Ableton Forum

Posted: **Mon Mar 25, 2019 10:58 am**

Machinesworking wrote: ↑
Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:16 am
OK so please take this as healthy criticism, to failure is the coin of phrase, but what you want to do is take the CPU to failure and reduce plug ins until you get no crackles or other audio artifacts in your signal at all!

Heh, no worries, but yes, that is of course what I did, otherwise I wouldn't have known at what point the crackles appear (which after all is the word I used)

Still, what this established is that the difference isn't that huge. I'm seeing 4-5% when using a conservative buffer, and 10-11% when using a short(ish) buffer. (And indeed what also follows from this is, having pushed any real-world project to a "crackles appear here" point in an earlier version, just loading that same project in Live 10 snaps crackles and pops markedly much more, off the bat, and it needs to be scaled down somewhat.)

Again, no worries. It is what it is, and it isn't terrible. Progress is progress and all that, so naturally it would still be great if a new version of Live implemented techniques that actually brought CPU use down in a comparable production situation, not up (a dedicated "production mode" with buffering schemes under the hood that specifically target production/studio use, and so on; a mode that [jur] also mentioned as his personal wish for the future back there.)

Posted: **Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:46 pm**

Nokatus wrote: ↑
Mon Mar 25, 2019 10:58 am
Again, no worries. It is what it is, and it isn't terrible. Progress is progress and all that, so naturally it would still be great if a new version of Live implemented techniques that actually brought CPU use down in a comparable production situation, not up (a dedicated "production mode" with buffering schemes under the hood that specifically target production/studio use, and so on; a mode that [jur] also mentioned as his personal wish for the future back there.)

what I'm curious about is why you saw any difference at all, since I did not? Can't recall what OS you're on, but you mentioned using Live 8, whereas I tested 10 against 9.

Posted: **Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:20 am**

Out of no where I'm having the same problem on my mac except I have 9 Live. It was working just fine then all of a sudden playing one clip uses 65% CPU!
A PC solution seems to be power save settings, but can't fix my mac that way.
What the fizzle is going on? The software is currently unusable. Grrrrrrrr

Posted: **Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:58 am**

Science Doc wrote: ↑
Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:20 am
Out of no where I'm having the same problem on my mac except I have 9 Live. It was working just fine then all of a sudden playing one clip uses 65% CPU!
A PC solution seems to be power save settings, but can't fix my mac that way.
What the fizzle is going on? The software is currently unusable. Grrrrrrrr

If this is more than a moaning post, you need to give us more information.

Exact specs of the mac.

Only one clip? no FX, instruments?

Warp setting on clip?

Settings in Ableton Live.

OS version?

Sound Card?

What does Activity Monitor say?

Because playing one clip does pretty much nothing to my CPU.

Posted: **Tue Apr 30, 2019 1:50 am**

VX600 wrote: ↑
Tue Jan 22, 2019 4:21 pm
Just erased my SSD drive, did a clean Mojave install, copied only a minimum set of plugins and.. yes, no cure for the CPU spikes.
MBP mid-2012, 16GB Ram, 2,7ghz i7.

Live 9 was always stable, now Live 10 is choking even with minimal settings. This is unbearable. Also fans go crazy 3 mins into launching Live.
Running both the latest beta and the latest stable release.

*sigh*

I don't have the issue with cpu spiking unless I use Output's arcade, but I sure do feel your pain when it comes to the fans on this setup - I have the same config.

Posted: **Wed May 01, 2019 9:26 am**

PHY6 wrote: ↑
Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:30 pm
17 pages of bad experiences....I’m not upgrading, that’s for sure !

I still use 9 but I also guess that people are posting on forums when they HAVE problems. So there might be a lot more who use it without any issue.

Posted: **Thu May 02, 2019 8:59 pm**

A quick tip that I stumbled upon today:

If you are experiencing these slowdowns and are sure your DAW system is configured correctly or even professionally

(power states and yada yada, as they should be), try disabling all "RAM" buttons in your project's audio clip details and sampler settings.

What? Sounds silly, as you might think (like me) that loading samples into RAM, when you have plenty of it available, would generally make things smoother. There seems to be something strange in how it's handled, though.

Today one project totally got the shits ^ in this manner over here. Reopening wouldn't do any good, and the funny part is, everything loads fine and looks normal (CPU load included), but only after you try to edit or start playing certain parts of it, it goes haywire in this manner.

It's a pretty involved mix, nothing terribly complicated but still:

The thing is, most of that is pure audio clips with the RAM mode enabled in clip details. The total used memory is nowhere near the RAM limit of the system, we're talking twenty gigabytes spare RAM here. Nowhere near the CPU limit either, when running like it should. Still, now the project would slow down so that drag and drop operations would take 10-15 seconds to complete (let go of the mouse button -> wait for 10-15 seconds while Live is completely halted trying to move the clip to its destination).

On a whim I selected all audio and disabled RAM mode from each and every clip. Just like that, all editing operations are instant again, the project plays back fine, CPU load rolls in the low 30s in the system CPU meter, everything is back to normal. Live 10, Windows 7 64-bit, i7-3770k, 32GB, RME HDSPe AIO, yada. Main point is, if your projects start to crawl like this, try disabling RAM mode in arrangement clips and samplers, it just might bring everything back to normal again.

Posted: **Thu May 02, 2019 9:34 pm**

Nokatus wrote: ↑
Thu May 02, 2019 8:59 pm
A quick tip that I stumbled upon today:

If you are experiencing these slowdowns and are sure your DAW system is configured correctly or even professionally (power states and yada yada, as they should be), try disabling all "RAM" buttons in your project's audio clip details and sampler settings.

What? Sounds silly, as you might think (like me) that loading samples into RAM, when you have plenty of it available, would generally make things smoother. There seems to be something strange in how it's handled, though.

Today one project totally got the shits ^ in this manner over here. Reopening wouldn't do any good, and the funny part is, everything loads fine and looks normal (CPU load included), but only after you try to edit or start playing certain parts of it, it goes haywire in this manner.

It's a pretty involved mix, nothing terribly complicated but still:

The thing is, most of that is pure audio clips with the RAM mode enabled in clip details. The total used memory is nowhere near the RAM limit of the system, we're talking twenty gigabytes spare RAM here. Nowhere near the CPU limit either, when running like it should. Still, now the project would slow down so that drag and drop operations would take 10-15 seconds to complete (let go of the mouse button -> wait for 10-15 seconds while Live is completely halted trying to move the clip to its destination).

On a whim I selected all audio and disabled RAM mode from each and every clip. Just like that, all editing operations are instant again, the project plays back fine, CPU load rolls in the low 30s in the system CPU meter, everything is back to normal. Live 10, Windows 7 64-bit, i7-3770k, 32GB, RME HDSPe AIO, yada. Main point is, if your projects start to crawl like this, try disabling RAM mode in arrangement clips and samplers, it just might bring everything back to normal again.

Weird that you're getting issues while still having free RAM.
Might be a good idea to report this to support@ableton.com

Posted: **Thu May 02, 2019 9:51 pm**

[jur] wrote: ↑
Thu May 02, 2019 9:34 pm
Weird that you're getting issues while still having free RAM.
Might be a good idea to report this to support@ableton.com

Yeah, I wasn't quite expecting that

... Glad I tried this, though. Seems like an easy fix for now, if someone else happens to get this behavior and struggling with a project. This system is also used for quite taxing Kontakt based productions (orchestral cues for games and the like), so there aren't any undiscovered "maybe it behaves weird when pushing it too far" issues in memory management or such; it's often driven way harder than this, in both the RAM and CPU department.

Interesting to hear if turning off RAM mode will fix someone else's random problematic project as well. If some more crop up with a "hey I tried this and now it flies again", it's probably worth looking into.

To reiterate, I'm completely positive this isn't about the system swapping stuff out of RAM and then halting when trying to fetch it back again in time (Live manual warns about that regarding use of RAM mode, but again, there's plenty of RAM, no swapping whatsoever, and the system is often used in much more RAM intensive projects).

Posted: **Mon May 06, 2019 2:27 pm**

Hello guys,
I guess this thread would be the best place to ask the following question.
So I'm building a PC right now for the sole purpose of music production and it's looking like this:

i7 8700
16GB 3200MHz RAM

I guess these are the two most important components that I need to mention.
Basically having read much of this topic, I'm wondering which setup would be the most efficient.

Windows 7 64 Bit + Live 9.7 or Windows 10 + Live 10?
Would using Live 9 with Windows 7 be a wiser choice in terms of performance or am I safe using Win 10 with Live 10?

Thanks for the reply in advance guys!

Posted: **Thu May 16, 2019 7:16 am**

Just tried this optionst.txt line from @vrom viewtopic.php?f=4&t=230967&p=1758266#p1758266

Anyone try it?

My Live 10.1b22 Beta set is with 46 tracks of mostly audio, Live’s Plugs, small handful of 3rd party plugs. Also using external monitor w/ 3 surface controllers thunderbolt hub etc.

Ps. I HAVE done a bit of graphics cutting through the terminal command among other workflows to cut down background apps.

Posted: **Thu May 16, 2019 10:58 am**

Ok I just cleaned my MBP fans which weren’t too bad and did a SMC reset, and Wowzers! Tested to the same set above, my fans are way down due to lower temperatures of air flow.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 7:18 pm**

mRcz wrote: ↑
Mon May 06, 2019 2:27 pm
Hello guys,
I guess this thread would be the best place to ask the following question.
So I'm building a PC right now for the sole purpose of music production and it's looking like this:

i7 8700
16GB 3200MHz RAM

I guess these are the two most important components that I need to mention.
Basically having read much of this topic, I'm wondering which setup would be the most efficient.

It's quite difficult to say whether the system proves to be realtime audio friendly, just by knowing the typical performance specs alone. The specs themselves are perfectly fine. For an overview of what else is important, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUsLLEkswzE

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 7:21 pm**

Oh btw, anyone tried 10.1 final already, are there any surprises in this regard? I'm in the middle of a couple of important work-in-progress projects, so I'm not risking it before I get those off the table, heh.

Posted: **Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:04 am**

Hi folks,

I think there's something wrong with Ableton. The first few seconds after startup, Ableton is stable (CPU around 1-10%). After some time on, the CPU will jumping 92,15,75,64,85,37 ... and the sound will start cracking when playing.
OK I did the test. I have two of the same songs, one created in Ableton and the other created in the Reaper. Same instruments, same samples, same effects. In Reaper the song is pure, CPU indicator 0.2-3%, max.6% sometime. In Ableton after a few seconds jumping the CPU indicator (30-80 ...) and cracking the sound.

I do not understand that. I noticed Ableton loading my GTX1080 GPU (30-40%). Why?

Win10, i7 4790k, 16GB RAM, GTX1080 and GTX1070

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