Very Bad Ableton Latency

[3dot...]

lower audio buffer size = lower latency

[jbodango]

just taking the piss over my morning coffee.

this isn't documented very well, we've been pointing this out to Ableton for years. this is the same post I've put up over the years:

viewtopic.php?p=1368087#p1368087

FWIW 1ms of delay in open air is the same amount of delay as having your year 1 foot from the speaker, 10ms is the same as being 10 feet from your speaker.

Dude, these days we are all shifting over to monitoring in water, the latency is a quarter of air. The waterproof speakers are a bit expensive, and my head goes a bit wrinkly after being submerged for a few hours. but for that sweet watery bass coming in at 5,120 m/s, it's worth it.

<do not do this>

During high profile sessions with exceptionally awesome drummers, we pump gratuitous amounts of helium into the room while tracking drums takes. My wet dream would be to find a drummer who could handle the environment in a 100% just helium filled room... we'd see some ludicrous-speed transients.... not to mention the potential latency reduction... although it's a meager 965 m/s compared to the 1400-1500 m/s one would get in water.

[re:dream]

Best of all is of course to use solid steel, which gives you speeds of nearly 6000 m/s. Because of the practical difficulties involved in filling the studio space with metal, the use of long thin steel rods to transmit the sound between monitor and eardrum is recommended

[luddy]

What 3dot said.

If you go to audio preferences and set your buffer depth, then the input and output latencies will be reported to you. Those are no different than for logic -- they are a function of the hardware audio interface. The difference with Logic is (only) this: in Logic you can load up more tracks and plug-ins before audio breakup sets in (crackling, overload), so you can enjoy a lower latency with a bigger project. But the basic notion of round-trip latency is the same with the two DAWs.

Live handles input monitoring a little differently from Logic, because Live is aimed at live performance. But that's kind of a red herring; if you have a big latency then your audio buffer depth is too large (or something else is up with your audio interface). So the place to start is the audio buffer depth. I use 32 samples as a buffer depth when I'm being very picky about latency (e.g., on stage), but generally work with something like 128 samples of latency and find it good enough for most recording work.

hth,

-Luddy

[Xambassadors]

@ Tone daft. Sorry i missed the link earlier. I did what you said and there is a delay but i don't know the units that ableton is using. I know this is a newb question but help would be really appreciated. According the meter at the bottom of the audio screen it is delayed by "0.00:007" Is that 7 MS?

[Tone Deft]

yup. moreover you can write that number down, apply a delay setting, measure again and see the value applied. it's fun in a DAW geek way to go through this and dial in the setting. Live is a lot more fun and usable with this yet it seems most don't know and Ableton buried that lesson.

[H20nly]

at the responses in this thread.


+1 for lower your buffer settings.

if you make it too low, you'll hear cracks and pops. when/if you do it's time to raise the buffer.

fwiw, mine is set 96 samples. this size works great with a bass, guitar, microphone and MIDI tracks in my sets. the quality of your interface may prevent you from going that low, but like luddy said 128 seems to work pretty well if you just need a number to start from.

15ms or less (round trip) should allow you to get by without noticing latency... assuming that Driver Error Compensation is set to 0.

[Tone Deft]

+1 for lower your buffer settings.

if you make it too low, you'll hear cracks and pops. when/if you do it's time to raise the buffer.

fwiw, mine is set 96 samples. this size works great with a bass, guitar, microphone and MIDI tracks in my sets. the quality of your interface may prevent you from going that low, but like luddy said 128 seems to work pretty well if you just need a number to start from.

15ms or less (round trip) should allow you to get by without noticing latency... assuming that Driver Error Compensation is set to 0.

I'm talking about a completely different setting.

why are you saying to set Driver Error Compensation to zero? your DAW isn't set up right.

[H20nly]

Riight! I forgot about the 3phase cancellation dither...

[eyeknow]

Ableton with my settings: 2.46 in/4.08 out

Studio one with my settings SAME: 2.46 in/4.08 out

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[glitchrock-buddha]

Hey guys,

I use ableton both in a live setting and in the studio. I'd consider myself a pretty advanced user of the program, but i have never been able to get around abletons latency. I have a 3 month old macbook pro with 16 gigs of ram and am running ableton 9 32 bit. I adjusted my buffer size using the test tone and found 96 samples to produce no clipping or cracking. I've also adjusted the delay compensation (to -5) so that my overall latency is .83ms.

As soon as i have a track with drums, bass, and a few synths with some of my waves plugins (my cpu meter is running between 15-20%) there is bad latency when trying to play software instruments with my midi controller. The driver type i'm using is core audio, which i think is standard on macs.

My solution for this has been to bounce my stems into logic x when i start to get latency. I can then add many more plugins and software instruments with absolutely no latency. I love ableton, but it's a little ridiculous that this is happening with so few tracks. I'd understand if i were using huge orchestral (east west, hollywood strings) sample libraries with a full orchestration. But i'm talking about very basic demo ideas creating too much latency to record simple midi ideas over.

Any help resolving this would be GREATLY appreciated as i love ableton and can't get anywhere else to the same workflow with any other DAW.

Thanks,
Adam

Ok so you're setting your buffer to 96 samples? That should give pretty damn low latency. I use 128. And as others said leave your driver error compensation at 0.

You mention in your post that you start to get latency after a few tracks and that you get it while playing from your midi controller. This to me sounds like you're using high latency plug-ins. Do you have some mastering or some compressors or dynamics on your master or some tracks. If I had to guess, I'd bet you're throwing something like Ozone or Vintage Warmer 2 or some other high latency dynamics on.

Try just using Live plug-ins, do you get latency after a few tracks?

[stoersignal]

why there`s no word about SR ???

[Tone Deft]

And as others said leave your driver error compensation at 0.

why?

[glitchrock-buddha]

And as others said leave your driver error compensation at 0.

why?

cuz he seems to be using a simple setup with a decent audio interface (apogee duet) and using some basic usb midi controller via.

No reason driver compensation should be needed. Especially if it starts ok and gets worth as he builds the set. Sounds like a plug-in issue.

[Tone Deft]

good points.