Is My PC capable of Running Ableton 10?

[PearlJamaholic]

I just bought a Scarlett 18i8 and before buying I checked to see if I could run Ableton, and was even told I should be able. But I can't record even a single guitar track and play it back without endless distortion in the audio. Looking at the min system requirements I think I am ok, but obviously I'm not. Ive spent the last 4 days troubleshooting and browsing the internet for help and nothing has worked, so I figured maybe its best to check if my old rig can even handle this, before going any further. Maybe there is a compatibility issue somewhere.

Windows 7 64 bit
AMD FX 6100 Six-Core 3.30GHz
16 GB Ram DDR3 1333
Realtek
HDD 7200 RPM

Thanks for any help everyone.

[TLW]

I’m a Mac user but I can’t see any obvious reason why your PC couldn’t run Live 10. Though it might need some tuning to run it well, some PCs seem to be able to run DAWs without problems while others benefit from some tweaking. Downloading and running latencymon.exe might help pinpoint any PC/Windows related problems - https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Switching off cpu core parking and the BIOS set sleep states can sometimes help, as can making sure the Windows power scheme is set to “always on” with no HDDs or USB sockets being allowed to go to sleep. Sometimes disabling the wi-fi driver in Control Panel while you’re running the DAW can fix some problems.

You say you get “distortion”, which in audio production and processing can mean many different things, so a basic check-list...

Firstly, are you sure your guitar and audio leads are OK?

Have you installed Focusrite’s ASIO driver for the interface and is the ASIO driver what you are using in Live?

Are all the Focusrite interface’s input and output meters (the individual channels plus the audio return from the PC) and Live’s master track meter in the green? Overloading digital audio hardware and convertors is a pretty sure way to get huge amounts of loud and unpleasant distortion. You might be able to get away with Live audio tracks going into the red but digital hardware either creates a good signal or massive distortion if overloaded.

What is your audio buffer set to in Live’s preferences? If set too low that can cause crackles, dropouts and distortion - on the other hand, set too high and you run into latency issues, a delay caused by how long it takes the audio to enter the computer, be processed then sent out again.

Are you recording the guitar using a plugin amp emulator? If so is it overloading or distorting (trying a clean Fender amp setting with a low level of input and output signal can be a useful way to check this).

[PearlJamaholic]

I'll take a look at LatencyMon program and is if that finds something.

I'll have to look into what CPU core parking is that is a new one to me. and I'll have to check the BIOS sleep state stuff as well. I did make sure the USBs don't go to sleep, I saw that was mention on one of the help topics on this site.

The guitars are good, I tried a few different guitars and cables and made sure the track meter never even hit yellow. I ruled out it being any of my gear when I tried "Live 10 Performance Test" and played the Live Set from the What's New section in Ableton, I cant even play that with out it clocking out over 100% most of the time.

Yes, I have the Focusrite drivers installed, and I have tried both that driver and the MME, neither of which gives back good results.

I have tested the ever option for audio buffer, from 32 to currently at 1024. I have not even tried to us any plugins. This is my first time using Ableton so I'm just trying to get things up and running before I start tinkering with options and buttons and such.

[[jur]]

Did you try Asio4All ?
Your computer is clearly powerful enough!

[PearlJamaholic]

Did you try Asio4All ?
Your computer is clearly powerful enough!

I have not.

But running LatencyMon I got this message

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for 0:45:18 (h:mm:ss) on all processors.

So I am gonna try to address these issues and see if that fixes it. Looks like I'll be using google quite a bit to decode all this.

[TLW]

I suspected something like that might potentially be the cause, or part of the cause, of your problems. Unfortunately DPC issues often can't be resolved by increasing the cpu's speed or number of cores, so even a very fast and powerful PC can suffer ill effects from them when running DAW software.

I'd start by trying disabling the wi-fi driver in Device Manager while Live is running, for some reason wi-fi drivers are often the worst culprit.

You might find Sweetwater's article on optimising Windows 7 useful - https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... windows-7/

Good luck

[PearlJamaholic]

I don't have wifi on this computer, so pretty sure it's not network related. Already did the sweetwater list, the only thing i had to change based on their list was disabling exclusive mode.

I'm really at a lost why my PC just won't work here if it should be powerful enough. I even reset my BIOS settings this morning, that didn't get my anywhere. I figured if I can't figure out why things aren't working maybe I need to start over, but no luck.

[50seven]

I'm just new in the Ableton Live world, but I've been a PC guy for decades. Here's what I'd check:

1. Always run your laptop plugged in. When running on battery, many laptops reduce power to the CPU to extend battery life. Performance is affected. I can run Live 10 on my Surface, but if running multiple tracks and effects, it HAS to be plugged in in order to not distort.
2. Upgrade to Windows 10. It is a faster OS. It's free to upgrade if you don't mind a watermark on the screen. But I bought a legit licence from ElectronicsFirst.com for about $10 CAD, so that's pretty affordable. Installing a fresh Windows with a wipe of the PC will also ensure that there's no accumulated software/registry entries clogging up the OS.
3. Upgrade to an SSD. Probably not critical for actually running Ableton, but with the low price of these things compared to the performance payoffs, I don't see how people can survive owning a laptop without one. All your load times will dramatically increase.
4. Can't remember the video title, but JayzTwoCents had a video a while back on secret tricks to tweak even more performance out of Windows 10 by removing things that you don't need that don't appear in the handy "remove programs" section. He recommended it for older PC's.

Also, run Performance Monitor while loading Live, loading your set, while recording, and during playback. Look closely at the graphs and see if you can pinpoint where the bottleneck is.

[PearlJamaholic]

Ok guys, looks like its game over. Thanks for all the help though.

I did a clean reinstall, got all my drivers up to date and only have Ableton install, and still having issues. Looks like I need a new MOBO and CPU, maybe the board I currently have just isn't audio friendly. If my specs should be enough to run this program pretty much leaves me with my hardware just doesn't want to play nice.

If anyone has any suggestions on a good MOBO that is price friendly I am all ears. I would hate to build a new rig and be back in the same spot.

[gp23]

I've been having similar problems for the last six months with Live 10 and a Focusrite 18i8 (gen 3) on Windows 7. Tried practically everything with no success. Then finally decided to update to Windows 10. No more audio dropouts! Plus Live 10 runs much more smoothly. I'm still not entirely sure what was going on, but it seems that either Live 10 or the Focusrite drivers or both don't quite get along with Windows 7.

I'd give this a go before building a new system.