Hi,
Having grief re ableton in that the interface will occassionally freeze during work for about 6 or so seconds, music keeps playing, peak levels etc get stuck, then all back to normal.
The tunes never freeze, its the graphics, but if i am in the middle of something its imposible to track it during that time. This is a new problem, two things have changed -
a. I upgraded from 6.0.3 to 0.5
b. I have installed a novation remote sl 25 connected to my pc via usb
During testing it seems to happen only with the remote plugged in and turned on. Plugins make it worse, but before upgrading ableton i could run three times more without anything like this happening.
I have followed the tuning your pc for audio guide to the letter.
I run a amd 3800 dual core, gig ram, good graph card, and 1820m pci sound card. My hard drive is defragged, and i dont get the slowdown in normal use.
Anyone got some ideas or experienced similar - avenues to explore would be appreciated. Ty!
PC person got any ideas re Interface freezing
PC person got any ideas re Interface freezing
I'll take you out for a nice tandoori.
I have had exactly this problem for the last couple of days. I usually have half a dozen midi tracks playing. Maybe a couple of audio tracks.
The screen freezes for 3-5 seconds, the audio continues to play and then the display unfreezes and the display catches up and I can use the mouse again.
The CPU meter shows 20-30% at this point. Eventually, and usually as I add a plug-in to a track, the CPU shoots up to about 250% and I have to close Live down or it crashes.
Nothing has changed recently in my set-up that I am aware of.
(Apart from Java updating itself a couple of days ago........???? - I have un-installed the update)
Any ideas anyone?
The screen freezes for 3-5 seconds, the audio continues to play and then the display unfreezes and the display catches up and I can use the mouse again.
The CPU meter shows 20-30% at this point. Eventually, and usually as I add a plug-in to a track, the CPU shoots up to about 250% and I have to close Live down or it crashes.
Nothing has changed recently in my set-up that I am aware of.
(Apart from Java updating itself a couple of days ago........???? - I have un-installed the update)
Any ideas anyone?
1 G of RAM is getting to be not really enough. You should consider 2G or more.
USB problems would not surprise me at all. Which USB port your Remote is plugged into could make a significant difference. If you have another MIDI interface (like a MIDI jack on your soundcard?) it would be worth trying the Remote on that instead of USB
USB problems would not surprise me at all. Which USB port your Remote is plugged into could make a significant difference. If you have another MIDI interface (like a MIDI jack on your soundcard?) it would be worth trying the Remote on that instead of USB
As you can see from my sig I have 4gb of ram - (not sure if its all utilised by xp) - still have this problem tho.
i have rolled back to 6.3 and there has been an improvement - the cpu meter only goes up to 145% now
next I am going to use system restore to roll back to a time a few days ago before all this crap started.
i have rolled back to 6.3 and there has been an improvement - the cpu meter only goes up to 145% now
next I am going to use system restore to roll back to a time a few days ago before all this crap started.
Hi guys, just bumping this as i am still having the problem three weeks later - I am updating the original post here too with more info - any insights would be appreciated. Text follows:
Something strange has happened to my Ableton since the upgrade to 6.05, and it hasn’t corrected with 6.07 – do you have some tips or suggestions as to what i can look at re this. Please bear in mind that my Ableton worked flawlessy and fast up until this point (the release of 6.05), so unless the program has suddenly upped its hardware demands with 6.05, (which i dont think it has) i cannot work out this behaviour.
Symptoms
All I can describe it as is a 'graphic interface slowdown' - basically music/sounds coming out are ok, but what will happen is the screen will freeze (level meters and mouse included), and say for instance i am in the middle of plotting some automation, (or previewing a clip or sometimes even changing the level on a track), i cant visually track it during the freeze time, so if i keep moving my mouse/trackball i get something horrible. then after a period (sometimes 3 secs, sometimes up to 8 secs), the interface is back to normal. It seems to happen about once a minute, sometimes less often, sometimes more.
Recent changes just before problem occurred.
Apart from the upgrade to Ableton 6.05, i recently bought a remote sl 25, and set it up as per the manual instructions with preferences and usb connection, and automap universal. It works great (sometimes the slowdown will happen when using it). I have tried disconnecting the SL, and although the slowdowns are maybe less frequent they still happen.
Gear
My gear is good quality, i have a PC (Windows XP SP2) with Emu 1820m, AMD-64 3800 x2, gig of memory (i know most say 2 now, but i really did have flawless performance with just a gig before 6.05), a good hard drive and an external connect usb 2.0 drive. I defrag regularly, and have a good virus guard/firewall. I have a kensington trackball, Logitech mouse and a g15 keyboard all connected to the computer via USB. Re soundcard latency (7ms) i test it with the test tone and its all good. My graphics card is a very good nvidia 7950 GT with big memory.
Things i have tried
I stepped through the ableton optimising pc for audio guide, including selecting background processes for performance etc. I have disabled any powermanagement to usb devices. I have not done a complete reinstall of XP, I hope to avoid this heartache.
Upon reading through the ableton forums, I have seen some debate re ableton issues perhaps with AMD chips, and also with certain USB devices including changing ports etc. I have done this (not completely thoroughly its true but I have disconnected, restarted, connected to other ports etc).
Something strange has happened to my Ableton since the upgrade to 6.05, and it hasn’t corrected with 6.07 – do you have some tips or suggestions as to what i can look at re this. Please bear in mind that my Ableton worked flawlessy and fast up until this point (the release of 6.05), so unless the program has suddenly upped its hardware demands with 6.05, (which i dont think it has) i cannot work out this behaviour.
Symptoms
All I can describe it as is a 'graphic interface slowdown' - basically music/sounds coming out are ok, but what will happen is the screen will freeze (level meters and mouse included), and say for instance i am in the middle of plotting some automation, (or previewing a clip or sometimes even changing the level on a track), i cant visually track it during the freeze time, so if i keep moving my mouse/trackball i get something horrible. then after a period (sometimes 3 secs, sometimes up to 8 secs), the interface is back to normal. It seems to happen about once a minute, sometimes less often, sometimes more.
Recent changes just before problem occurred.
Apart from the upgrade to Ableton 6.05, i recently bought a remote sl 25, and set it up as per the manual instructions with preferences and usb connection, and automap universal. It works great (sometimes the slowdown will happen when using it). I have tried disconnecting the SL, and although the slowdowns are maybe less frequent they still happen.
Gear
My gear is good quality, i have a PC (Windows XP SP2) with Emu 1820m, AMD-64 3800 x2, gig of memory (i know most say 2 now, but i really did have flawless performance with just a gig before 6.05), a good hard drive and an external connect usb 2.0 drive. I defrag regularly, and have a good virus guard/firewall. I have a kensington trackball, Logitech mouse and a g15 keyboard all connected to the computer via USB. Re soundcard latency (7ms) i test it with the test tone and its all good. My graphics card is a very good nvidia 7950 GT with big memory.
Things i have tried
I stepped through the ableton optimising pc for audio guide, including selecting background processes for performance etc. I have disabled any powermanagement to usb devices. I have not done a complete reinstall of XP, I hope to avoid this heartache.
Upon reading through the ableton forums, I have seen some debate re ableton issues perhaps with AMD chips, and also with certain USB devices including changing ports etc. I have done this (not completely thoroughly its true but I have disconnected, restarted, connected to other ports etc).
I'll take you out for a nice tandoori.
take this all with a grain of salt
I find the 'test tone' Ableton latency test to be pretty bogus. I cannot run sets at the latencies which the test tone gives me. I keep the buffer at 512 samples most of the time.
I would never use an external drive, it just seems sketchy to me - and especially when you're using USB MIDI controllers... scares me about potentially fighting each other for attention
Is this a laptop? If not, get all those input devices off USB if you can - get ps/2 adapters for your mouse and keyboard.
Obviously you can tell I don't trust USB at all!
Remember that to an extent what you are describing is intentional - sacrificing screen redraws to keep the music going uninterrupted
I find the 'test tone' Ableton latency test to be pretty bogus. I cannot run sets at the latencies which the test tone gives me. I keep the buffer at 512 samples most of the time.
I would never use an external drive, it just seems sketchy to me - and especially when you're using USB MIDI controllers... scares me about potentially fighting each other for attention
Is this a laptop? If not, get all those input devices off USB if you can - get ps/2 adapters for your mouse and keyboard.
Obviously you can tell I don't trust USB at all!
Remember that to an extent what you are describing is intentional - sacrificing screen redraws to keep the music going uninterrupted
thanks longjohns -
re the test tone i have found no 'sound latency issues' at all per se, but i will try dropping it a notch or two to see if i get improvement.
the external usb drive is only used for my djing files, i never use it in production, and when i am not using it i turn it off - however i acknowledge that it might compete for attention so I will disengage it totally for a while.
It's not a laptop, re the keyboard it needs usb for some power, i would be loathe to get rid of it after a year of happy use, but again i will test it.
was the issue i was describing typical of some type of usb problem?
cheers.
re the test tone i have found no 'sound latency issues' at all per se, but i will try dropping it a notch or two to see if i get improvement.
the external usb drive is only used for my djing files, i never use it in production, and when i am not using it i turn it off - however i acknowledge that it might compete for attention so I will disengage it totally for a while.
It's not a laptop, re the keyboard it needs usb for some power, i would be loathe to get rid of it after a year of happy use, but again i will test it.
was the issue i was describing typical of some type of usb problem?
cheers.
I'll take you out for a nice tandoori.
