Ableton Forum

Hello all,
It's been years since I've been on this forum.

I purchased Live as my first daw when it came out, along with my Powerbook G4 1.667!!!
Still use it, still love it, although I never really incorporated it's looping capabilities as much as I thought I would.
I work mostly in arrangement view, and in a linear fashion / traditional tracking.

So, to the point.
I have busses set up for Drums, bass, gtr, etc.
I also, of course, want to use sends.
I believe there was issues with plugins, and internal routing (pdc) in general with Live 5 version??

What should I be aware of regarding internal routing to busses, sends, etc., and phase issues ?
I think I remember something about monitoring routing causing an issue?

I will certainly update one day to the latest version of Live, but since I'm still rocking snow leopard, well, I'm also not interested in a an IMac pro.

Thanks in advance to anyone who has knowledge regarding this.

Think I’ll be hard pressed to find anyone still using L5 that’s alive. There have been literally thousands of updates and improvements since L5 both software and computers.

Might be time to save for an upgrade

I had to check to see if this was a necrobump!

Live 5. Wow, amazing! That's from 2005 ... Two years before the launch of the iPhone.

Yeah, I figured this post would raise some eyebrows..lol
My next update will definitely include the latest version of Live, although it may be on version 15 before I get around to it.

I did a quick test where I had recorded material on a track that I routed internally inside Live to another track, and recorded it onto the second track.
The waveforms didn’t line up.
There seemed to be some latency introduced even though the audio never left the computer.

Any areas that I should be looking at closer, and any work around ideas?

When sending to aux sends, should this be from the level of individual tracks, or is it ok to send to busses first, and then send to aux from bussed tracks?

I’m sure I hear phase issues when sending to effects on aux sends.
Am I hearing things?

Thanks for any and all input.

Yeah up to a couple of years ago Live's delay compensation was, shall we say, not amazing. They fixed it though (in that I don't notice it any more and the forum has been noticeably silent on the matter). Most of Live's native plugins (except Max devices) should process in less time than 1 sample so shouldn't be an issue but don't know if that was the case back in 5 and certianly isn't the case for quite a few third party plugins.

This originally is what negative track delays were for I guess (Pro Tools had the same thing - no proper pdc for ages and you used a track delay instead) so maybe there is a workaround with them e.g. put a small negative delay on anything going through a bus. Maybe duplicate to a track not going through a bus, put one in antiphase and fiddle with the track delays until they cancel, then you've compensated for latency.

Thanks timday.
So, basically a slide rule and brute mathematics. Lol

That was long time ago! But I think there shouldn't be any particular latency issue if you're using only Live's devices.

randrohe wrote: When sending to aux sends, should this be from the level of individual tracks, or is it ok to send to busses first, and then send to aux from bussed tracks?

In all versions of Live: sends which can send back on themselves, or return channels which are then routed to a buss with active sends ... these will cause massive latency issues.

it's not possible to compensate infinite spiral latency.

there's a bit in the manual about this which (hopefully) explains the issue better than this garble I just typed.

Thanks Angstrom.
I did find the bit in the manual that basically explained what you said.
It did sound promising in that you can disable sends, but that is a feature that is definitely not in version 5....

If this is still such an issue with Live, how does anyone mix with professional results?
Not trying to sling mud, because I still think Live is a brilliant program, but that underlying issue seems like such a deal breaker.

Also, I ask this because I am way over due for an update, and would love to check out the latest version, but that seems to be quite flawed..

I appreciate everyone’s timely input.
I have an outside mixing project coming up soon, (rare), and really wanted to use live since I know it so well.
Well, maybe not that well. Lol

Thanks again

It's simple. Other programs don't allow feedback paths like that. They don't allow a buss into return into the same buss into the same return into the same buss into the same return .....infinity
Live allows it, as long as you make the sacrifice that for the channel you have in a feedback loop the latencies cannot be calculated and offset as with normal non feedback paths and. Live allows you to turn it off by deactivating a channels or busses sends so that latency can be calculated.

It's not a bug. It's like saying "if I'm going to drive around in a circle infinite times tomorrow ... How many miles will that be?".

Other programs cater to the lowest common denominator and simply disallow creative routings with tricky feedback paths.

I prefer that Ableton allow it and let me control it.