Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Calagan
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Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:55 pm

Hi there everybody

I recently updated my music laptop to the last M1 pro Apple Silicon laptop.
It's an amazing machine, and I have from 2 to 3 more CPU headroom than with my previous macbook pro while mixing.

But I'm a bit amazed that it still clicks when launching a scene in Live when I use Live in session mode for a stage project !
CPU meter is lighting and I hear a click (it's not the new Live CPU meter)...

More precisely, even when my Live set barely cross the 30% CPU usage, I can hear CPU overload when playing a new scene and clicking STOP. Sometimes it's barely audible, sometimes nothing happens, and sometimes it's an obvious click in the speakers ! It's not a nasty stuttering or digital artifact, only a click.
Until now, the only way to avoid it is to set the buffer to higher numbers, but it's an absolute NO WAY on stage...
I need to keep it at least to 256 samples and if I don't take this PLAY/STOP issue in consideration, it's even working great with 128 samples (around 3ms of output latency with my MOTU).

I was truly thinking that I could avoid this with a brand new top specs machine. But it seems it's not the case.

I use Live 11.1.5 on Monterey, and my laptop is a M1 PRO 16" macbook pro with 32gb of RAM.
My laptop is feeding a MOTU ultralite mk5 audio device, and triggered by 2 keyboards and some drum pads (we are 3 musicians on stage).
This happens native or under Rosetta.

Of course, my Live set is quite heavy, with a lot of automation, turning off and turning on racks and plugins, soft synths, etc. etc.
But hey ! It's what is supposed to look like a set you use on stage... And I was running this set with a mid-2012 macbook pro (with the same issue but very few clicks when playing) so it's not at all a problem of using too much stuff.

Any trick, advice, feedback, remark, or lament about this issue ?
Is it a Live issue ? Or some guys or chicks on this forum have some miraculous solution ?

[jur]
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by [jur] » Wed Jun 08, 2022 8:25 pm

Calagan wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 5:55 pm
with a lot of automation, turning off and turning on racks and plugins, soft synths, etc. etc.
That's were I'd look at. It sounds like it could totally be a non-zero crossing click created by a device's on/off switching.
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Calagan
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:03 pm

Interesting.
Yes, I believe it’s related to on/off automations, but how do I Fix that ?
I tried to launch scenes with no on/off automations but I had similar results, even if I’m not sure I cleaned everything (didn’t have much time until now to experiment).
Do you have similar issues with your sets ?
Do you have advices to avoid « non zero crossings » ?

Pitch Black
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Pitch Black » Wed Jun 08, 2022 10:07 pm

Try using the COMMAND-E function to Remove Stop Buttons where they aren’t needed. I had this problem ages ago, it seems that triggering a whole horizontal row of “empty” clip slots has a cpu penalty.
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[jur]
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by [jur] » Thu Jun 09, 2022 2:22 am

Calagan wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:03 pm
Interesting.
Yes, I believe it’s related to on/off automations, but how do I Fix that ?
I tried to launch scenes with no on/off automations but I had similar results, even if I’m not sure I cleaned everything (didn’t have much time until now to experiment).
Do you have similar issues with your sets ?
Do you have advices to avoid « non zero crossings » ?
Nope, I never had this issue. And I doubt this is CPU related, especially on a such powerful machine you're using.
You have to experiment with your devices' on/off automation, offset them a little bit and try to not switch their state when there's sound playing if possible... but I might be wrong on this.
Are you using Live's devices, 3rd party plugins, both?
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Calagan
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Thu Jun 09, 2022 3:52 am

[jur] wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 2:22 am
Calagan wrote:
Wed Jun 08, 2022 9:03 pm
Interesting.
Yes, I believe it’s related to on/off automations, but how do I Fix that ?
I tried to launch scenes with no on/off automations but I had similar results, even if I’m not sure I cleaned everything (didn’t have much time until now to experiment).
Do you have similar issues with your sets ?
Do you have advices to avoid « non zero crossings » ?
Nope, I never had this issue. And I doubt this is CPU related, especially on a such powerful machine you're using.
You have to experiment with your devices' on/off automation, offset them a little bit and try to not switch their state when there's sound playing if possible... but I might be wrong on this.
Are you using Live's devices, 3rd party plugins, both?
Strange...
I don't think my issue is audio related : when I hear the clicks, the CPU meter in Live is flashing and it obviously uses too much CPU (whatever the reason). I think I understand what you call zero crossing : it's like when a sample player starts to play the sample at a wrong moment in the file when it's not on zero. If you are refering to that, I don't think it's the issue because the on/off automation are at the beginning of a song, when no audio is played, and my audio clips are usually starting with 2 bars of silence (so we hear 2 bars of metronome click in our IEM before the song starts).
Yes, I use mostly 3d party plugins, some of them very CPU intensive (Diva, Repro, Reaktor 6...)

I'll experiment with the advice of Pitch Black, but I don't think if I have a lot of empty rows with stop buttons.
I know each time I launch a scene, I'm launching simultaneously 4 midi clips (with automations that turn on and off instrument racks so we can play the song with the proper instruments) and 3 to 5 audio clips. But I can't believe it's an issue with such a machine !

Calagan
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:28 am

By the way, I need to repeat here that I use this Live set on stage since years (and of course it grew with time, adding more and more crazy stuff).

It's highly optimized so I don't have CPU artifacts while playing. Only recently (maybe since Live 11, or maybe since I added new songs to the set) I started to have systematic CPU hits on Start, launching scenes and Stop, and I'm amazed I still have this with my brand new M1 pro laptop...
While searching on the web, I see that a lot of people are complaining about CPU hit in Live 11, but I think most of them just complain because the CPU meter changed his behavior... In my case, the issue is HEARING the click, and not only seeing the CPU meter flashing...

And this is specially intriguing when I barely cross the 30% of CPU use while playing and run Live in native Apple Silicon mode...

Rivanni
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Rivanni » Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:56 am

Not seeing the CPU meter flashing might be due to the CPU meter settings. You could set it to Current and enable the Overload indicator if it's not already the case.

Do you see very high loads on the performance meters of the tracks?

Calagan
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:47 am

Rivanni wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:56 am
Not seeing the CPU meter flashing might be due to the CPU meter settings. You could set it to Current and enable the Overload indicator if it's not already the case.

Do you see very high loads on the performance meters of the tracks?
Before all, thanks a lot to everybody for all these remarks and for trying to help !

To answer your first remark Rivanni, no, I see the CPU meter flashing but I was saying that it's not only visual : I often hear the click !

I will test with the performance meters, but if I remember good, it depends : sometimes the performance meters are clearly very high on start/stop/launching, but most of the time it clicks even if it's not that high.
I must say that I never found these performance meters very reliable : very often when the CPU meter is high the performance meters for each track show nothing or activity that can't make the CPU meter so high. Sometimes, I know that one track is using a very CPU intensive track and another has nothing in activity, but this is this second track that shows activity. And so on and so on... So I don't know if I can rely on these track performance meters.

EDIT : I just tested right now, and I noticed that if I unsync the on/off automation for each track/rack, I can clearly see that the activation of a rack triggers badly the track performance meter. I think it flashes sometimes 5 from the 6 available bars of the track performance meter (but I don't know if this meter is peak or "RMS").
The strange thing is the global CPU meter is flashing on play/stop/launching even when the track performance meter is barely moving. ???

But anyway it may explain the issue : when I launch a scene, at the exact same moment, it turn off the racks form the previous scene and turn on the racks of the active one. So it means if I launch a new scene, 4 racks of vsti/FX are turned off and 4 racks are turned on at the same moment - plus the launching of the audio clips (usually 3 of them, but most start at different moments)...
Maybe this is something even a brand new Apple Silicon beast can't manage without a very short CPU overload !

Another idea : it could be a plugin (or few plugins). I noticed that some plugins are acting VERY strangely with my new macbook. For exemple, u-he synths are showing a very little CPU use when testing isolated in a new Live set, but I noticed that often the CPU meter is high when Diva is used in the specific Live set I use on stage. Sometimes even higher than with my previous laptop (that was an antique mid-2012 i7 macbook pro)... I tried to check the parameters and I don't see anything that could cause the issue : it's not in divine mode (even often on fast mode) and the multicore option is off (I know it cause a lot of issues with Ableton Live).
Maybe it's another plugin, but I've got so many that I don't know how to troubleshoot...
Anyone did noticed strange behavior of their plugins in these new Macs ?

I will try to unsync the on/off automation for each song, and see if it helps. I keep you in touch
And thanks again for the help...

Calagan
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:24 am

After a quick test in a new empty set, only populated by 4 racks each containing a vsti, I can confirm that activating/deactivating a rack produce a big CPU hit : from 2 to 3 bars on the 6 bars track performance meter !

But the strange issue is that the plugin causing troubles is a very tiny and usually transparent one : the same track activated with a vsti only is much lower in CPU hit that a track activated with a vsti followed by Satson (from Sonimus).

So it seems that Satson may produce most of my issues, even if it's not crashing. It seems to work normally, but it produces more CPU use than it should ! And the ironic part is that it's the most subtle plugin I've got and it's everywhere in all my sessions ! :cry:

There's no evidence Satson is fully compatible with Monterey, and the M1 native version is still in progress.
So I guess I will have to figure out how I can replace Satson with something else, at least in the Live set I use on stage...

EDIT : issue is only when using Audio Unit version of Satson in Live running in native. When Live is running under Rosetta, it's fine with both AU and VST instances of Satson...

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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by [jur] » Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:49 am

You should definitely report this to support@ableton.com
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DunedinDragon
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by DunedinDragon » Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:50 am

Calagan wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:47 am


EDIT : I just tested right now, and I noticed that if I unsync the on/off automation for each track/rack, I can clearly see that the activation of a rack triggers badly the track performance meter. I think it flashes sometimes 5 from the 6 available bars of the track performance meter (but I don't know if this meter is peak or "RMS").
The strange thing is the global CPU meter is flashing on play/stop/launching even when the track performance meter is barely moving. ???
This is the thing I thought about initially when I first started reading this thread, that the problem you're encountering has nothing to do with the CPU usage of playing the tracks, but in loading and synchronizing them. This would be caused by two things, turning the pieces on/off which loads/unloads them from memory, and the initialization of the plug-ins while the track is in the process of trying to play. Those type of operations are fairly expensive in terms of CPU usage and would easily cause intermittent spikes.

This is one of the reasons the most general approach to backing tracks is to reduce everything to audio to avoid the overhead of loading and processing during the actual performance. Of course that won't work if you're manually interacting with the plugins during the performance.

Calagan
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Thu Jun 09, 2022 6:47 pm

DunedinDragon wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:50 am
Calagan wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:47 am


EDIT : I just tested right now, and I noticed that if I unsync the on/off automation for each track/rack, I can clearly see that the activation of a rack triggers badly the track performance meter. I think it flashes sometimes 5 from the 6 available bars of the track performance meter (but I don't know if this meter is peak or "RMS").
The strange thing is the global CPU meter is flashing on play/stop/launching even when the track performance meter is barely moving. ???
This is the thing I thought about initially when I first started reading this thread, that the problem you're encountering has nothing to do with the CPU usage of playing the tracks, but in loading and synchronizing them. This would be caused by two things, turning the pieces on/off which loads/unloads them from memory, and the initialization of the plug-ins while the track is in the process of trying to play. Those type of operations are fairly expensive in terms of CPU usage and would easily cause intermittent spikes.

This is one of the reasons the most general approach to backing tracks is to reduce everything to audio to avoid the overhead of loading and processing during the actual performance. Of course that won't work if you're manually interacting with the plugins during the performance.
Please read the thread since the beginning.
I understand the idea, but it's absurd such a beast as the new M1 macbook pro has the same limitations as my old mid-2012 macbook pro.
It shouldn't be an issue to turn on/off plugins !
And of course, I can't reduce anything to audio : the 3 members of the band are all actually playing the music (i.e. sending midi notes to vsti), not launching audio clips.

This exact process was without any issue on my mid-2012 laptop during years, and started to show some flaws when I extended the songs (new songs, new plugins, new vsti... etc.).
I bought a new laptop so I could keep some CPU headroom but if I have a lot more headroom while playing, actually I've got the sames issues (or even worst) when launching the scenes et turning on/off racks. It's not normal !

I will try to test if it's not because of Satson, but I know it will be a huge amount of work to troubleshoot my issue...

Calagan
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by Calagan » Thu Jun 09, 2022 6:49 pm

[jur] wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:49 am
You should definitely report this to support@ableton.com
Is it about Live or about Satson (or any 3d party plugin) ?
Before sending something to Ableton and receiving the usual questions, I need to test more methodically my Live set...

[jur]
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Re: Is it possible to avoid clicks when launching scenes ???

Post by [jur] » Thu Jun 09, 2022 7:37 pm

Calagan wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 6:49 pm
[jur] wrote:
Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:49 am
You should definitely report this to support@ableton.com
Is it about Live or about Satson (or any 3d party plugin) ?
Before sending something to Ableton and receiving the usual questions, I need to test more methodically my Live set...
About Live. Of course mentioning Satson is required.
Please don't foret to do it when you're done with testing.
I realised I might be experiencing a related issue in a specific set when I double-click stop to reset Arrangement's transport to 0:00. I'm not sure yet, but it seems to be somehow related to several External Instrument devices racked in a Drum Rack sending midi to Orchestral Tools Sine Player, in my case.
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