Ableton! The GUI lags are still NOT SOLVED! How long are we supposed to wait for the fix?

[pohy]

Hi, so I have a very similar issue.
The UI starts lagging (frame dropping) when moving around with a few tracks and some clips.
Also the frame drop is very noticeable when I expand the EQ8 view. The band amplitude representation runs at like 15 FPS.
I did some searching around and tried disabling HiDPI mode and resetting the Live zoom level to 100%. And the lag seems to go away.
Although, this is not acceptable for me, since on a 4K display I am not able to see a thing if zoomed out to 100%.
My version of Live is 10.1.9

[ObtuseMoose]

OK, here is the debug project, guys:

I would be grateful if you could record it on video so that we can see how much variability this issue has.

Sorry, I couldn't record a video, but I did try your project on my system and I DID see the problem when arrangement recording. That would be super frustrating if I were trying to do real work. I didn't try making any changes to see if it was a particular track or device, but thought I'd report my confirmation anyway since I'm running on a Mac.

• Ableton Live Suite 10.1.9
• macOS 10.13.6
• MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)
• Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
• Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
• Graphics: Intel Iris 1536 MB

I'm sure I've seen some more complicated FX chains, but I can't quite remember when...
--
Moose

[jestermgee]

Yeah I can also confirm there is the issue you talk of when I start recording that project.

Issues of why you have chains of compressors and limiters aside, if I delete one of the drum tracks you have (the first one) it seems to pick up and work perfectly after that. So could be some kind of strange combination of effects or automations. There are a lot of effects that appear to be redundant and could be causing some issues. My approach personally would be to clean up a lot of it since having 6 compressors and 4 odd limiters on the end of a chain just doesn't make sense to me.

I'd send a support ticket to Ableton with your example file and see what they say.

[TRBTBEI]

OK, here is the debug project, guys:

I would be grateful if you could record it on video so that we can see how much variability this issue has.

Sorry, I couldn't record a video, but I did try your project on my system and I DID see the problem when arrangement recording. That would be super frustrating if I were trying to do real work. I didn't try making any changes to see if it was a particular track or device, but thought I'd report my confirmation anyway since I'm running on a Mac.

• Ableton Live Suite 10.1.9
• macOS 10.13.6
• MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)
• Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
• Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
• Graphics: Intel Iris 1536 MB

I'm sure I've seen some more complicated FX chains, but I can't quite remember when...
--
Moose

Thank you very much for testing it out! It's nice to know that my machines are not cursed.

Yeah I can also confirm there is the issue you talk of when I start recording that project.

Issues of why you have chains of compressors and limiters aside, if I delete one of the drum tracks you have (the first one) it seems to pick up and work perfectly after that. So could be some kind of strange combination of effects or automations. There are a lot of effects that appear to be redundant and could be causing some issues. My approach personally would be to clean up a lot of it since having 6 compressors and 4 odd limiters on the end of a chain just doesn't make sense to me.

I'd send a support ticket to Ableton with your example file and see what they say.

First of all, thank you for testing it out!

Yeah, lets not talk about the perfectly valid compressor/limiter chaining trick, especially in abstract sound design scenarios. That would easily cause a massive off-topic in this thread Anyway, the project is a debug project and have no musical potential atm. It was created from a more meaningful project when it started lagging like crazy during a jam session. EDIT: I have also removed vst and m4l devices which coexisted with or modulated some of the FX so the context was completely changed after that. I just needed a project that could reproduce the issue. The lags happened to me cca 5 times already, every time in a different project.

As for the Ableton support, they tested this same project, confirmed the issue but could not help me (it took 2-3 months of email correspondence) and told me to call their Berlin office instead. I have yet to call them as I don't really see the point (what can they offer that they support could not?) and international calls are a bit scary for a non-native english speaking person. I also don't like it in principle, because while I can afford the call, other people might not have the money needed for an international call. I would much more prefer to email the office instead but got no contact information for that.

Do you guys have any experience with their on-phone support from the Berlin office? Is that an advanced support or what? Should I really call them if their standard support wasn't able to help?

[jonljacobi]

You can overload any computer, program, system or structure if you throw enough stuff at it. This is simple reality, so expectations and methods must be adjusted accordingly. Resource management.

[TRBTBEI]

You can overload any computer, program, system or structure if you throw enough stuff at it. This is simple reality, so expectations and methods must be adjusted accordingly. Resource management.

Yeah, but this is not the case of overloading the program. This is a very (!) lightweight project compared to some of my others and older ones from Live 8 (!) or different DAWs which have no such issues. This is a clear performance bug within Live. For example, you wouldn't call a memory leak to be an overload of an program either, you would call it a bug or an issue that needs fixing. Also don't forget the issue happens only when recording. Without it the project runs fluidly and flawlessly. My CPU is only at 8% within Live with that project no matter if recording or not so...

I mean look at the project. This is 2020. It should be no issue at all and wasn't until Live 10 (and partly Live 9).

This is a clear bug. Plain and simple.

EDIT:

What I meant to say was that this issue clearly happens when something very specific happens within Live. Not quantity of things, just a "right" combination of stuff to reproduce this issue. The fact that it affects only the GUI is also telling. No audio dropouts, no long loading times for anything except the GUI operations.

[jonljacobi]

I can't see the entire download URL, but I was going off others descriptions. If you pile 5 or 6 compressors on a single track, which is using a single core of your CPU, you're going to have issues. I've seen GUI lags, and every time it was because the audio was being prioritized over the GUI (a good thing) when required to maintain said audio stream. Live's audio engine doesn't seem as efficient as some, but it's doing a lot of stuff on the fly. If this is not the case and it's a bug, then my bad.

[ObtuseMoose]

I don't know why I'm taking an interest in this, but I've tried a few things.

There's something weird about the snare sound in the drum rack in track 2.

Delete that snare from the chain (don't just mute it, delete the Snare chain from the rack) and the lag is gone.

I went further. I deleted all audio effects from every track in the project and replaced every instrument except for that snare with the default instance of Analog. Still had the lag (although not quite so bad.) I copied the Simpler instrument from the snare chain in that drum rack, deleted the drum rack, and pasted the Simpler in that track, and the lag is there.

There's something about that particular instance of Simpler that's causing your problem.

[TRBTBEI]

I don't know why I'm taking an interest in this, but I've tried a few things.

There's something weird about the snare sound in the drum rack in track 2.

Delete that snare from the chain (don't just mute it, delete the Snare chain from the rack) and the lag is gone.

I went further. I deleted all audio effects from every track in the project and replaced every instrument except for that snare with the default instance of Analog. Still had the lag (although not quite so bad.) I copied the Simpler instrument from the snare chain in that drum rack, deleted the drum rack, and pasted the Simpler in that track, and the lag is there.

There's something about that particular instance of Simpler that's causing your problem.

Thanks, man! I really value you tried to find out what's wrong. Will try to investigate it more.

[TRBTBEI]

I can't see the entire download URL

Thanks for the heads up. I have fixed the URL links.

[TRBTBEI]

A small update:

Still haven't found a solution for this issue.

However I have found out that if one disables all track arms in the debug project the lag disappears completely even while recording to arrangement. This is of course a no-go solution as that would mean no realtime midi/audio recording to arrangement mode from inputs. Basically my only hope for Live 10 is to find a way how to record everything without track arming. I can route audio out of live and record elsewhere easily but I need to record MIDI input and all Live specific automation too... I thought I would be able to work around this with a M4L patch but it seems that M4L cannot utilize MIDI inputs without track arming.

I now plan to create an almost identical project in Live 8 and then test it in all the available newer versions from the download archive to see which one introduces this issue first.

Also I lost all of my arrangement recording of a jam yesterday because Live crashed during recording when this issue happened in another project I have. No recovery possible. Thanks Ableton...

[kinkajou]

very dumb question, but these issues i know from my very first steps with music making on PC years ago...

What soundcard do you use?
Is ASIO configured correctly in the Live preferences?

[TRBTBEI]

very dumb question, but these issues i know from my very first steps with music making on PC years ago...

What soundcard do you use?
Is ASIO configured correctly in the Live preferences?

Sorry, you seem to be completely out of the context. Please, investigate the issue we are discussing here. You can also watch the video and try the debug project yourself.

[Mark Williams]

Sorry, you seem to be completely out of the context. Please, investigate the issue we are discussing here. You can also watch the video and try the debug project yourself.

Very impertinent response, and any troubleshooting should explore any & all avenues.
As your not open to any ideas your on your own.

[TRBTBEI]

Sorry, you seem to be completely out of the context. Please, investigate the issue we are discussing here. You can also watch the video and try the debug project yourself.

Very impertinent response, and any troubleshooting should explore any & all avenues.
As your not open to any ideas your on your own.

True, Mark. But so was his, at least in my eyes, overconfident post which clearly indicated that he has absolutely no idea what the problem is about and probably hasn't really examined the thread. Instead of explaining it all over again specially to him I decided not to go down the rabbit hole and suggested he reads the thread and test it himself before giving suggestions which are, well, completely out of the context. His suggestion was an equivalent of "have you tried to restart your computer?" phrase. In other words, ASIO settings have, of course, nothing to do with this issue as should be apparent after at least reading the thread (not to mention watching the video and testing the project).

And you are right - it seems I am on my own because Ableton support jumped ship after three months on this issue with me. They couldn't think of any way how to help me. They, too, had a lot of useless suggestions which clearly indicated they had no idea what is going on...