Live sets take a lot of time to load

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
TFMGR
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Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by TFMGR » Thu Apr 15, 2021 9:28 am

Hello, I am using Live 11 Intro and when openning a set that has plugins in it it takes almost a minute to load up. Deleting all the plugins makes the set load almost instantly so I am assuming using a lot of plugins or a specific one is causing the issue. Is there a workaround?

Specs: AMD Ryzen 3600 - Windows 10 64bit - 16gb ram - SSD

TFMGR
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by TFMGR » Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:31 am

Any idea how to speed things up? I have excluded the VST folder from Windows Defender antivirus which didn't help, the vsts are located in the SSD.

Tarekith
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by Tarekith » Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:07 pm

Did you make sure all your plug ins are up to date with the most recent versions?
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Mark Williams
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by Mark Williams » Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:14 pm

Simple fact is, the more plugins you have in project the longer the load time will be.
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

TFMGR
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by TFMGR » Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:48 pm

Yes the plugins are up to date. Using the Windows Resource Monitor I can see that under the Disk tab all the VST plugin files using the disk (reads) but I was wondering if it's normal to take that much to load on an SSD? Would upgrading to an NVME SDD (which I plan to do) help with this?

AbletonMASCHINE
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by AbletonMASCHINE » Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:18 pm

TFMGR wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:48 pm
... but I was wondering if it's normal to take that much to load on an SSD? Would upgrading to an NVME SDD (which I plan to do) help with this?
Switching from a SSD to a faster SSD? No! I would expect only a marginal improvement.

TFMGR
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by TFMGR » Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:38 pm

AbletonMASCHINE wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:18 pm
TFMGR wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:48 pm
... but I was wondering if it's normal to take that much to load on an SSD? Would upgrading to an NVME SDD (which I plan to do) help with this?
Switching from a SSD to a faster SSD? No! I would expect only a marginal improvement.
Well, it's 6 times faster in read times, the thing is if it affects the specific loading situation. Will do post if I get one soon and see a difference.

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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by Tarekith » Fri Apr 16, 2021 8:09 pm

I agree that I doubt it's going to make any difference at all in the issues you're having. Waste of money if that's the only reason you're getting it.
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jestermgee
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by jestermgee » Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:05 pm

Why not to some controlled scientific tests?

May help to know what plugins you are using, but create a simple blank project, save it, close Live then open that project. Get your notepad and pen and write that number down.

Next, load in one of the plugins that are in your project that takes a while to open, save it and repeat the previous steps

After a while you will have a data set which you can crunch to find out what is happening. Science!

Come back and fill us in about your findings so we can all learn.

Angstrom
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by Angstrom » Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:47 pm

A song with a lot of resources to load will take some time.
Killing the ableton indexer process speed up my loads by about 10x

if the indexer is spinning (visible in task manager) the status bar at the bottom crawls along, and then if I kill the indexer process that bar rockets to the end instantly and the song waves load immediately and all the waves graphics suddenly load in the clips.

It's not a great solution on stage, but it does work in studio.

TFMGR
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by TFMGR » Sat Apr 17, 2021 4:29 am

jestermgee wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:05 pm
Why not to some controlled scientific tests?

May help to know what plugins you are using, but create a simple blank project, save it, close Live then open that project. Get your notepad and pen and write that number down.

Next, load in one of the plugins that are in your project that takes a while to open, save it and repeat the previous steps

After a while you will have a data set which you can crunch to find out what is happening. Science!

Come back and fill us in about your findings so we can all learn.
It's just each individual one that add's up I am guessing, so adding less will load faster. Looking at the task manager/disk read speeds the speed is not constant like you would expect, it even drops in kb/s while the disk has 550mb/s read speed which makes me thing the issue is how the system works or applies resources to the individual VST's. Another interesting fact is if I try to re-open the same Live set after it has loaded it takes exactly the same amount of time so nothing is saved in RAM I am guessing. Will be doing more testing though.
Angstrom wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:47 pm
A song with a lot of resources to load will take some time.
Killing the ableton indexer process speed up my loads by about 10x

if the indexer is spinning (visible in task manager) the status bar at the bottom crawls along, and then if I kill the indexer process that bar rockets to the end instantly and the song waves load immediately and all the waves graphics suddenly load in the clips.

It's not a great solution on stage, but it does work in studio.
I already tried ending the indexer process as I read it elsewhere but didn't improve load times.

Alfonx
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by Alfonx » Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:19 pm

TFMGR wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:38 pm
AbletonMASCHINE wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:18 pm
TFMGR wrote:
Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:48 pm
... but I was wondering if it's normal to take that much to load on an SSD? Would upgrading to an NVME SDD (which I plan to do) help with this?
Switching from a SSD to a faster SSD? No! I would expect only a marginal improvement.
Well, it's 6 times faster in read times, the thing is if it affects the specific loading situation. Will do post if I get one soon and see a difference.
This is what i was thinking and i did it - the upgrade:
I have an i7 8700k and just upgraded to NVMe SSD. Because in the performance monitoring i saw before that Native Instruments plugins took a lot of time reading from Harddisk - and harddisk-read performance was at 100%.
Now everything is FAST - my CPU is around 11% while the project is loading in 30 sec. but nothing happens in this time:
CPU is 11% (12 cores @ 3.7 GHz) - SSD is 2% - i have RAM 32GB - 19GB in use after loading my project.

What the hell is Ableton doing this 30 seconds loading...? Everything is super fast and there is nothing limiting....??
https://soundcloud.com/alfonx/sets/alfonx-tracks
Hey there! I create and remix music in the genres dance/pop and electronic/techno.
PC & Mac. Live 11, push2, NI S61 and tons of softsynths...

TFMGR
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by TFMGR » Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:55 pm

I also added an NVME and I didn't notice any difference, apparently it has to do with how the OS handles the hardware, so the drives are not used fully for some operations. Also it has to do with the drive's speeds, even an NVME has low 4k/random write/read speeds which is what is used in some of the OS operations. With time software will catch up.

Mark Williams
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by Mark Williams » Sat Jul 10, 2021 3:34 pm

Not all NVME are equal, plus also depends on motherboard and how it addresses the NVME slots, some share same data paths asother devicess, so having other devices on same path means sharing bandwith which in turn means slowr throughput of the drives. My gen4 NVME is on the slot that my CPU addresses directly on its own, and I get full gen4 speed.
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

Alfonx
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Re: Live sets take a lot of time to load

Post by Alfonx » Sat Jul 10, 2021 9:04 pm

TFMGR wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:55 pm
I also added an NVME and I didn't notice any difference.
This is sad!!!
https://soundcloud.com/alfonx/sets/alfonx-tracks
Hey there! I create and remix music in the genres dance/pop and electronic/techno.
PC & Mac. Live 11, push2, NI S61 and tons of softsynths...

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