Macbook Pro 2019 16 inch fan noise with Ableton

[ayruos]

Damn, I was finally thinking of making the switch to Ableton but this issue is driving me nuts. On far bigger projects on Logic with multiple plugins all over the place, the machine runs quiet AF. Ableton Lite with four audio tracks and almost no plugins is kicking my machine into high gear, all 6 cores (I'm on the base spec 16") running at a 4Ghz turbo... with 4% CPU usage

Huh?

Surely there's something Ableton can do about this instead of us having to force turbo off and other tacky solutions when DAWs like Logic run super well...?

My main reason for looking into Ableton is that 11 seems to have all the features I'd need, has anyone tried the beta to see if this has been addressed?

[RDiiO]

Damn, I was finally thinking of making the switch to Ableton but this issue is driving me nuts. On far bigger projects on Logic with multiple plugins all over the place, the machine runs quiet AF. Ableton Lite with four audio tracks and almost no plugins is kicking my machine into high gear, all 6 cores (I'm on the base spec 16") running at a 4Ghz turbo... with 4% CPU usage

Huh?

Surely there's something Ableton can do about this instead of us having to force turbo off and other tacky solutions when DAWs like Logic run super well...?

My main reason for looking into Ableton is that 11 seems to have all the features I'd need, has anyone tried the beta to see if this has been addressed?

Currently running the most recent beta of Live 11 Suite and it's been zero improvement to this issue, same terrible fan noise with my i9 16" and still the only workaround is to disable turbo boost when opening Live. Zero improvements to CPU performance or recording latency as well and both of these were much needed since Live 10 launched. This discrete graphics fan issue was reported 2 years ago on the beta forum and at this point I've given up on Ableton addressing it, out of all the DAWs it is the only one that suffers terribly from this issue in my experience. My suggestion would be to switch over to the 16" MacBook Pro with the M1X or M2 that's coming early next year, I did have a chance to test out Ableton on the new MacBook Pro M1 and it ran Live 10/11 great and of course zero fan noise or heat issues.

Yes all of the new features in Live 11 are really cool "features", comping alone was long over due BUT I wish ableton would put more focus into performance improvements like this issue, CPU performance, recording latency, mixing/audio rendering. No DAW is perfect just hope to see some development balanced from the team at Ableton, features + stability + performance.

[Sintek]

As said, I would like to know if there's any potential system problems on long time usage of Turbo Boost Switcher. I mean, I don't understand anything about it but what can I say is that I always had default TB enabled but start to be really disappointed with that damn fans noise trying to focus on certain frequencies. So, just yesterday, I tried it on my new MBP 16" w/ i9 2.3ghz and, unbelievable, my fans speed were at 2500rpm (totally noiseless) and temperature was under 75°C, opening an old 60 tracks project (with intruments, aux, busses, ecc).
Now, what I'm asking is:
1) It's safe to disable turbo boost? Or I'm creating potential damage to the CPU? Because when TB is disabled I see my CPU is always at max 2.3GHz frequency usage.
2) So, when and where turbo boost is really useful? And is really useful for music production?
3) Can you tell me if the mac is a productivity monster even when create a massive project from scratch with TB disabled?
4) Please, teach me, in simple words, how TB really works and when is needed because all the infos I found on the web are useless to me

Thanks and have a nice day!!!

[Peer Fuchs]

There s is definitely a Problem with Ableton 10 and Macbook Pro 2019. The fan runs much higher than for e.g. with Logic X. Also the CPU usage is higher. Catalina and Ableton 10 are not optimised. I've just switched from Imac 2015 to Macbook Pro and the Performance did not significantly change. I have the same songs parallel on both macs running. Same plug Ins..same audio card. I know Apple's policy sucks but still Ableton should do their homework and address the conflict. All plug ins and drivers are on the latest update. Did not update to Big Sur of course, yet.

[Sintek]

There s is definitely a Problem with Ableton 10 and Macbook Pro 2019. The fan runs much higher than for e.g. with Logic X. Also the CPU usage is higher. Catalina and Ableton 10 are not optimised. I've just switched from Imac 2015 to Macbook Pro and the Performance did not significantly change. I have the same songs parallel on both macs running. Same plug Ins..same audio card. I know Apple's policy sucks but still Ableton should do their homework and address the conflict. All plug ins and drivers are on the latest update. Did not update to Big Sur of course, yet.

I found some solution here and there without using turbo boost switcher or other third party softwares. The only thing you can do is look at what's creating issues using activity monitor. I had major problems with:
1) window server
2) bluetoothd
These two childs of a good mother sucked 50% of CPU and, since I think they're not smart enough to support multicore processing, everything was overloaded and multi-mega-iper-threaded.
So what I've done is:
1) reset SMC and PRAM, unchecked windows trasparency and set up sRGB color option for my second display monitor connected via HDMI
2) disabled sniff mode for my BT mouse using Bluetooth Explorer Apple utility and created a raw Automator app that launches at login to disable it, unchecked all the "search for BT devices options"
Now I'm always at 3/4% CPU usage and Turbo Boost works properly. I mean, I don't want to wish me bad luck but for now, that's it.... Creepy...

[carpesquare]

Is this any better with Ableton 11? The new M2 mabook airs look great, I'm thinking of upgrading if it helps this annoying problem, but it sucks that they only have 2 ports, and I'm not sure if they don't have other overheating problems.

[Tarekith]

The newer Apple Silicon MacBook pros definitely do NOT have this issue.

[cids]

Is this any better with Ableton 11? The new M2 mabook airs look great, I'm thinking of upgrading if it helps this annoying problem, but it sucks that they only have 2 ports, and I'm not sure if they don't have other overheating problems.

All M1/M2 Macs are fine and performing great with Ableton