Ableton Live 9 reacts slow

[VivaceBeats]

Hello,

I recently purchased Ableton Live 9 and i like it so far. But i did notice a delay in the reponsetime with certain actions within Ableton Live 9. For example the MIDI editting feels slow
because when moving around a MIDI Note, the MIDI Note does not immediately move along. Same goes for mp3/wav files in a audio track, when i move them around they feel "heavy" .

Was wondering if i am the only one experiencing this, or if there's some kind of fix for this issue.


Thanks,


Robert

[Stromkraft]

Hello,

I recently purchased Ableton Live 9 and i like it so far. But i did notice a delay in the reponsetime with certain actions within Ableton Live 9. For example the MIDI editting feels slow
because when moving around a MIDI Note, the MIDI Note does not immediately move along. Same goes for mp3/wav files in a audio track, when i move them around they feel "heavy" .

Was wondering if i am the only one experiencing this, or if there's some kind of fix for this issue.

• Faster CPU (In reality, not clock speed)
• Better Graphics Card
• More RAM
• SSD

[VivaceBeats]

Hello Stromkraft,

Thank you for the quick reply. I have 8 GB of RAM, Geforce GTX 770 and a Intel Core i5-4670 @ 3.40 ghz.

Ableton is being ran on a non-SSD even though my C: is a SSD. I did this because i have alot of samples i use and it wouldnt fit on the SSD card.


If i read your list my best bet is a bigger SSD card so i can put Ableton and all my samples on there though. Thanks

[robokopdub]

I have the same problem . I think its because of the 9.2.1 update?

[Stromkraft]

Hello Stromkraft,

Thank you for the quick reply. I have 8 GB of RAM, Geforce GTX 770 and a Intel Core i5-4670 @ 3.40 ghz.

Ableton is being ran on a non-SSD even though my C: is a SSD. I did this because i have alot of samples i use and it wouldnt fit on the SSD card.

Your RAM is most likely sufficient, unless you use really big sample libraries loaded at the same time — that could slow down things a lot— your CPU is 4-core and should be fast enough really, but are you sure you have the proper drivers for your Geforce? What's your audio interface?

It could be a good idea to at least try to use an SSD for your music production libraries.

None of this would explain sudden slowness though.
Do you have this issue in any project or just in those you are in the middle of working on?

If not in all projects, how many tracks do you have in problem projects, what amount of plug-ins in use? Does freezing tracks improve response? When I get slow response in Push I have much going on.

Do you have at least 20% free space on your internal SSD? SSDs are sometimes more tolerant to little space left than hard disks would be, but far from all and its' not worth betting on it. 20% is a good rule.

[VivaceBeats]

Your RAM is most likely sufficient, unless you use really big sample libraries loaded at the same time — that could slow down things a lot— your CPU is 4-core and should be fast enough really, but are you sure you have the proper drivers for your Geforce? What's your audio interface?

It could be a good idea to at least try to use an SSD for your music production libraries.

None of this would explain sudden slowness though.
Do you have this issue in any project or just in those you are in the middle of working on?

If not in all projects, how many tracks do you have in problem projects, what amount of plug-ins in use? Does freezing tracks improve response? When I get slow response in Push I have much going on.

Yeah i have the latest drivers for my GeForce, and i have a Saffire Pro 24 Interface. I only recently got Ableton so i'am mostly still figuring stuff out, i get the slow-feels right from the beginning of a project.

My SSD has plenty of space, but i might try to put my libraries and ableton on a seperate SSD card, and see if that helps out!

[yur2die4]

Does it still happen with everything disconnected from your USB and all devices/control surfaces off in midi prefs? (Plus restarting the program)

Also double check this, just incase: https://www.ableton.com/en/help/article ... ouse-zoom/

[Stromkraft]

Yeah i have the latest drivers for my GeForce, and i have a Saffire Pro 24 Interface. I only recently got Ableton so i'am mostly still figuring stuff out, i get the slow-feels right from the beginning of a project.

OK, so make sure you check your background processes with Activity Monitor some of which could be making more use of the CPU than they should at times. Also check whether your processor is known for Speedstep issues. I have turned off Speedstep in my MacBook Pro by hacking OS X (the only way that worked with OS X Mavericks which was made known by Rhys Oxenham**).

You can get a lot of CPU info from the app intel power gadget though I'm not certain Speedstep status is reflected by it and possibly with Systcl from the command line in Terminal too where I think machdep.cpu.stepping is key to look for, but actually I'm currently uncertain how to interpret the values that seem to go from 1 to 10. You'll find a 2010 PC-focused article on the subject of Throttle issues in Sound on Sound: CPU Throttling, PC Notes.


**Tinkering with the OS should of course not be taken lightly, and only turned to when other solutions have been exhausted. Never attempt hacks like Rhys's without a full system backup and preferably try first on an external system disk, leaving the internal untouched. Be aware of that issues may appear later and not at once.

[VivaceBeats]

Thanks Stromkraft, i'll start looking into this!

By the way, also noticed when i play my project and browse through samples at the same time (drums etc.) it takes a few seconds for the sample to play when i click it. When i stop playing the loop from
the project the samples play instantly when clicked. Is this something that's also not normal?


Thanks

[yur2die4]

That is normal. Sample previews during playback are quantized to the global quantization. It's really good for previewing loops! Samples, not so much.

[VivaceBeats]

That is normal. Sample previews during playback are quantized to the global quantization. It's really good for previewing loops! Samples, not so much.

Ahh that explains it, thanks mate

[nathannn]

Do you mean that Live is slow when moving things around in Arrange view or session view?

Live has always been sluggish in arrange view when moving/highlighting large amounts of data while zoomed in at certain levels.

This is a bug or a feature that they have to be aware of since it has been around for years. I think if enough people complained about it like they did with 'delay compensation' it would get fixed.

[VivaceBeats]

Do you mean that Live is slow when moving things around in Arrange view or session view?

Live has always been sluggish in arrange view when moving/highlighting large amounts of data while zoomed in at certain levels.

This is a bug or a feature that they have to be aware of since it has been around for years. I think if enough people complained about it like they did with 'delay compensation' it would get fixed.

Hey Nathan, thats what i mean yeah its slow, feels heavy etc.

[Stromkraft]

Live has always been sluggish in arrange view when moving/highlighting large amounts of data while zoomed in at certain levels.

I might have overlooked this as maybe I've come to expect it. Or I don't feel it so much that it gets in the way. There are of course many situations where Live feels sluggish, though few applications can be responsive when prioritizing real time audio.

If your machine indeed is struggling then chances are you need a faster machine. I doubt there is an easy fix for this, except maybe totally rewriting the graphics engine to make better more effective use of hardware acceleration.

If this is going to have any chance of getting priority I think a better more specific problem description to give to Ableton is needed.