When I have too many clips (in this case around 8-9) with too many FX on them for Live to keep up, sound doesn't just drop out - instead I completely lose all ability to control the app, often the entire Live interface disappears into a blank white box, and the music just keeps stuttering and playing, even if I've hit the stop button (before it disappears). Live can then go on and on for 10 or more minutes, doggedly trying to play broken up audio while not letting me take any control of the program. Ultimately, I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL out of Live, which eventually stops it, but then my entire system crashes and I get a Blue Screen Of Death, followed by ChkDsk doing its thing.
This problem is really scary because I just can't see performing with a system that implodes every time I hit the wrong button by mistake. Like when I fire off a clip but Live remembers the other selected clips which were last playing and plays them as well -- "GAAH!! It's going to be another 5 minutes before I'm back up and running!!"
Is this typical Live behavior or do I have a horrendous and special problem here? I have a feeling that when other people try to do too much at once in Live, it probably just doesn't play the sounds that are causing the overload and it also probably gives them the option to stop playback.
If it helps pinpoint any likely problems, my system is an Alienware MJ-12 7700 laptop with an M-Audio Ozone and my samples and files are accessed on a LaCie external drive (firewire).
Nasty Full-System Crash when Live is Overextended
your setup is not the best as it has areas for bottlenecks, when it happens is the hd light coming on in live ? if not then click alt ctrl del and see how much ram live is using, have u tried loading some samples into ram and leaving a few on the HD ?
i always had this problem as well, live just kept chewing up ram, they need a purge type tool which will dump the undo file/history and release some of the ram...
i always had this problem as well, live just kept chewing up ram, they need a purge type tool which will dump the undo file/history and release some of the ram...
I too have had constant problems with Live 5 as far as performance goes.
In my case clips don't fire in time, the GUI performance is appalling (Ie Graphics like Levels meters are way too slow and editing is also very unresponsive)
I don't have any performance problems hardware wise causing this and can check with my engineer who has the exact same problems running Live on his setup. The disk speeds are fast and no overloads are happening, there is plenty of ram in the system.
I am convinced the problem is Live itself (And its non-existent optimizations, a program released well before it was ready)
I have this sort of performance on sets which contain no fx, no massive whole song clips, no realtime vsts loaded...just a few plain loops of my recorded audio.
A typical set for me shows below 20% and I don't bother going above that. If it cannot handle the conditions I am working in, I am not gonna bother trying to push it to 50% or more. Abletons comments on this subject (or lack of) have me believing I have gotta live with it and not go Live with it. Lets face it, this isn't recognised as a problem and it will not be fixed.
Take it easy
In my case clips don't fire in time, the GUI performance is appalling (Ie Graphics like Levels meters are way too slow and editing is also very unresponsive)
I don't have any performance problems hardware wise causing this and can check with my engineer who has the exact same problems running Live on his setup. The disk speeds are fast and no overloads are happening, there is plenty of ram in the system.
I am convinced the problem is Live itself (And its non-existent optimizations, a program released well before it was ready)
I have this sort of performance on sets which contain no fx, no massive whole song clips, no realtime vsts loaded...just a few plain loops of my recorded audio.
A typical set for me shows below 20% and I don't bother going above that. If it cannot handle the conditions I am working in, I am not gonna bother trying to push it to 50% or more. Abletons comments on this subject (or lack of) have me believing I have gotta live with it and not go Live with it. Lets face it, this isn't recognised as a problem and it will not be fixed.
Take it easy
MacBook MacOS Live 9.7.1 Max for Live Push Logic
Bottlenecks?
Maybe we can hope for some of this stuff to get cleared up with the next release. I suppose I could reinstall release 4 and wait 'til then to upgrade. Is 4 any better in this respect?
iskandar - sounds like your experience is very similar to mine. This crash always happens when I accidentally fire off a bunch of stuff that the app obviously can't handle (several tracks, loads of FX) so yeah, the little system strain light comes on. And it does help to load a few clips into RAM. Haven't tried CTRL-ALT-DEL just to see how much RAM the app is eating up, I'll give that a shot next time I'm fooling around in there.
And please, tell me more about the bottlenecks you mentioned, I'd be very interested in hearing what I can do smarter in order to squeeze more performance out of my gear. I've heard people say that USB interfaces can be a problem for instance, but I don't have a full understanding of what that problem is so I don't know how to look for a solution to it. Is firewire way better? And is there something even better than that?
kinetikUK - sounds like you have something extra going on there if you need to hang around 20% processor usage. I start to get a little tense when my meter hits about 75% and at around 80% I know I really need to do something pretty damn quick (and like I said, at that point I've almost always racked up a lot of FX - I do like the reverb).
I think the actual level of performance I'm getting out of the app is reasonable, but I sure wish it used a better way of letting me know when I'm overdoing it (just drop sound out and give me a warning light instead of crashing)!
Anyway, I've been thinking about getting more RAM, this seems like a good excuse.
iskandar - sounds like your experience is very similar to mine. This crash always happens when I accidentally fire off a bunch of stuff that the app obviously can't handle (several tracks, loads of FX) so yeah, the little system strain light comes on. And it does help to load a few clips into RAM. Haven't tried CTRL-ALT-DEL just to see how much RAM the app is eating up, I'll give that a shot next time I'm fooling around in there.
And please, tell me more about the bottlenecks you mentioned, I'd be very interested in hearing what I can do smarter in order to squeeze more performance out of my gear. I've heard people say that USB interfaces can be a problem for instance, but I don't have a full understanding of what that problem is so I don't know how to look for a solution to it. Is firewire way better? And is there something even better than that?
kinetikUK - sounds like you have something extra going on there if you need to hang around 20% processor usage. I start to get a little tense when my meter hits about 75% and at around 80% I know I really need to do something pretty damn quick (and like I said, at that point I've almost always racked up a lot of FX - I do like the reverb).
I think the actual level of performance I'm getting out of the app is reasonable, but I sure wish it used a better way of letting me know when I'm overdoing it (just drop sound out and give me a warning light instead of crashing)!
Anyway, I've been thinking about getting more RAM, this seems like a good excuse.
Tell us what computer do you have,like cpu speed? ram?
http://www.myspace.com/djvakis
http://mix2r.fm/audio/user/221
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MacBookPro 13" Core 2 Duo 2.26Ghz 2GB
Live 8 -Operator -Sampler
AKAI LPD8-GENELEC 1029A-iPhone runing TouchOSC.
http://mix2r.fm/audio/user/221
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MacBookPro 13" Core 2 Duo 2.26Ghz 2GB
Live 8 -Operator -Sampler
AKAI LPD8-GENELEC 1029A-iPhone runing TouchOSC.
Sorry, you can tell I'm new to posting to tech forums, huh.
It's a 3.2GHZ Pentium 4 processor (the invoice that came with my machine lists it as a "P4 3.2GHZ 1MB 800FSB LGA 775 processor").
1GB RAM (Samsung 512MB DDR2PC4200 SO-DIMM)
Also, the nVidia chip listed doesn't say it's an nForce4, but an "nVidia 6800FXGo graphics accelerator with 256MB module".
Just to show my ignorance here - is the nForce you're talking about (iskandar) an nVidia chip? You're not talking about an nVidia graphics accelerator that interferes with audio are you - you mean the nVidia nForce4 is actually a main processor that's made by nVidia (I never new they made them, I just figured my processor was an "Intel")?
Here's something interesting I found relating to the issue:
http://www.rme-audio.com/english/techin ... _tests.htm
I wasn't honestly able to make much sense of it due to my limited tech knowledge (and I had to get back to work), but I was looking for a starting point for corroboration with what you're telling me about the chip I'm using and feel like I've found one.
I've been sending messages back and forth with Widow PC (I'm lucky enough to have an Alienware that actually basically works, so I'd never risk sending it back to those knuckleheads to be "worked on") to see if it's possible and how costly it would be to change out the chip/motherboard to something that'll handle audio better.
Also, I have another question: If I were to replace my M-Audio Ozone, what sort of controller/interface would you recommend? I'm basically looking for the same exact thing as my Ozone because I love its functionality (MIDI keyboard, interface with instrument/stereo/mic input with phantom power, direct monitoring, built-in sound card, knobs to twiddle, blah blah blah), I just want something that works and doesn't contribute to system crashes. So who's good and solid?
Here's an interesting post about another M-Audio product on this forum:
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39586 - not an Ozone, but again, it just sort of confirms that it's possible for this sort of anguish to be caused by hardware. This guy even specifically mentions dropouts, latency and cpu overrun - it's like he's a psychic running off my own personal gripe list.
Again, thanks for starting me off on the path to real functionality, and please keep the good input coming! It'd be awesome to iron some of this out soon.
It's a 3.2GHZ Pentium 4 processor (the invoice that came with my machine lists it as a "P4 3.2GHZ 1MB 800FSB LGA 775 processor").
1GB RAM (Samsung 512MB DDR2PC4200 SO-DIMM)
Also, the nVidia chip listed doesn't say it's an nForce4, but an "nVidia 6800FXGo graphics accelerator with 256MB module".
Just to show my ignorance here - is the nForce you're talking about (iskandar) an nVidia chip? You're not talking about an nVidia graphics accelerator that interferes with audio are you - you mean the nVidia nForce4 is actually a main processor that's made by nVidia (I never new they made them, I just figured my processor was an "Intel")?
Here's something interesting I found relating to the issue:
http://www.rme-audio.com/english/techin ... _tests.htm
I wasn't honestly able to make much sense of it due to my limited tech knowledge (and I had to get back to work), but I was looking for a starting point for corroboration with what you're telling me about the chip I'm using and feel like I've found one.
I've been sending messages back and forth with Widow PC (I'm lucky enough to have an Alienware that actually basically works, so I'd never risk sending it back to those knuckleheads to be "worked on") to see if it's possible and how costly it would be to change out the chip/motherboard to something that'll handle audio better.
Also, I have another question: If I were to replace my M-Audio Ozone, what sort of controller/interface would you recommend? I'm basically looking for the same exact thing as my Ozone because I love its functionality (MIDI keyboard, interface with instrument/stereo/mic input with phantom power, direct monitoring, built-in sound card, knobs to twiddle, blah blah blah), I just want something that works and doesn't contribute to system crashes. So who's good and solid?
Here's an interesting post about another M-Audio product on this forum:
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39586 - not an Ozone, but again, it just sort of confirms that it's possible for this sort of anguish to be caused by hardware. This guy even specifically mentions dropouts, latency and cpu overrun - it's like he's a psychic running off my own personal gripe list.
Again, thanks for starting me off on the path to real functionality, and please keep the good input coming! It'd be awesome to iron some of this out soon.