LIVE 9.2b1 Discuss....

[puzzlefactory]

Track counts can certainly build up in a commercial track.

For starters, drum kits can be miced with a lot more than 7 mics (look at all the different mic positions available in Superior Drummer as an extreme example). Then vocals would take up a lot of tracks. It's common place to double, triple or even quadruple take a lead vocal (and then a separate group for the chorus and another for the backing vocals). Similarly, a guitar part would often be doubled. Also every incidental/one shot sound would have its own audio track. And don't forget comp tracks too.

I don't know about a hundred tracks (outside of orchestral and film work) but certainly 50-70 tracks, wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a commercial pop song.

[golemus]

[
Once you're happy with each melody track, you could freeze it and it's siblings as you go. Then it will only become a disk read-access issue and less of a CPU issue?

Freezing does not help with this. The sluggishness is there even if you freeze tracks. Only way to get rid of it is to reduce the amount of VST plugins significantly

[Stromkraft]

[
Once you're happy with each melody track, you could freeze it and it's siblings as you go. Then it will only become a disk read-access issue and less of a CPU issue?

Freezing does not help with this. The sluggishness is there even if you freeze tracks. Only way to get rid of it is to reduce the amount of VST plugins significantly

I'm assuming this is 64bit Live with RAM to spare?

[golemus]

I'd say you need to learn project management. 80 tracks is definitely not the best way to work on a project. I can bet you that you are having a lot of redundant factors, and it's bad human habits that is making producing more resource heavy for yourself.

I work on my music like I do with object orientated programming. Basically none of my project files has more than 8 tracks, but I have several project files where I can sandbox whatever experimentation within the constraint I set. They're organised in a way to finally result in a completed track.

That is probably true. But eventually all of us have our own workflow. I am not the only one that works with a lot of tracks. I have some friends that also get near 100 tracks or so at some stage of the project. And check out this Sphongle tune with 230 tracks! (on the right edge of the page):

https://www.facebook.com/shpongle

[crumhorn]

Just as a side note. one of my favorite recordings of all time is 'Foreign Affairs' by Tom Waits which was recorder entirely on 2 track.

to quote the sleeve notes:

Every performance on this album was recorded simultaneously with the orchestra in the studio with no overdubbing or multi-tracking; and was mixed directly to the 2-track master tape as it was being performed.

I just listened to the awesome "Potter's Field" to remind myself of just how good a recording it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=564l2-5z6rQ
it's hard to see how you could improve on that with any number of tracks

[golemus]

Professional producer uses 100+ tracks in their project.

Who's that? Never heard of them.

Shongle has a project with 230 tracks. Check it out (on the right edge of the page below):

https://www.facebook.com/shpongle

[ImNotDedYet]

The issue to me isn't the number of tracks. I would like to think although I have no experience with this, that Live can handle 100 audio tracks. But people have to realize that the processing done on each of these tracks is what's likely killing their abilities to work in this fashion. (I'm curious for the person exporting out of drum racks to 96 different audio tracks - are those drum rack elements only samples or part of live sets that have a number of different processors in chains, processing the sounds?)

I highly doubt these professional mixes with 100-count track lists have a VST, EQ, filter, etc. on each of the tracks. I'm guessing the workflow is completely different for these people and they've bounced a good number if not most of those tracks and have minimal processing on them. I'm also guessing they've used busses (bussing much of the doubled/tripled vocal, etc) and sends/returns in order to avoid duplication of processing. I'd also be willing to guess that of those 100 tracks, some are processed a lot more minimally than others. Those with higher importance have more processing while the occasional drum hit here or tripled backing vocal has perhaps minimal EQing/filtering and that's it - if that. I'm fairly confident that for the original person that voiced this concern, his workflow is not the workflow of these professional mixes with 100 tracks. He's making EQ/filtering/processing/effects decisions before even concluding his arrangement - the reason for the need for all these tracks with all this processing. And that's not necessarily the wrong way to do it if it works for him, but at some point compromises have to be made based on the capabilities of your system and the workflow you're using.

Having said that, I could easily see how someone could wind up with 100 tracks - any kind of music with live intruments, mic'ing of amps and vocals, a lot of layering of sounds or a number of different percussion items.

But here's the thing - I don't have the most powerful computer. I think I've had 30 - 40 tracks max - a combination of samples or direct audio recorded from external hardware, and a lot of those tracks were very minimally used or not overly prioritized as part of the final song. I don't use Live to mix anymore - I've been re-wiring through Studio One, but even this is too taxing for my system and well, honestly, a pain. So I'm probably just going to export stems from my Live arrangement and import them into S1. And even then I still have to bounce some of these tracks, once processed to complete my mix. I don't blame Live or S1 or expect them to magically fix this issue which is all based on what I've found works best for me. I find workarounds, that are sometimes a pain, and I use the workarounds. If nothing else, it's forced me to be quite discriminant in getting it right the first time. But, blaming my DAW for not being able to handle every situation I put it through isn't right IMO.

[golemus]

as I said before it's not about raw performance.

96 SimpleDelays + 17 DrumRacks + 16 Samplers in my routing scenario don't even move the CPU meter beyond 10% on my i7 MBP (2012)

Live nonetheless is sluggish. Selecting one of the tracks with the mouse takes Live 1-2 seconds before it puts that track into focus.

If I assign Midi controls to each of these SimpleDelays it gets worse, much worse.

Now watching Live update the GUI for a parameter change via Midi takes up to 5 seconds after I hear the audio being affected.

So far the audio processing is stable, but this behavior makes me uneasy since I plan to use this set up live!

Precisely. A lot of people didnt even seem to read in detail the post I put. The problem is not that there would be too many plugs so that live runs out of CPU or RAM. Because this behavior is there even when nothing is playing on live and CPU should be almost 100% free. Still the sluggishness is there.

It makes me to believe that it has something to do with the internal structure of Ableton Live project. It seems that it is not designed for large amount of VST plugins. If I remember correctly I tried this with Bitwig and did not have this sluggishness so it must be possible to repair it.





If they now have redesigned some features of plugs (delay compensation), in my opinion they really should repair this issue at the same time.

[golemus]

[
Once you're happy with each melody track, you could freeze it and it's siblings as you go. Then it will only become a disk read-access issue and less of a CPU issue?

Freezing does not help with this. The sluggishness is there even if you freeze tracks. Only way to get rid of it is to reduce the amount of VST plugins significantly

I'm assuming this is 64bit Live with RAM to spare?

Yes. 64bit Live 9, 64bit windows 15" Lenovo Laptop with i7 quadcore ivy bridge, 16GB RAM and 256 GB Samsung SSD. You cannot really get a much more powerful computer (unless you buy the new Mac Pro)

[theophilus]

remember that when saving/loading, live gathers the current settings for every vst (as a binary blob, iirc) and adds it to the project save XML. i don't know how long this takes per plug, but clearly if you have more plugs, this will take longer. it may be possible for ableton to optimize here, but it may be just that live is more thorough in what it saves for each plugin.

same is (probably) true for stop/start - i'm guessing live is probably not tracking the automation separately, and just clears it on start. i.e. let's say you're automating filter cutoff, and you press stop in the middle of a clip. and then you rewind and start again, and you don't have automation set during the first part of the track. what should the filter cutoff be set to? probably it gets set to whatever it was when you started last time.

now, you never automated resonance, for instance, so live could theoretically just set the cutoff and go on. but probably, for safety, they just set all the values, which could take some time.

[Stromkraft]

The problem is not that there would be too many plugs so that live runs out of CPU or RAM. Because this behavior is there even when nothing is playing on live and CPU should be almost 100% free. Still the sluggishness is there.

It makes me to believe that it has something to do with the internal structure of Ableton Live project. It seems that it is not designed for large amount of VST plugins.

Surely you realize that "sluggishness" is a very imprecise term. What I've experienced is that the GUI is delayed for updates when prioritizing audio. Which is how it should work in a music application. Given my main machine is quite slow that's what I expect. I don't think experience this in a 2014 2.8Ghz 4-core MacBook Pro 15" with 16gb of RAM. But then I don't know exactly what to look for. Going back to your previous post…

[golemus]

The problem is not that there would be too many plugs so that live runs out of CPU or RAM. Because this behavior is there even when nothing is playing on live and CPU should be almost 100% free. Still the sluggishness is there.

It makes me to believe that it has something to do with the internal structure of Ableton Live project. It seems that it is not designed for large amount of VST plugins.

Surely you realize that "sluggishness" is a very imprecise term. What I've experienced is that the GUI is delayed for updates when prioritizing audio. Which is how it should work in a music application. Given my main machine is quite slow that's what I expect. I don't think experience this in a 2014 2.8Ghz 4-core MacBook Pro 15" with 16gb of RAM. But then I don't know exactly what to look for. Going back to your previous post…

Well it should not be this slow. I recorded this behavior on video and put it to Youtube. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZrSnEvsNSE

[H20nly]

Well it should not be this slow. I recorded this behavior on video and put it to Youtube. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZrSnEvsNSE

is that a radiator behind your monitor? clearly, this is an overheating issue.



just kidding
/stating the obvious since the sharks are out

[tedlogan]

Man, the new aftertouch response is such a vast improvement! I've had to adjust a few patches accordingly, but overall playability is so much better now. No more having to lightly tread on each pad in fear of triggering aftertouch by accident - I feel fully in control of it now, even on faster passages. Excellent!

I seem to be most comfortable at a threshold of 40.

In my opinion - these things which seem minor when looking at update lists are big updates for Push. It is an instrument after all, and its keyboard just got a nice upgrade.

With every patch/instrument I built I was hesitant to make aftertouch assignments.

Before the update, in Hive, for example: if you lightly held down a note on Push, assigned Pressure (aftertouch) to anything, you'd hear the effect of it straight away unless barely touching the pad, but then often stopping note-on by accident. Doing the same now, I hear absolutely no effect of aftertouch until I choose to do so, with full control.

[golemus]

Well it should not be this slow. I recorded this behavior on video and put it to Youtube. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZrSnEvsNSE

is that a radiator behind your monitor? clearly, this is an overheating issue.

I think overheating did cause me some other problems before (more glitches in audio that there would be normally), but they are not related to this issue. Anyway, after cleaning the fan and making sure that there is no obstructions, my CPU temps are again at 70-75 celcius region. It is a bit too hot, but it shouldnt start throttling yet at that temp I guess, I am sure that most of other quad core laptops also have temps in that region

And if somebody didn't see your last two lines of text, lets just state that the radiator is a bit too far away to affect the operation of the computer ;D