Live = CPU drain whoa!

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:28 pm

Thanks Blank.

Caymus Cab · Post by **Caymus Cab** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:22 pm

blank wrote:Just to tell, there is a good article in the sounds on sounds current issue regarding multi core threading and the various issues surrounding it.

They don't talk about live directly but they talk about the « a track by core» method.

there is the link for the webzine members

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan08/a ... n_0108.htm

-B

Anyone care to elaborate in layman's term??? LOL!

thanks

morerecords · Post by **morerecords** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:27 pm

I don't have a sub but would be intrested in heaning about all this too

bensuthers · Post by **bensuthers** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:51 pm

I can't seem to mention this enough.

It's because Live doesn't know what you're going to play next.

Logic does.

morerecords · Post by **morerecords** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:09 am

makes sense.could you explain further?

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:16 am

Logic, being linear (arrange page only) looks ahead to buffer the next clips and effects to be played, and calculates this in advance.

Live has everything buffered so that 1, all clips can be played on-the-fly (non-linear) and 2, Live (unless you switch Warping off) is always warping clips so that you can change the tempo, in real time, at a moments notice.

There are lots of other things going on under the hood in Live to allow the inserting/removal/re-ordering/drag and drop of plugins.

Live's priority is not to interrupt a seamless stream of audio output if at all possible. Makes sense for live performance software.

Oneofthem2 · Post by **Oneofthem2** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:43 am

im having Cpu problems aswel :/
after buying the software i would have expected it to run perfectly, i have the requierd specs, and am only running one vst with an audio. But when i add another aufio track or midi/vst i get ridiculously high spikes.
just out of curiosity, What are the audio settings the rest of you using?

blank · Post by **blank** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:53 am

I agree with Pitch black on this one. Live is a real time application after all and this is the exact reason why I use it that much.

I'm starting to wonder if the « track by core » method is used cause of that kind of needs too.

The sos article tend to say that sync between cores are a bit hard to handle when every process is splitted among the cores.

Anyway, if I miss processing power, I will prolly vote for adding more power instead of changing daw software.

blank · Post by **blank** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:55 am

Oneofthem2 wrote:im having Cpu problems aswel :/
after buying the software i would have expected it to run perfectly, i have the requierd specs, and am only running one vst with an audio. But when i add another aufio track or midi/vst i get ridiculously high spikes.
just out of curiosity, What are the audio settings the rest of you using?

256 buffer size

running at 44100 hz

what are your machine specs ?

-B

Caymus Cab · Post by **Caymus Cab** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:53 am

Pitch Black wrote:Logic, being linear (arrange page only) looks ahead to buffer the next clips and effects to be played, and calculates this in advance.

Live has everything buffered so that 1, all clips can be played on-the-fly (non-linear) and 2, Live (unless you switch Warping off) is always warping clips so that you can change the tempo, in real time, at a moments notice.

There are lots of other things going on under the hood in Live to allow the inserting/removal/re-ordering/drag and drop of plugins.

Live's priority is not to interrupt a seamless stream of audio output if at all possible. Makes sense for live performance software.

thanks for explaining that!

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:32 pm

Logic is optimized for Mac OSX because Apple ought to know how best to get their DAW program to run efficiently in their own operating system. Live is cross platform, so cannot be as optimized.

I find Live to be more of a resource hog than Cubase SX3, but what it does really well, a million times better than Cubase is Freeze tracks, so I suggest you employ that feature. In real time projects using the same plugins, Cubase is around 10-15% more CPU efficient. But I can usually get the same track count (if not higher) in Live because of the better freeze tracks facility.

I have Live projects of 40 or more tracks *with some frozen*. The most intensive are certain vstis/aus, if they have an 'eco' mode like Massive, use that and just turn it to full quality on mixdown rendering. Also, when you have finished tracking and recording your audio and MIDI parts (and dealt with any automation), step down the latency to 512 or 1,024 samples for smoother, glitch free, less CPU draining playback. Keep stuff like mastering limiters and 3rd party compressors off the mastering buss until you have all the parts you want (they often add massive latency and CPU drain), step down the latency as described above and then add them in.

Also - mono tracks use less bandwidth and less CPU to play back,

Use more of Live's own internal FX and synths, 3rd party vstis induce more latency. Some of the higher CPU using presets in Operator, Sampler, Tension, Analog and Electric are because of being racked. Take away some of the stuff in the rack (like reverbs and delays) and use a send. I've also noticed some stuff that could be done in the new Ableton instruments GUIs being untouched and chained in a rack with a Live effect that could have been done in the Tension/Electric/Analog GUI, the more insert/rack plugins you use the higher the CPU load.

Turn off any inputs you're not using in preferences and step up the CPU to 80%. I find Sends to be very efficient, depending on the plugins inserted - once again, Live's reverbs and such have economy modes, use them until you are about to render then step it up to high quality. Bussing is fine unless you have several group tracks going at once, for example, bussing 2 or 3 guitars to a guitar submix/stem is OK, bussing another 5 tracks to a drum buss at the same time is more CPU taxing and when bussing you cannot have the source tracks frozen.

Good Luck.