Ableton Transports Freezes when I open Max windows 8

Howdy folks -

I am trying to run both Ableton Live (8 & 9) and Max 6 at the same time - Max in standalone, not as Max4Live. Ableton's sound driver is my mackie firewire mixer; Max's sound driver is my old firepod. I want to send MIDI from Ableton to Max via loopbe1, then in Max that midi gets changed into signal, and that signal is sent out the firepod's (dc-coupled) outputs to inputs on my modular synth, for control purposes.

I can't do this in Max4Live because M4L uses the same audio driver as the ableton session it is in, and I need to have Max's signals going out of the firepod while audio i/o is from the mackie.

I have done all this before using my Macbook, and last night (before I had loopebe1) I did it by connecting the midi ports on the Firepod together (sending MIDI from ableton out of the Firepod midi out, back into the firepod midi in, Max listens to firepod midi in - it worked but was not ideal).

The problem now is that whenever I have both Max and Ableton open, the transport on Ableton freezes or stops working. Does anyone know why this is happening, and how I could fix it? It's strange because I was running both applications simultaneously just last night, and I do it all the time on my Macbook.

I'm trying to do this on my Windows 8 desktop.

Thanks!

- Tom