Ableton Forum

I keep getting this error every time i try to export my Live Set. It has *ahem* 58 tracks in it (not all being used at once). My computer is 2.4GHz Dual Core with 4GB DDR3 RAM.

I can't imagine how the set can be too big. A professionally made set would be even larger than that. I'm looking at getting a new machine which will have 8GB DRR3 RAM. Is this likely to be the solution to the problem or is there another issue?

Can anybody help? Thanks.

Is it Ableton's error or your OS's?

It's an Ableton error.

The pain is, i still have piano and vocals to add to the drums, bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and violin i've already done. I'm sure that if they were mostly sampled midi instruments, it wouldn't be a problem. But unfortunately, only the drums are fake.

Freeze and flatten if you can, so it loads from the HD rather than from memory.

Also, 50+ tracks seems excessive. Can you consolidate any multiple tracks down to one track?

Well so far i have my five instruments; Drums, bass, electric and acoustic guitar, and violin (still have piano and vocals yet). For each instrument, i have separate tracks for separate parts of the song requiring varied settings. And for each of those, i have frequently duplicated the same track with different effects and EQ to give a rich sound.

For example, my bass tracks are in two groups (so they don't instantly cut from one recording to another). Each of those groups is split into different effect settings, which are then split into three tracks. There is the main bass track, then there's a second track with the same recordings which is tailored to define the bottom end, and a third one to define the treble to give a balanced sound.

This gives way more EQ control, and gives a more precise application of effects. But i am already thinking of condensing it down somehow. The only problem is that in lots of cases, the multi-tracking is done just to get the volume. The max gain you can apply in a track is of course 6db, and sometimes it isn't enough. Trying to record at a higher gain to begin with often distorts it before the interface has even got the signal to the software. And setting compressor effect outputs too high often distorts it too.

EDIT: In my past experience, i've found that Garageband (which we all agree is kinda second rate) can EASILY handle 70+ tracks, so i don't know why Live 8 is putting up such a fuss.

There is the main bass track, then there's a second track with the same recordings which is tailored to define the bottom end, and a third one to define the treble to give a balanced sound.

you have two problems with your methodology straight away.

Issue #1, you should have enough volume without pushing to +6db on 3 duplicate channels !!!! holy fuck man, that's a clue something is wrong, wrong wrong with your setup. My faders are all around -12db. I'd say that was normal. I have no volume issues whatsoever other than occasionally peaking and having to pull the faders down.

A normal recording at around -6db peak in 32 bit should be well loud enough to work with. If it isn't then something is very wrong.


Issue #2 If, as you say, you are duplicating your audio files to make a "thick" and processed/ EQed sound you need to learn about Live's routing, so you can send 1 audio part to many channels (if you really want to work that way) Or begin to understand how racks work and do the same thing in one track.
You don't need to copy the track, you can send the same audio to as many places as you want without doing that.

Issue #3
this EQ method sounds like a recipe for disastrous phase issues. You are more likely to cause trouble for yourself with parallel non-linear EQs on the same material than you are to solve anything. EQ's like Live's (and anybody else's) create the tone shift alongside a corresponding phase shift. That's how they work. If you phase one audio stream two ways then you just made a phaser, or a flanger. A phaser flanger. Damn, I dunno. It just doesn't sound like a good idea to me at all.


You appear to be working in a very strange way, in order to accomplish something which we have dedicated tools for

Angstrom wrote:

There is the main bass track, then there's a second track with the same recordings which is tailored to define the bottom end, and a third one to define the treble to give a balanced sound.

you have two problems with your methodology straight away.

Issue #1, you should have enough volume without pushing to +6db on 3 duplicate channels !!!! holy fuck man, that's a clue something is wrong, wrong wrong with your setup. My faders are all around -12db. I'd say that was normal. I have no volume issues whatsoever other than occasionally peaking and having to pull the faders down.

A normal recording at around -6db peak in 32 bit should be well loud enough to work with. If it isn't then something is very wrong.


Issue #2 If, as you say, you are duplicating your audio files to make a "thick" and processed/ EQed sound you need to learn about Live's routing, so you can send 1 audio part to many channels (if you really want to work that way) Or begin to understand how racks work and do the same thing in one track.

You appear to be working in a very strange way, in order to accomplish something which we have dedicated tools for

My bass tracks are in no way an example of needing more volume. I have the three bass tracks each set to -10db. But the midi drums need that, as well as the acoustic guitar. I am looking to condense my recordings down, but this is the first i've known about this routing business lol. As with most things, i'm self-taught (not usually having any time for manuals), so i know a huge amount in some areas, but none in others. And i usually prefer to do things in as simplified and basic a manner as possible, so i don't get confused when i refer to it later. I'll have a read about the routing of the same recording and the use of racks. Thanks!

UPDATE

I've managed to condense the number of tracks from 58 to 42 by moving stuff around and deleting some inaudible backing tracks, but i'm still getting the out of memory error, even though before it was exporting fine right up until i'd gone over 50 tracks. And no matter how much or how little of the set i actually select to export, i still get the error.

I've been looking in the samples folder of my set and found that there are 1776 files (888 recording files and their counterpart asd files), whereas there aren't even 300 recordings in the Live Set.

I assume the extra recording aiff files are recordings which i have recorded and deleted from the Set, but have been kept in the project file for possible later reference. If this is the case, could these extra files be causing some of the memory issue i have, and is there a way to delete them all in one go in the preferences or something?

Thanks!!!

Ok, i've reduced my tracks down to just 35, and have found how to delete unused samples, reducing the file size of my set from over 10GB to only 1.45GB, and it is still giving me this error and crashes.

I don't understand it, it's still exporting all of my other projects. Is there anyone who knows how to solve this?

hmm, with a set size of only 1.45g it seems very odd to get this error. Most of that stuff just sits on your disk until required by the app. It streams most things, they don't usually live in Memory unless you have specifically set it to do that.

Do you have anything else in there which might be sucking up RAM, such as a giant VST which uses a sample library? That can hoover up RAM.
RAM is usually not used by clips, it's usually samplers, and giant instruments.

if you don't have any giant sample library stuff going on you may have an actual problem here. In which case
http://www.ableton.com/support/contact_ ... al_support

I'm gonna level with you, i didn't understand half of that lol.

When you say 'giant instruments, do you mean loaded effect racks?

Simply put, Ableton is Out of Memory cos you used it all up!

VST instruments are most likely solution, that's what I get a lot with a particular VST I use. I got locked out of a set once, I managed to save it but could never open it again, and I thought it was a goner!

Tip 1: If you are on windows, go find out about the /3GB /PAE switches for your boot.ini, gives you a bit more RAM for rescuing sets. But don't leave it on, some s/w doesnt handle it correctly.

Tip 2: Using the browser, you can drag a copy of a track to another folder as a backup. Once the backup is safe, freeze and flatten the track. This will remove much of the RAM requirements. If you ever need the original MIDI track back, just drag it back in from the folder. I make a folder under my project folder called "backup" and keep stuff there.

Tip 3: Don't create tracks with 6 squazillion tracks! If you need a 20 instrument orchestra, group them, then render the group to a single track and use that. Backup the 20 instrument tracks as above.

No comp has infinite RAM, make managagement of resources part of your workflow from day 1

S

But what if the ram count does not go down? It appears to be a bug in 8.2 and 8.2.1

Say I open a project that uses 500mb of ram. Close it or select "new project". Then, open a project that uses, say 1000mb ram. The system now uses 1500mb ram. If you'd like to get rid of the 500mb of invisible content from the previous project, you have to restart Live, to be able to reset the cache/ram use.

It might be something in Windows. But im out of ideas, and support hasn't responded to the crash log file they asked me to send them, some days ago. Im gonna give it another week before I ask again. Maybe they forgot it or lost the mail, or they simply are occupied with work.

Well, it seems a lot of people are having similar experiences lately.

Simbosan wrote:Simply put, Ableton is Out of Memory cos you used it all up!

VST instruments are most likely solution, that's what I get a lot with a particular VST I use. I got locked out of a set once, I managed to save it but could never open it again, and I thought it was a goner!

Tip 1: If you are on windows, go find out about the /3GB /PAE switches for your boot.ini, gives you a bit more RAM for rescuing sets. But don't leave it on, some s/w doesnt handle it correctly.

Tip 2: Using the browser, you can drag a copy of a track to another folder as a backup. Once the backup is safe, freeze and flatten the track. This will remove much of the RAM requirements. If you ever need the original MIDI track back, just drag it back in from the folder. I make a folder under my project folder called "backup" and keep stuff there.

Tip 3: Don't create tracks with 6 squazillion tracks! If you need a 20 instrument orchestra, group them, then render the group to a single track and use that. Backup the 20 instrument tracks as above.

No comp has infinite RAM, make managagement of resources part of your workflow from day 1

S

I have actually tried to freeze my tracks, but it still does it. My set has already been reduced to the point where RAM should no longer be any kind of issue, especially with 4GB 1067MHz DDR3.

Freeze doesn't reduce RAM, only CPU. Flatten *can* reduce RAM