Live 11.1 is gating low level audio after 3d party plugins

[[jur]]

In fact, any line that starts with -_ is completely ignored by Live, no errors pop up even if I write something random.
I'm on Windows, by the way. Maybe it works on Mac...

That's weird, several options start with these so it should work.
But the option says off TIME in samples, not off LEVEL/DECIBEL/threshold, so it sounds like it's adjusting the gate's release time while you're in fact after adjusting its threshold.

[just_in]

OK, I figured out why the options.txt setting wasn't working... For that gating bypass to work, audio must first reach a level above -100dB, but in my test setup it was below -100dB from the start (I had a saved Live session for testing).
I should have assumed it works like this, due to the "time" wording (time for the gate bypass to be enabled after -100dB is reached, I guess - or gate release time as [jur] said).
Anyway, carry on...

[just_in]

What I wrote above means that, even when using the options.txt workaround, any track content that starts below -100dB won't get played or rendered until it goes above -100dB. Like fade ins, for example.
If you want that content to be played/rendered in Live, you first need to play through the whole song after loading a project.
And any content that stays below -100dB all the time will never get played or rendered.

So even this options.txt workaround is only a partial fix and it doesn't get rid of gating completely, as one might expect.

Is content below -100dB really useless? I don't mind 16bit as a bit depth for delivery (some audiophiles disagree), but tracks from Live are regularly used for additional processing, such as mixing in another DAW, where low levels can get amplified significantly. So higher bit depths are used for a reason.

I don't know the details of how VST plugins work. Maybe gating them is a good solution to make them stop processing. Although I'm not really convinced and I think other DAWs don't do this.
But if gating was chosen, at least make it kick in at a lower level. Ensuring 24bits of dynamic range would be at least somewhat reasonable. Still, this whole thing is a bit weird.

[Nokatus]

Who cares, it's all about the loudness war anyway
But more seriously, nobody can hear such low levels so...

These days, it's already a pretty cemented technique in sound design to push also VERY quiet signals through so-called "doom compression" , both musical and sound effect component sources (the name being coined because of the distinctive sound of Mick Gordon's modern Doom soundtracks). In order to accomplish this, there are signal chains and plugins that push a signal 100 dBs or more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziQZJI0gDy4
https://nimble.itch.io/argent

On my part, working in the games industry and so on, I can also +1 that signals from 3rd party plugin sources cutting off and flaking in and out at low levels (as in, normally imperceptible, but when doing something like this, set surprisingly high!) is a nuisance

(Disclaimer, note that the above GeoffPlaysGuitar's video includes an error at one point, of calling upwards compression upwards expansion, but he acknowledged it somewhere already, annnd in any case, the point is that there are actual methods and signal chains in real-world use that do stuff like this. Hah.)

[just_in]

Meanwhile, I tested three other DAWs and none of them are doing any gating.
If Ableton thinks this is a good default, at least give us the option to completely turn it off, because that workaround is not great.
But I don't think it's a good default. It should be opt-in.

[Calagan]

Meanwhile, I tested three other DAWs and none of them are doing any gating.
If Ableton thinks this is a good default, at least give us the option to completely turn it off, because that workaround is not great.
But I don't think it's a good default. It should be opt-in.

Yep, completly agree.
But please, send an email to Ableton so they decide to change that.
Nobody knows, so nobody complains. But I'm pretty sure most users will complain about that when they know.

And to argue a bit with the reason behind gating low level audio, I don't see how much CPU you can save by gating few ms of audio here and there (because I don't think you find many audio content under -100db...)

[[jur]]

These days, it's already a pretty cemented technique in sound design to push also VERY quiet signals through so-called "doom compression" ,

Yeah, but you're pushing them. That's exactly my point!
You're not sending your -102dB signal into your plugin as is, you're raising it to workable levels first.

[Nokatus]

These days, it's already a pretty cemented technique in sound design to push also VERY quiet signals through so-called "doom compression" ,

Yeah, but you're pushing them. That's exactly my point!
You're not sending your -102dB signal into your plugin as is, you're raising it to workable levels first.

No, you are misunderstanding what I mean by "pushing" in this case. Or, more like, what the implications of not being able to do that in the first place are - as there is no signal after a certain point.

The doom compressor plugin I mentioned (Argent Compressor) or the custom signal chain for that purpose (demonstrated in the doom compression video) is what is doing the pushing.

I am specifically and literally sending the -102dB (and much quieter, when actually possible in the DAW, i.e. not in Live) signal into the plugin. But the signal cuts off from the source onwards in Live when it falls under that certain threshold, making processing like this a no-go. You can't "raise it to workable levels" afterwards as the signal doesn't exist.

In other words, in Live, it is impossible if the signal originates from some third party plugin, as Live cuts the signal off when it falls under a certain level, before you have a chance to do anything afterwards. I repeat, it is impossible to raise the level (by pushing it with a plugin like this, OR by "raising it to workable levels" through some other means) after the source, as Live literally cuts off the signal coming from the plugin functioning as the source when its signal falls below this fairly high threshold. So you can't do this kind of stuff with the tails of some nice VST reverbs, for example, without the sound abruptly cutting off when the tail falls below the predetermined level.

[Nokatus]

Check this out [jur], it's a quick example I did elsewhere. A basic sound design method of generating drones/textures. This example has Zebra 2 playing a short note (of the default preset at maximum velocity) and it has Valhalla Vintage Verb placed after it. The note itself is indeed very short, and the actual source for the majority of the clip is just the verb tail itself. The reverb is set to be eight seconds long in the Valhalla GUI ... There is extreme upward compression immediately after the verb, and after that it's just standard EQ and some parallel pitch shifting (to get octave colors). But the main point is, all the movement is the quiet "hidden" stuff happening in the Vintage Verb tail, way longer than the specified reverb length; things you normally don't hear, being pushed to audible levels by the upward compression. Nothing fancy, no automation for added movement, just the extremely quiet reverb tail, used for sound design, as raw material movement/texture to be used as a layer in some other finished sound.

Here is a clip that was rendered in Live. It sounds okay until it abruptly cuts off. This is how far you can get, and there is no way to get more, there is no signal happening after the reverb instance beyond this point:
https://i.imgur.com/4UmDkDj.mp4

Here is the same technique, but rendered in Reaper:
https://i.imgur.com/QlfGDBW.mp4

(The volume control is in the upper right of the visual, if the link brings you to the imgur gui version of the clip )

Generating raw material colors and textures from quiet signals is a no-go when the DAW doesn't work in such a use case.

[Vance]

Agreed, not much else to add.

But I'll just add this again: that Options.txt setting does not work. And I do have the Options.txt file set up correctly, because I can successfully change some other settings with it, but -_AudioOffTimeInSamples=691200000 does nothing.
In fact, any line that starts with -_ is completely ignored by Live, no errors pop up even if I write something random.
I'm on Windows, by the way. Maybe it works on Mac...

Just tried this option and it does work for me, both in 11.1.5b2 and 11.1, on Mac.

I definitely agree this is a problem that should be fixed. I think the "hey who even notices anything 100db down anyway?" argument isn't that strong - what's the point of floating point mix engines if everything below 100db just gets chopped off? Also weird that it would just happen with VST2 & VST3 plugins.

[Vance]

Another simpler way to see the issue is to grab DMG Audio's free TrackControl plugin. It has input & output faders as well as meters that are capable of super low values.

Put 2 instances next to each other on the track, and tweak the fader of the 1st instance while watching the meters of the next instance. You can clearly see the audio dropping out at -100db with the VST2 and VST3 versions on Mac, AU versions clearly doesn't display the problem.

VST3:


AU:



You can also see that using that Options.txt setting does fix the issue on Mac (below was done with VST3):

[Tarekith]

It’s already been acknowledged and is being looked into peeps. We’ll let you know if we hear anything about this.

[Vance]

OK, I figured out why the options.txt setting wasn't working... For that gating bypass to work, audio must first reach a level above -100dB, but in my test setup it was below -100dB from the start (I had a saved Live session for testing).
I should have assumed it works like this, due to the "time" wording (time for the gate bypass to be enabled after -100dB is reached, I guess - or gate release time as [jur] said).
Anyway, carry on...

Also just confirming this is the case. With the Options.txt setting enabled, audio that starts below -100db will be chopped off until it reaches above -100db, but after that point it won't be chopped off again, for VST2 and VST3 plugins. AU plugins never chop anything even if it starts below -100db.

I think the Options.txt setting is a viable workaround for the moment for non-AU plugins, but it would be great to just turn this off altogether.



VST3 + Options.txt setting, starting from -inf:



AU + Options.txt setting, starting from -inf:

[just_in]

Live 11.2 (beta) is out, still no changes.

[Calagan]

Actually, they even add the « feature » to AU plugins...
It doesn’t seem they want to get rid of it...