Ableton Forum

This spiking problem seems to me to be universal regardless of platform/OS/soundcard/RAM/Plugins etc......The only common denominator in all this is Ableton Live 5....

The ethos of Ableton from day one seemed to be that of a company who supported live gigging electronic artists. This now seems to have taken a backseat to Ableton wanting to become the new Steinberg/Emagic...I can accept problems with my sequencer sitting in my studio but at a gig in front of people with software that uses the word "LIVE" as part of its name the software should without doubt be rock solid.

Dont get me wrong, versions 1-4 have been rock solid and in the past the limitations of this software have been down to the size of my computer alone....but now on a G4 1.67 powerbook with a gig of RAM, Motu 828 soundcard and an OFFICIAL version of Ableton Live Im worse off nowthan I was on my G3 400 running v1.0

If Ableton 5 was a piece of hardware it wouldve gone straight back to the shop ages ago, as it is two shows have now passed, Live 5 has glitched to F**k on each occasion and all I seem to have done is wait for new versions to fix the problem which havnt worked ( for me or anyone else by the look of it !).. and nothing is seeming to have been done by the developers...or nothing effective at least!

Please dont quote hardware optimisation at me either...its happened on 3 different machines,3 different soundcards, 2 different operating systems, with a Lacie 7200 hard drive and Ive tried everything else there is to try......apart from reverting back to Live 3 .....which is now running perfect..

C'mon...you dont have to be Columbo to work out whats going on here Ableton ...hardly a selling point for Ableton 6 is it?


h


RSVP

Agree - hardware and settings optimization can only take you so far. If you are sure all your hardware and settings are as goods as they can be, then there is no where else to point the finger other than at the software application itself.

It seems like Ableton should at least be able to pinpoint in general where the issue is originating (looking at the changes and new features that were added to 5).

If they are able to pinpoint it, then maybe at the very least there could be a way to allow users to turn off the feature that causes this issue during live performances to make the application more stable. (Although, it is likely not this simple.)

and the primary advantage I always hear about Live is that it is the best for performing live with. But that may no longer be the case with this type of issue causing problems.

Too right.

We use Ableton primarily for live performances and there is nothing more mortifying than standing on stage in front of hundreds (or thousands sometimes) of people and every few seconds there's drop outs and glitchs in your sound, amplified over a large PA system.

We need to be able to trust our software because performing itself is enough of a worry.

My production partner now says he would not use v5 again even if Ableton sorted these issues because he feels he could never really trust it again after the bad live experiences we have had.

A sorry state of affairs I feel.

X

I'm in the same boat... I was about to purchase a full version of ableton (was using the beta and using the lite version for now) but with the glitches I just felt I couldn't trust it yet... instead I purchased reason because even thought it's not made for live use specifically it is robust and solid for me to use it live... I won't be buying live until I can run through one of my tracks in lite without it glitching the first 5 seconds... I even import just one wav file and play it and it glitches once I start messing with eq or something...

btw. this occurs on both my dell inspiron 8500 laptop w/ an indigo dj card and on my desktop which is amd athlon based... intel chipset and via chipsets, I really don't see it being a hardware issue but much rather some kinda program bug, especially being that it doesn't occur in anything else... I can max out my cpu with fx and sends through reason and have no problems.

i just solved some major problems on my computer by taking my usb mouse and plugging it into the ps/2 port. i'd recommend checking it out!

before, moving my mouse would result in big cpu spikes, now it does not have any effect on the cpu meter.

this is the problem with computers - there are so many variables it's very hard to pinpoint what's causing an issue

totally. i spent the better part of this afternoon dicking around with it. at least i solved one problem, most of the time nothing improves

before 5 , Live would only glitch if you were really pushing it hard , as is normal when running multible audio tracks and cpu intensive plugins . . .

Since Live 5 it glitches all over the place for no appearent reason . . .

This is a very real problem with the application and should not be swept under the rug . . .

The Ableton team could at least tell us something along the lines of " since live 5 the cpu meter is mostly decoration , hitting 30% will make your set vulnurable to glitches , hitting 60 or above is almost like 100% in previous version"

Maybe some people have problems with their configurations , soundcards or midigear . . . but , I´m absolutely certain that there is code to fixed or rewritten , hopefully not later than 6

Obineg wrote:The Ableton team could at least tell us something along the lines of " since live 5 the cpu meter is mostly decoration , hitting 30% will make your set vulnurable to glitches , hitting 60 or above is almost like 100% in previous version"

My exact impression as well. I don't understand why 5.2 has made it worse if it's an issue they've tried to correct. I could care less about any new features, right now it's almost impossible to work for extended periods of time with the RRRWWWRRR sound lurking around every corner.

ive just posted this - it might be a similar problems.

im using 5.2.

im working on a track in the arrange page. ive recorded everything over from the session page. im working with 16 bar loops. everytime i cross or transition from one set of clips to the next i get a fizzle or crackle. all the clips are warped and set to loop. the average cpu load is 60% [p4 3.6ht 1 gb 7200rpm]. there is no crackle from scene to scene in the session page.

ring any bells

Well i not play this weekend so i use all weekend for test this issue.

I test on my imac intel core duo 17", test with inside imac sound card and with my m-audio fast track, under 48khz, under 44.1, i move latency from very high values to very low, i downgrade mac osx to 10.4.4 and test 10.4.5 and then 10.4.6......under all this tests result its the same:
Audio drop happen just making simple things like, muting some chanells, or press play in some sample etc etc............audio drop outs !!!

Cheking the forum this trouble happen to mac, and pc users, with firewire great cards, usb cards, poor cards etc etc.

I use specially for djing, and send midi to my sinths, not hard usage, my cpu load its usually 9% to 18% when play multiple samples at same time.


Well this its real trouble and ableton developers should work on this soon, the trouble its real and aparently is the software, happen everytime cpu peak.

ANother thing i see..........this happen just mutting audio channel empty lol , its amasing just pressing mute of chanles not playing and audio dropout happen, or when make click on prelisten on empty chanell.

I move from N instruments + final scracth, and sell that toys for move to ableton for 2 reasons:

1 stable software ( lots ableton users say that time ago on forums)
2 creativity

About point 1 .............well boys this drop outs are real.

Another thing i detect:

If i power on my machine, and open ableton without use any other software, i can play for lot of time without drops.
After i open some heavy aplication (just for test) like logic at same time, the audio drops start and never stop.
Very strange!, but more strange is the cpu peak,just using ableton alone aking simple things.

Ah !! for users all users say the trouble its our configuration or sound cards.........i work with logic and lot of plugins and.......never have audio dropouts !

I no want blame ableton, i love ableton, but need this fixed very soon.

I use all my tunes and samples on wav format.
can be that the trouble?

Sombody using aif have this trouble?

I think no have relation, but i think we need ask to users with no troubles all about setups, samples, format used etc etc...in some point its very possible we can see the comon point of users with no troubles and users with troubles.

I think its great idea if moderator open post stiky just for post something like:
-------------------------------------------------------
My setup:

Audio dropouts: yes or no
-------------------------------------------------------

Best regards, and sory for my bad english.

Obineg wrote: Since Live 5 it glitches all over the place for no appearent reason . . .

There are funny things happening with Live5. For exemple, I keep my system "on" most of the time and very often when I come back in the morning Live is running the cpu so hard I cannot move the mouse. And that is when I left Live on "stop" and idling at 5-10%. So how come I arrive in the morning and it is still on stop but the computer is paralized? I kill live with the task monitor and systems comes back.

and very often, after taking a 2 hour pause, I come back to my set and every 1st twist of a controller knob (assigned to something) make Live's audio crackle. And that can happen with a set that maxes at 10% CPU.


Well Live IS THE ONLY APP i ever came across that cannot stand still for one night....

the two main problems with Live:

- random CPU spikes, audio dropouts, and audio glitches and

- paralyzed arrange grid


both of these things seem related to buffering information somehow, theres something wrong with the way Live is managing the information it needs to manage to do what it does

one thing that points to this is that both of the issues seem to get worse the longer you run a project without restarting or rebooting.

things are hanging up and not allocating properly

.;

WaveRider wrote:

Obineg wrote: Since Live 5 it glitches all over the place for no appearent reason . . .

There are funny things happening with Live5. For exemple, I keep my system "on" most of the time and very often when I come back in the morning Live is running the cpu so hard I cannot move the mouse. And that is when I left Live on "stop" and idling at 5-10%. So how come I arrive in the morning and it is still on stop but the computer is paralized? I kill live with the task monitor and systems comes back.

and very often, after taking a 2 hour pause, I come back to my set and every 1st twist of a controller knob (assigned to something) make Live's audio crackle. And that can happen with a set that maxes at 10% CPU.


Well Live IS THE ONLY APP i ever came across that cannot stand still for one night....

i cant really take 20 mins and grab a cup of coffee without it crashing

cubase sl for me is rock solid

but i still need live

i was dissapointed with Live 5, because of cpu and HD overloads.

a problem that i have experienced, was while loading live 4 sets to the curent version (latency without DELAY COMPENSATION and glitches when del.compens. was active)

with 5.2 these problems were minimised significantly alongside with the overall cpu performance. i think that Ableton has to upgrade at higher levels the 5 edition, before the release of Live 6.

it has to be as steady as the previous versions...