Ableton Forum

square_eyes wrote:THis is silly. I have many reasons to want to record more than a couple hours audio. (Live gigs, performances). Ableton is great as an affordable live recording mixer with it's non destructivfe automation, sidechaining and general stability.

Can't it just make a new file everytime it gets to 2gb (4gb) that shows as one continuous track in the GUI and plays back seemlessly based on some back end data base entry or playlist?

maybe you should create your own file format and see if you can get Apple, Microsoft and Ableton to implement it.

at CD quality 2 - 4 GB is around 6 hours of playback. how much do you need?

square_eyes wrote:THis is silly

another word for it could be; unreasonable.


i don't think there is a file size limit for MP3 or FLAC. if you really need to create never ending audio perhaps you can find an application that supports the creation of one of those file types.

How about using follow actions in session view to trigger a new audio clip recording every so many bars?

D. Sav wrote:How about using follow actions in session view to trigger a new audio clip recording every so many bars?

7 year old thread dude. 7 years......

Well I still struggle with this issue 8 years later. Now that FLAC is supported, I am going to explore this as a solution, otherwise actions is the only solution.

For some reason they never consider this a priority. But consider this: Ableton Live is also used by folks to record DJ mixes or long live sets. And you get no warning that the limit has been reached and that Live cannot produce a larger file. Instead, it's still recording (nothing)... Imagine frustration of people who expect it to record their complete live/dj set only to discover the truth about 2 GB limit... This issue could have been mitigated in ways that is not in contradiction with the wave audio format currently being used.

Back in 2016 I received a response that Live does not support "RF64Format" WAV files, which appear to support >2 GB, and that this is internal Live limitation and that my next best thing is to submit a feature request on their Centercode system. Which I did of course. Well, anyway.

The thread may be seven years old, but it's still a relevant question and seems to come up fairly often. It's something I am still wondering about. I also experienced this problem back when I mixed sets seven years ago. After a long hiatus from music I've recently gotten back into things and will be recording some lengthy sets between 2-3 hours, but at some point in time I could go as long as 4-6 hours. Will this still be an issue using Ableton 9? Does it make a difference whether I'm using WAV or AIFF? My current settings are with a sample rate at 48000 and bit depth is at 24. Are these settings pretty safe to achieve a 3 hour mix without getting cutoff?

wavescapes wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 09, 2019 3:03 pm

The thread may be seven years old, but it's still a relevant question and seems to come up fairly often. It's something I am still wondering about. I also experienced this problem back when I mixed sets seven years ago. After a long hiatus from music I've recently gotten back into things and will be recording some lengthy sets between 2-3 hours, but at some point in time I could go as long as 4-6 hours. Will this still be an issue using Ableton 9? Does it make a difference whether I'm using WAV or AIFF? My current settings are with a sample rate at 48000 and bit depth is at 24. Are these settings pretty safe to achieve a 3 hour mix without getting cutoff?

if my calculations are correct a 2GB file will hold around 4 hours of audio @ 48kHz/24 bit ...

I thought this limitation was due to the 32bit architecture...
But you're saying that this is still the case with Live 64bit?

[jur] wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 4:45 am

I thought this limitation was due to the 32bit architecture...

No, it's the 32bit wav header, that limits pcm audio file size to 4GB (unsigned) / 2GB (signed).

It's strange they dont employ the same simple solution handheld audio recorders do: just start a new wave file immediately as the last one ends. Ive got a couple of recorders and they do it gaplessly.

fishmonkey wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:44 am

if my calculations are correct a 2GB file will hold around 4 hours of audio @ 48kHz/24 bit ...

Sorry to be a downer, but a 2GB file will only hold around 2 hours of 24 bit / 48Kz uncompressed stereo audio.
At 16 bit / 44.1khz it's just over 3 hours.

Angstrom wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 11:56 am

It's strange they dont employ the same simple solution handheld audio recorders do: just start a new wave file immediately as the last one ends. Ive got a couple of recorders and they do it gaplessly.

If it becomes a big enough issue hopefully they'll do a software update at some point in time.

Da hand wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 1:47 pm

fishmonkey wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:44 am

if my calculations are correct a 2GB file will hold around 4 hours of audio @ 48kHz/24 bit ...

Sorry to be a downer, but a 2GB file will only hold around 2 hours of 24 bit / 48Kz uncompressed stereo audio.
At 16 bit / 44.1khz it's just over 3 hours.

Eee gads. So what is the actual current time/size limit for recording live sets in Ableton with reasonable audio file settings?

Da hand wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 1:47 pm

fishmonkey wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:44 am

if my calculations are correct a 2GB file will hold around 4 hours of audio @ 48kHz/24 bit ...

Sorry to be a downer, but a 2GB file will only hold around 2 hours of 24 bit / 48Kz uncompressed stereo audio.
At 16 bit / 44.1khz it's just over 3 hours.

whoops, forgot to halve the final time for a stereo file...

wavescapes wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 5:10 pm

Angstrom wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 10, 2019 11:56 am

It's strange they dont employ the same simple solution handheld audio recorders do: just start a new wave file immediately as the last one ends. Ive got a couple of recorders and they do it gaplessly.

If it becomes a big enough issue hopefully they'll do a software update at some point in time.

in all fairness, it is considered a loop-based audio application. i realize the definition of loop is not clearly defined, but it seems to me that an audio loop, as it pertains to music, would have a relationship to measures... bars... beats. i'm not sure that Louis Armstrong or even Mozart ever had an use for a measure with 10's of thousands of beats in it.

if you loop a chunk of a song or even a whole song, that typically would keep you comfortably under the 2 hours range.

but trap is considered music now, so i suppose anything can happen.

*shrugs*

you can always record arm another track and trigger it to start recording some time before after the first hour or so. it's not like you won't have time.