrums sending MIDI data to Ableton.

Laptop Windows 11 (1335U Intel i5). This processor has "Efficiency Cores" that are low powered and are terrible for music.
Disable hyperthreading in the BIOS.
Use MSConfig to tweak the number of processors back to the number of physical "Performance Cores" AFTER turning off Hyperthreading. In my case, it was two. Be warned, you need to know what you're doing to adjust this setting; don't say I didn't warn you. Learn how this works before touching it and don't "Just try something", because you could put your laptop into a state where it needs to go through Windows recovery mode, etc, etc.
Disable all the eye candy in Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings
Turn Off Anti-Virus before playing.
Disable Wifi and any other networks before playing. This stops downloads in the background.
Pause your Windows Updates
Disable any other scheduled tasks that could start and slam the CPU.
Reboot the computer every time before you play to reset all the drivers, etc.
This laptop is pretty basic on the install and I don't have a bunch of garbage running in the background.

I could be wrong on this, but the driver for the camera seems to have a problem with crashing when the camera is plugged into a USB3 port. I only plug it into the single USB2 port on my laptop and I have no problem.
I do not use any USB hubs; I found those add a little delay that I don't like.

I use Ableton Live 12 with Steven Slate Drums as VST.
I use LoopBeMIDI1 as the MIDI link between Ableton and Aerodrums.
There is a MIDI map on the forum for Ableton-Aerodrums; I loaded that and it was perfect on Ableton Live 12.

I use a Yamaha Steinberg UR22C because the audio from the built-in laptop hardware has a 8ms delay; no good.
With the Yamaha Steinberg with the above tweaks done on the laptop, I can run it at lowest outbound latency and it sounds perfect. That's 2ms at 192Khz!! If I don't do the tweaks above, particularly disabling the efficiency cores, the audio sounds like distorted noise.

I start Aerodrums and Ableton.
I go into TaskMgr > Details, and set the priority of Aerodrums, Ableton and LoopBeMon.exe to HIGH. If Aerodrums is starved for resources, it'll crash, so you must set it to HIGH. I haven't tested beyond setting everything to HIGH and that seems to make everything calm, so I am done messing with it.

If you have more than one MIDI linking software installed, make sure Aerodrums is set to use the correct one. I've seen it randomly change to another one that I have installed.

For whatever that is worth, I hope this helps somebody.

Best,
C

[Wolfgang]

I could be wrong on this, but the driver for the camera seems to have a problem with crashing when the camera is plugged into a USB3 port.

The PlayStation Eye cam came out in October 2007, one year before USB 3 came out.

[drumline97]

I could be wrong on this, but the driver for the camera seems to have a problem with crashing when the camera is plugged into a USB3 port.

The PlayStation Eye cam came out in October 2007, one year before USB 3 came out.

Hi Wolfgang. Thanks for your input!

That's true. In the case of the driver for the camera, it is dated 5 May 2024. Drivers can be a reason good hardware doesn't run correctly. Updates from Microsoft have been known to make a good driver go bad also.

In my case, the camera will disconnect abruptly randomly. I have used two different Playstation Eye Cameras and it still happens. One I got in the box with Aerodrums and the other I bought new in a box. I have a third one coming and I suspect it'll also disconnect abruptly without warning. To get it working again, I need to shut down Aerodrums and plug and unplug the camera a few times before the system will recognize it again. I could reboot also, but I already have Ableton running and everything else setup.

All the best,
C