Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
jestermgee
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by jestermgee » Tue Nov 16, 2021 11:01 pm

What is your samplerate, buffer?

My PC is almost 10 years old (4th Gen i7) and only 16GB ram on Live 11, only issue I ever have with crackles is if I have something like Chrome hogging the system in the background or i'm pushing too many tracks/effects which I would expect.

One thing as mentioned, the model of CPU and size of your ram wont always be indicative of performance. Someone like me with a much older machine and less cores (but with higher single core frequency) may be able to run a project better that has less tracks. I am aware of what my CPU can do so aim to keep track counts under 16 as much as possible (including sends) and keep effects as simple as possible.

I can bring Live to a crackling mess with just 1 track if I use a synth like Serum for instance with full voice, unison and reverb basically causing so much maths to happen it can bring the system to its knees. Often a few simple adjustments to limit some of the voice count will solve the problem so often I feel it is users not understanding how their plugins work and how to tame them, like a computer is just an infinite hole you can just keep shovelling shit into.

Do what I did 15 years ago to understand. Take your track that has this issue and start some scientific experiments. Delete FX and instruments to see when the issue stops (not just mute, delete completely). If it is isolated to deleting a single device, look at it more closely. Maybe it isn't an optimised plugin (some are badly programmed), maybe you have some settings too high and can dial them back. I have a plugin from HorNet which I have never used because as soon as I add it into Live everything starts to crackle and fall apart, many have the same issue, so dig around first.

R1V3R5
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by R1V3R5 » Thu Nov 18, 2021 9:26 am

this is a data processing issue associated with your buffing rate and the type of interface you are using. the reason things pop in and out on random days is because of the sequence of processes you use to make audio function through the computer. when im on a social site like discord or vrchat and change audio settings, things will cut out, and i have to reboot. the sequence you perform actions on computers is pretty important with all these complex audio functions.

R1V3R5
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by R1V3R5 » Fri Nov 19, 2021 3:52 am

the cpu percentage up top is not the actual cpu usage. its the average. click on the drop down next to it and you will see the current is double that. when you hit 70-80% you'll get a crack. more ram. for 16 tracks with a heavy effects load, you need 32 gb of ram.

jestermgee
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by jestermgee » Fri Nov 19, 2021 4:12 am

R1V3R5 wrote:
Fri Nov 19, 2021 3:52 am
the cpu percentage up top is not the actual cpu usage. its the average. click on the drop down next to it and you will see the current is double that. when you hit 70-80% you'll get a crack. more ram. for 16 tracks with a heavy effects load, you need 32 gb of ram.
Really depends on what a track is doing and what you are loading. There isn’t any set rule that track count requires X CPU and Z amount of ram. Also depending on system setup some users can have breakup in audio at less than 70%, some more.

R1V3R5
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by R1V3R5 » Sun Nov 21, 2021 4:26 am

[/quote]
Also depending on system setup some users can have breakup in audio at less than 70%, some more.
[/quote]

Yeah. i was making generalizations. when i ran my guitar synth with 8gb of ram, with just two tracks of a complex synth using it, it would crack if i had around 12 simultaneous notes playing with just two tracks when it would only hit like 60%. no effects or nothing. its extremely computationally demanding.

R1V3R5
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by R1V3R5 » Sun Nov 21, 2021 4:40 am

so they may need much more than 16gb of ram for some plug in and operations. Im looking for one of the x570 motherboards with 8 ram slots so i can get the 256gb of ram. I would really like that creator x570 mobo but i really want something with the 8 ram slot option to be able to eventually get the 256 gb ram upgrade.

yur2die4
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by yur2die4 » Sun Nov 21, 2021 5:18 am

Ask make sure that your cpu is running 100% at all times. Not running in low power. Or it’ll throw performance off quite a bit. This is a pretty big difference for me when using Live.

If I use my power saving profile (use it when not using Live, or for short small usage), Live can pretty easily get choked up.

When I switch to my 100% power profile, it’s a lot more steady and performs much better. And this is especially forgiving when you have a decent buffer size.

I recently upgraded to a different computer, so this is unlikely to be a problem for me now.

grrrz
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by grrrz » Mon Nov 22, 2021 7:10 pm

the cpu percentage up top is not the actual cpu usage. its the average. click on the drop down next to it and you will see the current is double that. when you hit 70-80% you'll get a crack. more ram. for 16 tracks with a heavy effects load, you need 32 gb of ram.

no and no.

-the actual cpu usage is in your activity monitor. it will be much lower. The gauge on the corner is the percentage of a buffer time it takes to process your audio. One chain of effects will usually sit on one core; and the other cores can be completely idle it won't change the live cpu gauge. that's why you can usually open a few more heavy plugins on other tracks and it won't affect the gauge;

-you certainly don't need 32 Gb of RAM for live. You need more ram if you use large orchestral soundbanks. Otherwise 8 or 16 Gb will be enough (depending on your system; on mac and specially M1 8 Gb will get you far), specially if you use soft synths. For me a heavy live session (like about 16 tracks) takes about 3 Gb of RAM; I have 8 Gb and I have never seen the memory pressure get higher than green. It certainly doesn't affect the processing. Soft synths and effects don't require that much ram; you if you enconter a problem it's probably related to cpu usage and buffer size.

jestermgee
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Re: Does Ableton 11 solve the crackling issue?

Post by jestermgee » Mon Nov 22, 2021 9:24 pm

R1V3R5 wrote:
Sun Nov 21, 2021 4:40 am
so they may need much more than 16gb of ram for some plug in and operations. Im looking for one of the x570 motherboards with 8 ram slots so i can get the 256gb of ram. I would really like that creator x570 mobo but i really want something with the 8 ram slot option to be able to eventually get the 256 gb ram upgrade.
Unless you are planning to edit hours of 8K high speed video, that would be complete overkill for anything. I still use 16GB and have no issues. 32/64GB will cover everything you could possibly manage in a DAW no matter the size, you will never use more than this and if you ever do, your productions are probably way over complicated.

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