Loading EIC instruments is TOO SLOW, how to speed this up?

[eganglion]

Hi All,

When I load different instruments from the EIC, the status bar on the bottom says something like "Loading samples, 20 of 600..." and has a blue progress bar that moves ever-so-slowly. Sometimes it takes much more than one minute to load an instrument sound. Then if I don't like that one and try a different instrument, I wait another minute or more while the files load.

Thoughts:

1. This is a serious weakness I am sure others have seen. Developers - please work on speeding this up!

2. If I have to live with delay while loading different EIC instruments, what can I do to minimize the delay?
a) Use the "Lite" versions of instruments when the exist?
b) Get a screamer hard drive with <5 ms access time to hold the EIC?
c) Reduce the number of instruments in my EIC files?

I would appreciate any suggestions from folks who have found real ways to speed this up.

Thanks!

[dCross]

There are "draft" and "lite" versions of the EIC instruments that you can use to reduce load times.

[longjohns]

The simple fact of the matter is that the Grand Piano full patch is something on the order of 5-6 Gigs in size. It's just going to take a while to access something that large.

[Nogi]

It takes a long time EVERY time or just the first time? The full 'Grand Piano' loads in about 1 second or so here.

[longjohns]

jealous of that! takes mine about 15 sec or so

[dCross]

It takes a long time EVERY time or just the first time? The full 'Grand Piano' loads in about 1 second or so here.

I think the first time is the worst, and subsequent times should be much faster.

[Nogi]

For clarity:
It took quite a bit longer than that for me the first time and it takes about that long after I've done a complete system restart or something. I'm not sure about the caching that is involved with Ableton Live. (A sticky on optimizations specifically for Live/EIC would be handy.)

To minimize downtime when I'm working, I load all my likely 'tools' and setups with the template when I launch Live. Then, when it's ready to go, I start creating or switch to another project knowing all the big 'waits' are out of the way and I go about making music.

[Amaury]

It takes a long time EVERY time or just the first time? The full 'Grand Piano' loads in about 1 second or so here.

I think the first time is the worst, and subsequent times should be much faster.

Hi,

Just a precision: that was true until Live 6.0.5. Live 6.0.5 includes updates for all EIC programs, including the analysis files for the Grand piano samples (which made the loading slower the very first time), and newly saved programs, so they open 'deferred', means that the rack loads before all the samples are, and you see a blue progressing bar for the samples loading, in the status bar, at the bottom of the interface.

eganglion, Nogi, have you updated to 6.0.5? Are the packs updated? (you can check via the Preferences, Live packs tab, choosing 'search for more Live packs).

Regards,
Amaury

[Nogi]

I do have the current 6.0.5. Here's some results for fun:

Method 1:
Boot XP
Launch Live 6 w/ OEM template: 16 sec
Add Grand Piano to Midi track: 17 sec
Close Live 6
Launch Live 6 w/ OEM template: 4 sec
Add Grand Piano to Midi track: 1 sec

Method 2:
Boot XP
Launch Live 6 w/ Grand Piano preloaded into template: 20 sec
Close Live 6
Launch Live 6 w/ Grand Piano preloaded into template: 5 sec

(These results are for the PC listed below except that I'm currently only running 1GB of RAM. The second stick is in RMA hell.)