Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Quinnx
Posts: 64
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:09 am

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by Quinnx » Wed Mar 18, 2015 11:21 am

Im running Ableton live 9 on xp and by comparison with 7 on the same system
i get at et least 30% gain in processing power on xp

Although I like 7 it appears to be a resource hog, XP gives you back a large percetage of usable ram and CPU power.

mrdelurk
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Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by mrdelurk » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:05 pm

That's valuable insight, Quinnx. So if my i7 PC becomes under-powered one day to run Live, instead of buying more computer hardware, I'll try XP first for another 30% CPU boost.

Intel and Microsoft might not be pleased, but I care about what benefits me, not them.

locojohn
Posts: 487
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Location: riga, latvia

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by locojohn » Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:24 pm

adventurepants_ wrote:VMware and virtual machines are not suitable to run real time dependent software like DAW programs.
Its a hiding to nowhere, it will only perform poorly no matter what you tweak.
I am running Buzz Tracker in WinXP under Virtual Box on OS X host with NO issues. I even have full MIDI support via external USB MIDI interface with little latency, all on Mac Book Pro from 2011.

Andrejs
/*
  • the basic tone of life remains the same,
    and in it there are some happy melodies
    and some sad melodies
    - sekito kisen
*/

cpnet
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:54 am

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by cpnet » Wed Dec 30, 2015 9:20 pm

I've wanted to do this for a long time, but even with VMware Workstation 12 Pro, I don't think this is feasible (at least on a Windows machine).

I'm running a Win7 Ultimate x64 host, and was looking at a Win10 Pro guest. When I look at the device manager in my guest machine, I don't see a number of my USB midi controllers (Launchke25, Akai MPK 88, etc). My Maschine Studio controller shows up (albeit under a different category ... although maybe this would change if I installed the Maschine drivers). I don't see my iLok USB key showing up, which I presume would meant that I couldn't validate the copy protection on quite a number of my VST's. I installed the drivers for my Komplete Audio 6 USB soundcard on my guest machine, but the Komplete Audio 6 control Panel can't find my Komplete Audio 6.

I have VMware Workstation configured for USB 3.0 devices, and set to autodetect them all, but it seems like it can't actually work with quite a number of them. If there's some tricks that I'm missing, please let me know. I'd much prefer to set up my audio production system in a Virtual Machine, but right now it seems that it would only work if I didn't have any dependencies on USB devices (controllers/soundcards/copy protection). I didn't get to test whether ASIO4All would work, but it's somewhat irrelevant if it can't get access to my USB sound devices anyway.

cpnet
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2013 4:54 am

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by cpnet » Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:32 am

cpnet wrote:I've wanted to do this for a long time, but even with VMware Workstation 12 Pro, I don't think this is feasible (at least on a Windows machine).

I'm running a Win7 Ultimate x64 host, and was looking at a Win10 Pro guest. When I look at the device manager in my guest machine, I don't see a number of my USB midi controllers (Launchke25, Akai MPK 88, etc). My Maschine Studio controller shows up (albeit under a different category ... although maybe this would change if I installed the Maschine drivers). I don't see my iLok USB key showing up, which I presume would meant that I couldn't validate the copy protection on quite a number of my VST's. I installed the drivers for my Komplete Audio 6 USB soundcard on my guest machine, but the Komplete Audio 6 control Panel can't find my Komplete Audio 6.

I have VMware Workstation configured for USB 3.0 devices, and set to autodetect them all, but it seems like it can't actually work with quite a number of them. If there's some tricks that I'm missing, please let me know. I'd much prefer to set up my audio production system in a Virtual Machine, but right now it seems that it would only work if I didn't have any dependencies on USB devices (controllers/soundcards/copy protection). I didn't get to test whether ASIO4All would work, but it's somewhat irrelevant if it can't get access to my USB sound devices anyway.
I discovered that although I'm running VMware Workstation 12, my test guest machine was still using the Workstation 10 settings/configuration. When I updated the guest machines to Workstation 12, all of my USB devices became available including my Komplete Audio 6 and my iLok. I installed the Komplete Audio 6 drivers and the configuration app was able to see and configure the card. So it seems like it may actually be possible to run my music setup in a VM. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I'll get a chance to test performance differences.

septuplet
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:13 pm

Need help!

Post by septuplet » Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:41 am

I guess this is my last hope on running Live without having to use Windows as my main system.

Can you guys show me the way? How do you get to run Windows on VM?

mrgrim3
Posts: 118
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 4:04 am

Re: Need help!

Post by mrgrim3 » Tue Jan 19, 2016 2:34 am

septuplet wrote:I guess this is my last hope on running Live without having to use Windows as my main system.

Can you guys show me the way? How do you get to run Windows on VM?
have you considered dual booting and you can leave the windows partition for daw only

Guillermo Barrancos
Posts: 290
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2013 8:05 am

Re: Need help!

Post by Guillermo Barrancos » Tue Jan 19, 2016 7:41 am

septuplet wrote:I guess this is my last hope on running Live without having to use Windows as my main system.

Can you guys show me the way? How do you get to run Windows on VM?
It depends what kind of system you have?

If you have an Intel Mac (which pretty much every Mac is since 2007 or so), then use Bootcamp. It's excellent and rock solid. I have used it for years with my MacBook Pro's.
Don't use the Virtualization software on OSX, like Parallels. It's crap. OSX is terrible as virtualization host.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Need help!

Post by Stromkraft » Tue Jan 19, 2016 3:37 pm

septuplet wrote:I guess this is my last hope on running Live without having to use Windows as my main system.

Can you guys show me the way? How do you get to run Windows on VM?
Why not focus on creating and running a minimal Windows system that boots right into Live? If you use SSD, a boot into Windows and Linux could be very fast and the latter be executed on the quit of Live and the first when executing some automation for a reboot.

Using a VM is doomed to fail most likely unless you use a really powerful machine, i e not even a quad-core. And even so it's a chance not worth taking I think. Of course, sometimes it's good to learn the hard way.
Make some music!

locojohn
Posts: 487
Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:42 am
Location: riga, latvia

Re: Need help!

Post by locojohn » Wed Jan 20, 2016 4:30 pm

Stromkraft wrote:
septuplet wrote:Using a VM is doomed to fail most likely unless you use a really powerful machine, i e not even a quad-core.
I have a different real world experience. However, I am not running Live in the VM, but an old (though great) software called Buzz Tracker. It is running in Windows XP guest under Mac OS X Mavericks host under Virtualbox. Audio latency is next to real time and I managed to get low MIDI latency as well by using MIDI over network etc., so I can play my MIDI keyboard in VM and it's OK. In general, I am completely satisfied, and I can also route stuff via Soundflower to Live if I want to.

Regards,
Andrejs
/*
  • the basic tone of life remains the same,
    and in it there are some happy melodies
    and some sad melodies
    - sekito kisen
*/

septuplet
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 7:13 pm

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by septuplet » Wed Jan 20, 2016 6:02 pm

Yes, I used to dual boot for that purpose. But as I can see, Quinxx is running Ableton Live via VM, and I would like to try that.

11olsen
Posts: 157
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Location: germany

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by 11olsen » Thu Mar 15, 2018 6:35 pm

I'm running a Mac OSX HighSierra VM on a Windows PC.
Live 9 works on this VM but does anybody have a clue why I'm seeing blank windows when I'm starting Live 10 on this VM.
The windows are responsive, buttons are clickable, it's just not showing any graphics. Graphics engine changed with Live 10?

Image
Image

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by Stromkraft » Thu Mar 15, 2018 7:56 pm

While I fail to see the point of all this I still admire the geekyness of it all.
Make some music!

11olsen
Posts: 157
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Location: germany

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by 11olsen » Thu Mar 15, 2018 8:11 pm

my point is quite simple: i don't own a Mac and want to make sure a m4l device is compatible with the Mac OSX versions of Live, too.
I would never seriously make music on a VM.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Ableton Live in virtual machine?

Post by Stromkraft » Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:38 pm

11olsen wrote:my point is quite simple: i don't own a Mac and want to make sure a m4l device is compatible with the Mac OSX versions of Live, too.
I would never seriously make music on a VM.
Yes, this makes sense.
Make some music!

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