A growing list of VST3 problems in Ableton: Extreme Sluggishness and GUI Freezing. It's time to fix it.

[IAMDOOMED]

I have this problem with Phaseplant and somtimes plugins like pro-q and Ozone Imager 2. horrible lags on playback and they can lead to crashing the daw.

[dcyse]

Does anybody know if Ableton have acknowledged the problem as theirs to solve?

Not as far as I’ve seen.

What I’d hope to see is at least a line in the release notes for Live 12 saying issues with stability etc. of VST3 plug-ins resolved.

[Balchie]

One solution which I tried which worked was to use the plug in Unify and then load the Korg VST inside that. It acts as a wrapped and all the load times are instant. It's a paid plugin but it's a solution that works today.

[ThomasKlemp]

I have reported this issue two years ago, when Avenger and Rapid have been my main synths with this problem.
During this time Parawave has fixed Rapid, that the preset change now runs smooth.
Ableton was able to reproduce this behaviour and told me as workaround to use VST2.
Now after two years I got an increased list of synths like all new Korg plugins, Sonic Academy Ana2, all Gforce Synths and Minimal Audio Current.
I have asked them often what happened with my ticket and the last time, they told me, that not many users experience the same problem, so it’s not in their priority to fix it.
They can’t really handle VST3 - also all PSP plugins are crashing Ableton. To ignore such a big bug is very unprofessional and in most cases like Korg there is no work around, because there is no VST2 anymore.
Korg is also in Contact with Ableton since one year, but nothing has happened

[cids]

I have reported this issue two years ago, when Avenger and Rapid have been my main synths with this problem.
During this time Parawave has fixed Rapid, that the preset change now runs smooth.
Ableton was able to reproduce this behaviour and told me as workaround to use VST2.
Now after two years I got an increased list of synths like all new Korg plugins, Sonic Academy Ana2, all Gforce Synths and Minimal Audio Current.
I have asked them often what happened with my ticket and the last time, they told me, that not many users experience the same problem, so it’s not in their priority to fix it.
They can’t really handle VST3 - also all PSP plugins are crashing Ableton. To ignore such a big bug is very unprofessional and in most cases like Korg there is no work around, because there is no VST2 anymore.
Korg is also in Contact with Ableton since one year, but nothing has happened

Hi Thomas, I think the issue is more specific than this. I'm using VST3s all the time, including Korg, GForce and some PSPs - no issues at all

[ThomasKlemp]

It’s on windows

[cids]

It’s on windows

Thanks for the clarification

[H20nly]

I found a 4 step solution

1. Export stems
2. Export MIDI clips: right click Export MIDI Clip
3. Open Cubase (or another DAW)
4. Import stems/clips


Works 100%

[Dooby]

I've just had an issue with a VST3 plugin hanging - Other Desert Cities. It threatened to bring down the entire session, as the whole GUI stopped responding.

I use a tool called "System Informer", which is a bit like Process Explorer, but a bit faster and richer in features.

I checked the "Ableton Live Suite 12.exe" process properties, and clicked the "Threads" tab to check what the VST was doing.

One of the threads' priorities was "Time Critical". I reduced this to "Below normal", and got the session back.

This is not a fix, I'm sure. We all know audio is legitimately time critical, in terms of processing. It is evident to me there's something interesting going on with the thread management within Ableton.

So, although this workaround will get your session back, I think it would be good for a developer to look into why individual threads can stop Ableton as a whole working. If it's a badly coded VST, which I'm not convinced is the case, it would be useful to have some code within the VST host to avoid deadlocks such as this.

[IAMDOOMED]

I had the same problem yesterday. Nothing changed the sluggishness in the GUI. My PC was at 10% CPU and 15% RAM. SSDs at 0%

[resonantorder]

It's why I don't use Live as my main DAW. I use it as an "audio playground" staying with the built in plugs and M4L devices. When I get an idea going, I transfer it to Cubase and do my mixing and adding of 3rd party effects/synths.

[ingilizanahtari]

I googled this today (that's what brought me to this topic) but just above the link was the Google AI overview:

Slow preset changes in Ableton Live with Korg VST3 plugins are often due to the plugin not having a default device configuration mapped to Ableton's parameter list. To fix this, you can configure a default device configuration in Ableton to map the Korg plugin's parameters.
Here's how to configure a default device configuration:
Load the Korg plugin in Ableton Live.
Open the Device Configuration (X/Y pad). Click the triangle to see the "Configure" button, then click it to open the configuration.
Open the Korg plugin's UI. If it's not already open, it should open when you press the "Configure" button.
Select a new Performance in the multi/poly native window. Any Performance will do, just increment by one.
This will automatically populate the Device Configuration with 128 parameters.
Right-click on the Device Title Bar and select "Save as Default Configuration".

which worked! You need do this one time (per plug in) and it loads the presets at expected speed on any new project. All of my Korg plugins are working great in Live 12.1 now!

I believe you need to do the same steps again on pre-existing projects, but otherwise it seems to have solved the issue for me!

[dougtheguy]

I will testify…Korg gadgets are awesome.
But…I probably sound like a jerk…don’t use plugins!
I was plugin man… UA and everything else.
I’m so much happier now because I never have issues. I never use plugins.
I do however use max plugins.