Hey there. Hope someone can assist ...
I'm using the Chain Selector to switch between some pretty CPU heavy effect chains in racks via clip envelopes. However, there seems to be a kind of 'effect crossfade' when doing this, where both chains are enabled for a moment, before the first deactivates and the second's running on its own. Is it just me or has everyone noticed this?
I can see the benefit of this feature for smooth transitions between banks of effects, but the problem for me is that my computer simply can't handle having both chains activated at once. This is one of the reasons I'm using the Chain Selector in the first place.
Is there a way to switch this feature off, or does anyone know a workaround? I've moved from using Bidule as my VST host where I was doing the same thing, and the changes between banks of effects were instantaneous.
Thanks a lot.
Chain Selector CPU problem
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friend_kami
- Posts: 2255
- Joined: Mon May 29, 2006 10:10 pm
Thanks guys.
Yeah Khazul, I'm finding Live's CPU to be pretty erratic too. I've owned Live since version 2 and it's always been pretty good, but for some reason since version 5 (and now particularly with 6) the CPU consumption's a little scary, all over the place.
Hey friend_kami. Not sure exactly what you mean by the chain rules. I'm assuming you mean the range of the chains. That's set perfectly fine. Nothing tricky going on. It's one chain for one value on the chain selector (0 is one chain, 1 is another, etc.)
Yeah Khazul, I'm finding Live's CPU to be pretty erratic too. I've owned Live since version 2 and it's always been pretty good, but for some reason since version 5 (and now particularly with 6) the CPU consumption's a little scary, all over the place.
Hey friend_kami. Not sure exactly what you mean by the chain rules. I'm assuming you mean the range of the chains. That's set perfectly fine. Nothing tricky going on. It's one chain for one value on the chain selector (0 is one chain, 1 is another, etc.)
Hi,MarkRM wrote:Thanks guys.
Yeah Khazul, I'm finding Live's CPU to be pretty erratic too. I've owned Live since version 2 and it's always been pretty good, but for some reason since version 5 (and now particularly with 6) the CPU consumption's a little scary, all over the place.
Hey friend_kami. Not sure exactly what you mean by the chain rules. I'm assuming you mean the range of the chains. That's set perfectly fine. Nothing tricky going on. It's one chain for one value on the chain selector (0 is one chain, 1 is another, etc.)
Devices go to 'standby' after some time not producing sound, only. So, true, there is a time when the two devices consume CPU while you change the chain selector position. If we were not doing that, it could get really annoying at times, like devices going to 'standby' when not required to.
Live 5 and 6 allow to use more device, so it consumes more CPU if you do. Isn't it only that your use of the software is different?
Regards,
Amaury
Ableton Product Team
Something is really really wrong here:
Take a simple track:
1 instance of stylus RMX, one instance of fabfilter volcano (its a cool dual filter plugin) a single instance of fabfilter proc-c with sidechain (compressor).
One instance of the ableton filtered delay.
4 midi tracks driving loops in rmx, 4 midi tracks bounced to audio clips in RAM and disabled driving hardware synths via a UM880 midi interface.
A few routing - kick output from rmx on its own audio track, on a send to the compressor side chain. All unused sends disabled. A few sends going to the delay.
Running at 44.1K with 10ms latency on a firewire audio card that manages a reliable 4ms latency in Cubase 4 with *loads* of audio tracks in and out active. I gave up with the 4ms that I normally use as its glitchy as hell in Live.
So not alot of tracks, the kind of thing that any DAW should handle barely raising a ripple in CPU use on a modern computer - yeh?
OK - a few bars in Live goes into total meltdown sometimes. Loop a section it start out fine for a while then CPU use leaps upto 150%+ and its so stress it cant even maintain the tempo - audio is distorted to hell by this time as its missing its buffer fills.
At this point, not all track are playing - there a filter sweep going on and a RAM audio clip of the bassline comes in - thats it. Bit at this point in the track is where it eventually consistently goes to hell. Once past that little bit, loads of other tracks come in (also ram audio clips) and its fun again, CPU use drops back to around 11%.
This still happen even with the filter plugin disabled.
You might think OK, Im ruinning this on a very old laptop or something?
No - its a dual core Pentium D machine running at 3.6Ghz with 2Gb of RAM, 10000 rpm raptor hard drives.
I dont knnw what the hell is going on but something is very very wrong with Live 6. (v 6.0.7 onwards perhaps?).
In cubase 4 I can run maybe 10 or 20 times as much before I start to notice the PC is getting a little stretched - but I dont often because of it horrible inflexible audio routings and that I rather like the workflow approach in Live.
I used to thik it was Stylus RMX causing it, until I bounced all its stuff to audio one day and deleted tyhe plugin and midi tracks. Then thought it was virus control, then the reverb plugin, then pro-c, then volcano.
I dont have a clue whats causing this anymore - its consistent in certain tracks in certain bits of them, but there no obvious reason for it, other perhas than the mere act of automations through racks - even if the rack or its plugins are disabled.
Ive even started wondering if it was the audio interface for a while - you know - eventually you start clucthing at and investigating any possible bizarre cause...
Now I just think live is really randonly hosed - perhaps when using any interesting audio routing. Also there something really wrong with internal thread priorities between the audio engine and UI threads sometimes.
Take a simple track:
1 instance of stylus RMX, one instance of fabfilter volcano (its a cool dual filter plugin) a single instance of fabfilter proc-c with sidechain (compressor).
One instance of the ableton filtered delay.
4 midi tracks driving loops in rmx, 4 midi tracks bounced to audio clips in RAM and disabled driving hardware synths via a UM880 midi interface.
A few routing - kick output from rmx on its own audio track, on a send to the compressor side chain. All unused sends disabled. A few sends going to the delay.
Running at 44.1K with 10ms latency on a firewire audio card that manages a reliable 4ms latency in Cubase 4 with *loads* of audio tracks in and out active. I gave up with the 4ms that I normally use as its glitchy as hell in Live.
So not alot of tracks, the kind of thing that any DAW should handle barely raising a ripple in CPU use on a modern computer - yeh?
OK - a few bars in Live goes into total meltdown sometimes. Loop a section it start out fine for a while then CPU use leaps upto 150%+ and its so stress it cant even maintain the tempo - audio is distorted to hell by this time as its missing its buffer fills.
At this point, not all track are playing - there a filter sweep going on and a RAM audio clip of the bassline comes in - thats it. Bit at this point in the track is where it eventually consistently goes to hell. Once past that little bit, loads of other tracks come in (also ram audio clips) and its fun again, CPU use drops back to around 11%.
This still happen even with the filter plugin disabled.
You might think OK, Im ruinning this on a very old laptop or something?
No - its a dual core Pentium D machine running at 3.6Ghz with 2Gb of RAM, 10000 rpm raptor hard drives.
I dont knnw what the hell is going on but something is very very wrong with Live 6. (v 6.0.7 onwards perhaps?).
In cubase 4 I can run maybe 10 or 20 times as much before I start to notice the PC is getting a little stretched - but I dont often because of it horrible inflexible audio routings and that I rather like the workflow approach in Live.
I used to thik it was Stylus RMX causing it, until I bounced all its stuff to audio one day and deleted tyhe plugin and midi tracks. Then thought it was virus control, then the reverb plugin, then pro-c, then volcano.
I dont have a clue whats causing this anymore - its consistent in certain tracks in certain bits of them, but there no obvious reason for it, other perhas than the mere act of automations through racks - even if the rack or its plugins are disabled.
Ive even started wondering if it was the audio interface for a while - you know - eventually you start clucthing at and investigating any possible bizarre cause...
Now I just think live is really randonly hosed - perhaps when using any interesting audio routing. Also there something really wrong with internal thread priorities between the audio engine and UI threads sometimes.
Nothing to see here - move along!
Hi Amaury.
I understand what you're saying, but here's my problem:
With Bidule, I have chains of effects for every song on a number of audio tracks. Let's say when all of Song 1's effects are activated my machine's running at 70% CPU, while when all of Song 2's effects are activated my machine's running at 50% CPU. When I use Bidule's Audio Switcher to switch from the effect chains of Song 1 to the effect chains of Song 2, my CPU immediately drops from 70% to 50%. When I replicate the same setup using Live, and switch from the effect chains of Song 1 to the effect chains of Song 2, for a moment both song's effect chains are activated and my CPU hits 120%, making my computer crap itself. I know this is to do with the way you guys have implemented the effect chains, but I think there should be a way to make the switch instantaneous like it is in Bidule. At the moment it's not really useable for me.
Also, this might not be the place to say this, but I think there's a possible bug with the effect chains too. As I mentioned, I have an effect chain on a rack for each song. If I then place a rack with multiple effect chains WITHIN one of those racks, any VST effects I place after that rack-within-a-rack are not deactivated which I switch to another song's effect chain. I'm using the latest version of Live on XP.
At any rate, I wanted to move away from using Bidule within Live for my live setup because I wanted the simplicity of using one program for everything, but it looks like I'll be sticking with it for awhile.
I understand what you're saying, but here's my problem:
With Bidule, I have chains of effects for every song on a number of audio tracks. Let's say when all of Song 1's effects are activated my machine's running at 70% CPU, while when all of Song 2's effects are activated my machine's running at 50% CPU. When I use Bidule's Audio Switcher to switch from the effect chains of Song 1 to the effect chains of Song 2, my CPU immediately drops from 70% to 50%. When I replicate the same setup using Live, and switch from the effect chains of Song 1 to the effect chains of Song 2, for a moment both song's effect chains are activated and my CPU hits 120%, making my computer crap itself. I know this is to do with the way you guys have implemented the effect chains, but I think there should be a way to make the switch instantaneous like it is in Bidule. At the moment it's not really useable for me.
Also, this might not be the place to say this, but I think there's a possible bug with the effect chains too. As I mentioned, I have an effect chain on a rack for each song. If I then place a rack with multiple effect chains WITHIN one of those racks, any VST effects I place after that rack-within-a-rack are not deactivated which I switch to another song's effect chain. I'm using the latest version of Live on XP.
At any rate, I wanted to move away from using Bidule within Live for my live setup because I wanted the simplicity of using one program for everything, but it looks like I'll be sticking with it for awhile.
This sounds like what you need to do -- in some quick testing with reverbs it looks like a chain doesn't shut off as long as there is a tail, so I'm guessing some effect in your chain has a short tail. Mapping the on/off buttons as well will kill the tails right away. But it might not sound right, depending on what you are doing.hoffman2k wrote:Map chains and on/off buttons to the same macros. It'll cut into the sound, but it does what you want it to do.
As of Live 6.0.9, you can set custom ranges for On/off buttons.