What does the C button do on the mixer

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
vksf01
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:22 pm
Location: san francisco
Contact:

What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by vksf01 » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:34 pm

Hi,

Sorry for the dumb question but I cannot find the section of the manual that describes this button

Image

It seems to toggle a 6-segment display on each track channel. However, I can't figure out what it's displaying.

What does it represent?

ozinga
Posts: 87
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 11:43 am

Re: What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by ozinga » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:46 pm

Shows CPU Load for each channel

vksf01
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:22 pm
Location: san francisco
Contact:

Re: What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by vksf01 » Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:35 pm

got it.

so i guess since it's a 6 segment display, each time a segment lights up, it's equivalent to around 16.66% cpu load?

jestermgee
Posts: 4500
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:38 am

Re: What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by jestermgee » Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:35 pm

vksf01 wrote:
Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:35 pm
got it.

so i guess since it's a 6 segment display, each time a segment lights up, it's equivalent to around 16.66% cpu load?
Probably not. It would be an indication of the designated CPU resources for that track which would be based on a core by core basis (not overall CPU division). So if one of these meters is hitting out you may see your overall CPU usage is only maybe 30% but it means that track has more processing to handle than others.

vksf01
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:22 pm
Location: san francisco
Contact:

Re: What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by vksf01 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:02 pm

jestermgee wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:35 pm
vksf01 wrote:
Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:35 pm
got it.

so i guess since it's a 6 segment display, each time a segment lights up, it's equivalent to around 16.66% cpu load?
Probably not. It would be an indication of the designated CPU resources for that track which would be based on a core by core basis (not overall CPU division). So if one of these meters is hitting out you may see your overall CPU usage is only maybe 30% but it means that track has more processing to handle than others.
Ah, ok, so in a way, it's probably more like 16.66% of the core that's been allocated to that track?

yur2die4
Posts: 7154
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:02 am
Location: Menasha, Wisconsin
Contact:

Re: What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:35 pm

If you’re experiencing cpu overload issues, and one of them is way higher than all the others, then something on that channel is probably contributing to the overload.

It’s more meant for the purpose of troubleshooting than for trying to calculate the load of each channel. If you have a lot of bars on one channel, you can start trying to fix that.

If you have a lot of bars across all channels, maybe you’ve done something to them all that they have in common, and you can try to troubleshoot that.

So it’s not meant to ‘calculate’ usage, otherwise it’d have a number on it. It’s just that when you’re troubleshooting, you can turn that on so you’re not completely blind as to what’s all happening across all these channels which would otherwise give you no feedback on how cpu heavy they are.

vksf01
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:22 pm
Location: san francisco
Contact:

Re: What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by vksf01 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:40 pm

yur2die4 wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:35 pm
If you’re experiencing cpu overload issues, and one of them is way higher than all the others, then something on that channel is probably contributing to the overload.

It’s more meant for the purpose of troubleshooting than for trying to calculate the load of each channel. If you have a lot of bars on one channel, you can start trying to fix that.

If you have a lot of bars across all channels, maybe you’ve done something to them all that they have in common, and you can try to troubleshoot that.

So it’s not meant to ‘calculate’ usage, otherwise it’d have a number on it. It’s just that when you’re troubleshooting, you can turn that on so you’re not completely blind as to what’s all happening across all these channels which would otherwise give you no feedback on how cpu heavy they are.
got it. i'm not experiencing any CPU issues, just discovered it by accident and I was wondering what it did that's all. i think so far, it's mostly clear with one bar being lit up at most. i think it went up to 2 bars for one of my VSTs (i forget which).

thanks for confirming!

yur2die4
Posts: 7154
Joined: Sat Oct 03, 2009 3:02 am
Location: Menasha, Wisconsin
Contact:

Re: What does the C button do on the mixer

Post by yur2die4 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:04 pm

Yeah. Keep it off unless you’re having issues, or planning an ultra stable live set.

You wouldn’t want a few meters hindering your creativity by spooking you into thinking you can’t use certain devices.

Though, if a channel does become problematic, you can probably freeze and flatten to free up resources. I guess that’s another thing it can be used for, letting you know of you might want to consider committing a channel.

Post Reply