Tempo Changes for No Reason

[Stromkraft]

I really do appreciate your help, but I play music the old fashioned way (not that you don't) and just need the program for drums and orchestral strings. For instance, I tried to record a track and even though the levels were reading, the track didn't record. I'm not the least bit interested in the nature of the program itself or trying to figure out why something didn't play or doesn't sound the way I played it----I'm sick of Ableton and it can go fuck itself for good. Thank you again for trying to help, but I don't have the patience nor the willingness to deal with this program.

While I can understand your sentiments, what you describe is totally abnormal, OK? Personally, I've never encountered anything similar in my 6 years of using Ableton Live on multiple systems. I don't think I've seen anyone post something like this before either.

[kyleobryan76]

You're right and I apologize. It's just so frustrating-----I really do appreciate your thoughts and help. Thank you and thanks to everyone for all the help---there is a solution, I just need to find it.

[ian_halsall]

I really do appreciate your help, but I play music the old fashioned way (not that you don't) and just need the program for drums and orchestral strings. For instance, I tried to record a track and even though the levels were reading, the track didn't record. I'm not the least bit interested in the nature of the program itself or trying to figure out why something didn't play or doesn't sound the way I played it----I'm sick of Ableton and it can go fuck itself for good. Thank you again for trying to help, but I don't have the patience nor the willingness to deal with this program.

While I can understand your sentiments, what you describe is totally abnormal, OK? Personally, I've never encountered anything similar in my 6 years of using Ableton Live on multiple systems. I don't think I've seen anyone post something like this before either.

Indeed - try to be objective and systetamic, your post rambles between issues around tempp and inability to record.

But as an ex cubase and logic user I think I may know what you're on about with the recording - live is different - simply clicking in the track will NOT enable it for playing/recording.

You need to arm the track explicitly (check the manual cba screenshotting)

[kyleobryan76]

I was having trouble recording something but it was a driver issue that I figured out. My problem is still the arbitrary tempo changes---I can work around it by constantly changing the tempos until they sound correct each time I record (which isn't the biggest deal since I'm used to it), but I'm mostly concerned with preparing things for exporting and not knowing what audible speed it will have after exporting. I haven't gotten to that stage, but I've heard that things are supposed to only be dithered once (among others things that are probably only supposed to be done once in editing that I'm not aware of yet or haven't thought of) before exporting. That is really my primary dilemma. Are the things I've heard about dithering correct? I suppose I could export the tracks before editing (to a CD or something) and make sure they sound correct before dithering and finalizing things? I haven't given up on the tempo change problem, but as long as the end result is the way I want it, I can live with constantly adjusting it along the way. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks again to everyone for the ideas and support.

[Stromkraft]

I haven't given up on the tempo change problem, but as long as the end result is the way I want it, I can live with constantly adjusting it along the way. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks again to everyone for the ideas and support.

I don't think you should have to accept this issue, especially as it would appear to be totally avoidable. I'm thinking hardware failure is the most likely culrpit based on your descriptions. Probably it's a good idea to try with both another machine as well as with another audio interface.

I've had weird, and temporary for fractions of a bar to 1 bar long, playback in some cases but that was on very old and slow machines that struggled to keep up the work load. The solution then was newer and more powerful hardware.

[kyleobryan76]

You're probably right, Stromkraft. I use a Lenovo all-in-one computer and it does pretty well in most regards, so maybe it's the interface or a program glitch. I just don't want to start everything over from scratch. The CPU load meter never goes over 25%, so I don't think it's the computer. Thank you again for the input---I will probably try another interface and maybe try reinstalling Ableton. Cheers.

[kyleobryan76]

One more thing I was thinking---do you think disabling the warp feature on the audio tracks could help the problem? I guess I could try it and see, I was just thinking that playing everything that way might help maintain a consistent
tempo. I know I would have to re-record the audio tracks, but if it works, it would be worth it. Let me know what you think.

[Stromkraft]

One more thing I was thinking---do you think disabling the warp feature on the audio tracks could help the problem? I guess I could try it and see, I was just thinking that playing everything that way might help maintain a consistent
tempo. I know I would have to re-record the audio tracks, but if it works, it would be worth it. Let me know what you think.

It could — Certainly if you don't use Beats or some of the other non-neutral warp modes. When you don't change the tempo these should null with a non-warped source.
You could also use non-warped as baseline source track by track by duplicating the track and adding the Utility: reverse phase preset to one of them. Then solo those two and result should be silence. Let it play for many loops listening back.

[kyleobryan76]

Good points. I will try the things you mentioned. Thanks again, Stromkraft.

[zaviergrimm]

Perhaps the answer is much more basic than we imagined: when you hit File > "Save As" you also need to do one more step. You need to hit File > "Collect All and Save" to gather all of the sample and audio files that may be scattered around different folders in your computer.

https://youtu.be/ORjC6juI0-s?t=102

-Michael