Ableton 12 performance on M3 Pro Max

[tarnold]

I'm probably the most annoying type of user ever. I'm not only brand new to Ableton (and just using the 30 day lite demo) but I am also brand new to a Mac. I'm fairly computer savvy on Linux or PC, but irritatingly green on MacOS. I'm on a MacBook Pro with the M3 Max chip, 36GB RAM, and 1TB HDD (917GB free) running Sonoma 14.5.

That said, I'm having what seem to be performance issues with just super basic usage in Ableton. I've not seen issues using other apps.

I'm watching some YouTube tutorials and trying to follow along. The problem is that Ableton stop responding to any interaction constantly and seems to just lock up for 5-15 seconds at a time, work for another 15 seconds and then stop responding again. I've got Activity Monitor open and Live is currently sitting at between 40%d and 60% CPU and using 1.35GB of RAM.

All I'm doing right now is clicking between empty clip slots in Session View and Abeleton and consistently seeing the behavior noted. The other day I was playing with just two tracks in Arrangement View and it was almost completely unusable for the same reason. The only other things running are Firebox (YouTube) and the Activity Monitor.

As new as I am to the application and the Mac, where is the most likely place to start? I don't want to spring for the full version until I can sort this.

[scheffkoch]

…first and mostly only advice: set ableton‘s buffer size to 128…or even 64 samples…under ableton preferences - audio…

[Rivanni]

I'm probably the most annoying type of user ever. I'm not only brand new to Ableton (and just using the 30 day lite demo) but I am also brand new to a Mac. I'm fairly computer savvy on Linux or PC, but irritatingly green on MacOS.

I've got Activity Monitor open and Live is currently sitting at between 40%d and 60% CPU and using 1.35GB of RAM.

An important thing to know for a PC user is that the CPU usage shown in Activity Monitor is per core, not the whole CPU. So don't be surprised to see the CPU go up to 500%, for example.


The advice to set the buffer size to 64 or 128 applies to M1. M3 has relatively fewer Performance cores, so you may have to set it to 256. Just experiment for the best setting.

[yur2die4]

Is it connected to an external monitor? There is a thread about problems and troubleshooting for that.

[cids]

Also make sure that you're not running Ableton under Rosetta

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... a-on-macOS

[tarnold]

Is it connected to an external monitor? There is a thread about problems and troubleshooting for that.

Yes! Two, in fact. I'll track down that thread, thanks @yur2die4

[tarnold]

Also make sure that you're not running Ableton under Rosetta

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... a-on-macOS

I'm so green I don't even know what Rosetta is! It does not appear that it is installed, so I think I may be ok on this front. Thanks!

[tarnold]

An important thing to know for a PC user is that the CPU usage shown in Activity Monitor is per core, not the whole CPU. So don't be surprised to see the CPU go up to 500%, for example.

Thanks, good to know. When I see the lockups, I don't see any appreciably jump in CPU usage at all. I feel like the issue is not likely with my OS at this point.

The advice to set the buffer size to 64 or 128 applies to M1. M3 has relatively fewer Performance cores, so you may have to set it to 256. Just experiment for the best setting.

Good to know, I had lowered it to 64 and things seemed good for a while, but I think I was also not using my external monitors at the time so I'm leaning toward that as the culprit. That said, I have switched to 256 buffer size, so we'll see if that helps as well.

Thanks @Rivanni!

[tarnold]

I have two external 27" Dell monitors (one USB-C and the other HTML). With both plugged in and the laptop open (three screens total) Ableton is totally unusable. With any two, it's considerably better, and with any one screen running alone it's super quick. So the issue does indeed seem to be related to the displays. I'll play around with resolutions and whatnot, but closing the laptop and just using the two big screens is pretty darn good for now. Thanks all for your helpful suggestions!

[Rivanni]

Also make sure that you're not running Ableton under Rosetta

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... a-on-macOS

I'm so green I don't even know what Rosetta is! It does not appear that it is installed, so I think I may be ok on this front. Thanks!

Rosetta translates apps built for Intel so they will run on Apple Silicon (M1-M3).
To check if an app runs in Rosetta mode, right-click on it in the Applications folder and choose 'Get Info'. In the window that appears, you will see an option, 'Open using Rosetta'. It would be best if this is to be unchecked.
Some Live users enable this option because they use plugins that are not natively running on Apple Silicon.
Another way to see if an app is running natively is by looking at the column 'Kind' (right-click the column header to see all available columns) in the Activity monitor. If it says Intel, the app or process runs in Rosetta.

What monitor size and resolution do you use? And what is the resolution set in macOS'settings?
Does it fall in the red range? https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment ... g.1909833/
If so, that can cause a performance hit.
A scaled resolution may also affect performance.

[Machinesworking]

I'm probably the most annoying type of user ever. I'm not only brand new to Ableton (and just using the 30 day lite demo) but I am also brand new to a Mac. I'm fairly computer savvy on Linux or PC, but irritatingly green on MacOS. I'm on a MacBook Pro with the M3 Max chip, 36GB RAM, and 1TB HDD (917GB free) running Sonoma 14.5.

That said, I'm having what seem to be performance issues with just super basic usage in Ableton. I've not seen issues using other apps.

I'm watching some YouTube tutorials and trying to follow along. The problem is that Ableton stop responding to any interaction constantly and seems to just lock up for 5-15 seconds at a time, work for another 15 seconds and then stop responding again. I've got Activity Monitor open and Live is currently sitting at between 40%d and 60% CPU and using 1.35GB of RAM.

All I'm doing right now is clicking between empty clip slots in Session View and Abeleton and consistently seeing the behavior noted. The other day I was playing with just two tracks in Arrangement View and it was almost completely unusable for the same reason. The only other things running are Firebox (YouTube) and the Activity Monitor.

As new as I am to the application and the Mac, where is the most likely place to start? I don't want to spring for the full version until I can sort this.

Yeah this is fishy, the locking up of Love is not a CPU issue, it might be a memory issue, but mostly I would start with taking out possible causes.

Start off without the external monitors, does it happen?

Remove your audio interface and just use the built in interface, does it happen?

Remove any USB MIDI controllers, keyboards MIDI ports etc.

Do you use a third party mouse?

It really seems like a conflict with another piece of software, your audio interface is a likely suspect, so do these pauses affect audio?

[yur2die4]

Basically there have been a few threads on this. This should be a decent example:
viewtopic.php?t=248504

I didn’t re-read it, so I don’t remember the solution, but I think there is a way to have it work with multiple monitors with particular settings.