Do you you mean one quick break or repeated stuttering? I would expect ONE short drop because you are disturbing the CPU while it is working. A long period of stuttering if different.

I am going to keep working with ASIO drivers. The one brief time I got them to work, the mixer was immediately responsive and I liked that. With the generic drivers the mixer takes 4 beats to respond, and as rharv pointed out, it is indeed the driver doing it. The drivers I have for my M-Audio are the latest they have on their web page, so I have nowhere else to turn unless ASIO4ALL is going to work in the ling run. The time I tried them, I had no success. Errors from RB that they were not installed or configured correctly. That was weeks ago and I don't remember beyond an hour (hence the teleprompter to sing MY OWN songs...)