Ive had it with Live 5

czechchap · Post by **czechchap** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 12:53 pm

I've been using it since release and it's great for DJing - brilliant.

but for song production it's just not good enough it won't handle more than 4 tracks of audio at a time -with effects etc.

I just did the performance test - my results 138 - 150 % CPU use. brilliant.

CAn I go back to live 4 please. this is doing my nut in now!

Is there any way I can get a copy of live 4 now?

(specs: G4 powerbook, 1gig ram, 867mhz cpu, HD 5400rpm. Live User since Live 2)

mr-e · Post by **mr-e** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:53 pm

but for song production it's just not good enough it won't handle more than 4 tracks of audio at a time -with effects etc.

Ableton 4 is old , I'm afraid your computer is too , or there's something wrong in your configuration.

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:54 pm

What effects are you running?

Moody · Post by **Moody** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:10 pm

No problems here.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:17 pm

as you are a live user since Live 2 , surely you have all the install disks or updates for 3,4 etc?

Sadly Live doesnt run so well on G4s, not even brilliant on a G5 .. although it does run well on a pc . My desktop is ancient now and gets about 35% on the Live 5 performance test, my laptop gets around 26%.

what this tells you is the CPU issue is avoidable, but you must decide if you want to buy a new computer? most likely for you a macbook or similar.

People say that Live is alone in this issue, doubting that 'the superior processor' of the G series could be slower than a PC, but as an AfterEffects user I can tell you that there too - equivalent PCs are often faster , eg:an AE benchmark link, there are more recent examples, but that's most appropriate to your computer.

shtreimel · Post by **shtreimel** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:48 pm

Running Live 5 on a HP notepook (2003) and able to have at least 8 tracks of audio with effect. No Problem.

Live, and the new VST Movie projector, is a wonderful thing.

Brittney Sparse · Post by **Brittney Sparse** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:35 pm

Got no problems with Live 5 myself. And I got a similar setup to yours.

G4 / 1.5ghz / 1.5GB Ram / OS X 10.3.9.

Have you run Norton lately or Disk Warrior?

I just did and it's made a world of difference. Try that.

dubbyah · Post by **dubbyah** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:37 pm

No wonder it doesnt run good, with 850 MHZ and a 5400RPM harddrive!

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:15 pm

I usually go hog wild with effects and track count, especially on my G5 dual 1.8ghz. I push it hard and it can take all that I throw at it. I never have problems (with the exception of Reaktor

)

When I use my Powerbook I usually make more streamlined sets with an eye on the CPU meter... but that said, I can do everything I want to do on stage with it.

Give us some more info on your woes...

udp · Post by **udp** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 1:30 am

Take a look at my sig. and you'll see that your machine is far faster than mine, but I do have all 7200 rpm hard drives and the one that runs live is SATA. As I've used Live since 1.5 I've always had to adjust my work flow to match my poor computer, so I freeze or render tracks wih heavy effects. I am currently wrapping up a piece with 10 tracks with effects ( I've done songs with as many as 28 tracks), mostly Live effects though, as I find they are less CPU heavy as a general rule. I used 5 instances of Operator on this track as well as impulse, and simpler. There is on instance of reverb on a send track and many instances of beat repeat. Live 4 has no freeze function, I don't think that's the way to go. If I were you I'd get rid of that 5400 rpm HD and replace it with something faster, then Start looking at ways to save CPU cycles along the way.

czechchap · Post by **czechchap** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:07 am

Thanks for all the tips, I will go through them and see what help.

Christian from Ableton also gave me a very important tip. stop using 5.0.1! haha 5.0.3 has about 40% better cpu performance for me. - no kidding.

@angstrom - you can stuff your veiled warez accusation where the sun don't shine.

(I was given a copy of the boxset of live 2 by my record label, since then I've paid for the upgrades, when I've upgraded I've just installed over the previous version - so the only thing I can really do is go back to Live 2, but that would mean installing OS9 on my Mac)

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 1:19 pm

it wasn't a veiled warez accusation just an observation. my harddrive is full of live versions, Live is one of the few apps that doesn't upgrade by overwriting the previous version.
I also have a big fat folder called softstore where my installers live, just incase my program drive dies or if there is a functional problem with EG 5.03, I know I can go back to 5.02, 5.01 etc easilly. I assumed everyone else does this or similar, I mean - if you pay for something so nebulous it just seems natural to back it up.
I am backup crazy, I have multiple mirors of my softstore and datadrives that live in other peoples houses. It's worth doing.

aljen · Post by **aljen** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 2:12 pm

I've been using Live 3 on my good old Pismo PowerBook (G3 / 400) as well as Live 4 on my former B&W G3 with G4/500 processor, and rarely ran into performance trouble while handling 5-6 audio tracks and/or additional AU/VST tracks . Of course, it's all about effects/instruments used, so I kept using them sparsely.

I don't have in mind whether Live 4 could already "freeze" tracks or not, but if not, you might want to consider a Live 5 upgrade. So you can freeze track by track after you're done with them and don't have do care about the CPU last anymore.

Have you tried to adjust the latency of your system to a higher rate? You can do so in Live's preferences. The changes take place immediately, so you can adjust the latency while playing a song of your choice and get instant control over what you're doing.

Of course, buying a new computer would also be an idea to follow, but it doesn't make much sense at the moment. While the corrent PowerBooks (G4) are IMHO fast enough to handle most cases I need (I am also doing lots of digital imaging), there are already intel-Macs ante portas. But it makes few sense to buy an intel Mac now, because the models just presented seem to be some kind of early adopters' beta. There is hardly software they can run, too. So the only solution in this case must be waiting a few months, maybe a year or two, until all the software you need is ported to intel Macs and affordable.