I have 20GB RAM, 3.4GhZ i7 iMac. Why CPU spikes?

I just installed Native Instruments Komplete, but am running into CPU spikes when I use more than 3 or 4 instruments at once.

I have 20GB RAM, with 10 GB Free
iMac 3.4GhZ i7 (OSX 10.7)
Running at 250 sample buffer (5ms)
No other apps open
Running system on a 250 GB SSD with 80GB Free

Any ideas?

Aloha c.

You have a killer system. This should not be a prob.

Couple of things.

1-What audio/MIDI I/O device are you using? (makes a diff)
2- Are you using the Mac’s "built-in-audio’ circuitry (don’t do it.)
3-Try increasing buffer size to max (play back only)
and then if spikes stop, slowly decrease to taste.


HTH
{‘-’}

What instruments are you running exactly? 3 or 4 instruments and 10 GB used is pretty massive. Are you running Cubase in 32-bit?