Ableton Forum

Josh Von wrote: Here is a screenshot of my current set, 52 tracks of straight audio. At this point the set has been bounced again using Render All Tracks at the master.

There are no effects in the inserts, sends or master. All I am asking Live to do is play straight audio clips in beats mode (one marker at the beginning of the tracks arrangeview, and nothing else.
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to me that seems like a huge thing you are asking - because even though beats is not complex, it's still a warp mode so that is 52 warped REALTIME tracks

I know alot of people want to use live for basic multitracking, but what you're asking here seems to me to be something you would be better off doing in one the other DAWs

I've never even attempted to get up to a track count that high

I'm not saying you shouldnt want to, but I think it's fair to assume if you're expecting that kind of performance and still be real time then you need to seriously up your system specs - and probably at least triple your RAM for one

and you know I've been getting the sluggishness issue too with alot less going on, but I dont feel your 52 track example here is truly representative of the issue we're trying to fix -

how did it go if you turned warping off BTW?

if it was me I'd only turn warp on on any tracks I needed it on, but if you're working on all those stems I would assume you already have the right tempo and would turn it off

Josh Von wrote: Here is a screenshot of my current set, 52 tracks of straight audio. At this point the set has been bounced again using Render All Tracks at the master.

forge wrote:to me that seems like a huge thing you are asking - because even though beats is not complex, it's still a warp mode so that is 52 warped REALTIME tracks

No, you're missing these points:

1 - doesnt matter if the tracks are warped or not, they were bounced at original tempo - but I hit the warp switch on in case i want to make a slight timing adjustment on a track

If I turn all the warping off, it still chokes

2 - the 52 tracks are not all playing at once, not even close. said that.

Some of the tracks are one shot hits, others are specific to a section and dont appear again, many (most) of them are percussion tracks that are playing hi-end percussion sounds (lower hi-hat range) - some only appear during the Intro .. ETC

I know alot of people want to use live for basic multitracking, but what you're asking here seems to me to be something you would be better off doing in one the other DAWs

Basic multitracking? This is a standard music production set with a full compliment of elements. This is what Live is designed to handle.

Is there anywhere - that you can find - where Ableton has stated or implied that "Live is aimed toward the casual hobbiest, for light production loads"?

No.

I've never even attempted to get up to a track count that high

Trust me track counts - especially where all tracks are not being played simultaneously - this high are very common. This is a production track, for an album release

I'm not saying you shouldnt want to, but I think it's fair to assume if you're expecting that kind of performance and still be real time then you need to seriously up your system specs - and probably at least triple your RAM for one

Well forge, thats pretty sad if your expectations are that low. Thats completely out of the question. Im only playing about 20 tracks simultaneously ever at most on here.

Are you saying we should all expect to be running the latest bleeding edge state of the art system to do professional jobs? Otherwise might as well stick to about 10 minimal Live PA tracks with some beatrepeat, right?

Live is a DAW, whether people that are and have always run it as a casual sound toy to run some loops and clips want to finally admit that or not. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, but its a different perspective and set of expectations.

It is a DAW, its now geared (and advertised) for a pro market and its expected to run in that environment without sputtering, choking, freezing up, clicking, popping, or snoozing.

This is why many people are still not taking it seriously as a professional tool, these issues are well known and common knowledge by now. Im one of the only crazy bastards I know that is using it for everything .. only because I know it so well and am comfortable with it ..

They're not on this forum telling ableton about it because they are not using the product and dont go out of thier way to post on forums to begin with.

But yeah ... Lives audio problems are legendary by now. They dont use it the way Im trying to use it - for that reason. They rewire it in to something else and use it as a loop station, or create parts in it to sequence somewhere else .. lots of them

and you know I've been getting the sluggishness issue too with alot less going on, but I dont feel your 52 track example here is truly representative of the issue we're trying to fix -

Again - if you read the post, it says I posted it to illustrate how Live is handling clip data. I dont actually run the set that way normally, I chop off the unused clip areas. Somebody else didnt read it and accused me of the same thing lol

I love these boards for that, nobody reads anymore

.

Anyway there's no need to accuse Josh of asking too much from Live : this is not the point at all, as the issue that started this thread occurs with people like me using 8 tracks and no arrangement at all, only session view and live on stage usage. Unfortunately it's probably related to a memory issue and not the way you either warp or not, consolidate or not or whatever "lightening" solution… DAW or not, dropouts are a reality, at least to some of us.
Tonight I used a very light set on stage with my new 2GB memory on my MAcbook Core 2 Duo and no dropouts. But I cannot deduce anything serious from that experience as I used a very light 4 tracks set for a few ambient sounds in an acoustic context. Let the set opened for the whole day, just to see, no problem. The 2GB RAM definitely seem to have changed something. Will continue to post my results and gig experiences.

mocker wrote:the issue that started this thread occurs with people like me using 8 tracks and no arrangement at all, only session view and live on stage usage.

Yes, it does happen in a lot of circumtances and has been happening for a long time. Its a persistant, pervasive issue that has gone on for one degree or another for the past 3 versions of the program.

This is just the latest wave of threads about this same basic issue:

If you search on "drop outs" "pops" "clicks" "sputtering" etc on this board you will see just how long this has been going on and how many people have tried to work with them to fix it. (Or have just come on here to bitch)

Unfortunately it's probably related to a memory issue and not the way you either warp or not, consolidate or not or whatever "lightening" solution… DAW or not, dropouts are a reality, at least to some of us.

This is what we are trying to be persistant about, getting an admission of the problem and getting them to continue to work on it.

In the meantime we have to fight off posts from

a. people that dont have the issue and are trying to convince everyone its us

b. regulars that take any attempt to push the ball back at ableton as a personal attack and come rushing to defend.

c. people that dont even read the posts and completely dont understand what the hell is going on, but just feel like throwing thier .02 cents anyway

Im telling you: it never changes around this board lol

.

edit - I take all this back

lol

edit

I take all this back

lol

Josh and Mocker:

first, there was no "accusing" Josh of expecting too much etc etc - I was trying to say that one example was not representative of this particular problem

that's what i meant

but yeah I probably didnt read it properly

and maybe I am being a little short sighted to not expect counts that high, but in my experience with Live, which has been pretty much exclusively writing music - not trying to record big instrumentation, drum kits etc etc I have never even come close to that and in fact deliberately go out of my way to keep to "less is more"

I dont know what you're trying to do with your 52 tracks which is why I said I'm not saying you shouldnt want it

but to be honest, whenever I have tried to use Live to do any "proper" DAW stuff I have been disappointed - at least until Live 6, but even still there for many reasons (group solo for one) but I have never really wanted to use Live for that

Last year I had to do hundreds of music files for some mobile phone stuff and I tried to use Live 5 and by the end I was embarrassed and never got any more of that work from that client again because it took me so long and it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life

I decided then I wasnt going to use Live for things like that

In my opinion Live is still a fair way short of "proper" DAW and I see it as a music writing and performance tool

it's a shame yes, but they only started in 2001 and have come a long way in that time, but just the other day I loaded up Cubase SX2 fro some reason and was reminded in some ways just how much more complex and full of features it is in some ways - there are ALOT of ways it is way ahead of Live, but I dont see Live as trying to compete in those ways

IMO people dont, or maybe shouldnt come to Live to replace their DAWs yet if they have high specific studio demands, they come to Live to enhance their creativity and workflow on the creative side because of the spontanaity it adds

I dont agree they are selling it as a high end DAW to compete with Pro-tools etc - I think it is a MUSIC PRODUCTION tool and that is where it is way ahead in terms of inspiration and creativity

but I really dont think people should expect it to replace pro-tools etc because it's still not up to it

I just did a little test which I hope may help:

Clips recorded first to Session, one at a time, and then recorded to Arrange in a single pass. For duplicated tracks, they were duplicated in Arrange after recording the session clip over...

10 copies of a single audio clip, playing simultaneously - 5% CPU
10 individually recorded audio clips, playing simult - 6% CPU

20 copies of a single audio clip, playing simultaneously - 9% CPU
20 individually recorded audio clips, playing simult - 16% CPU

30 copies of a single audio clip, playing simultaneously - 15% CPU
30 individually recorded audio clips, playing simult - 24% CPU

(noticed some problems when recording 30 tracks at once into the arrangement - for example, the metronome missed a beat or two and had some GUI lag)

40 copies of a single audio clip, playing simultaneously - 22% CPU
40 individually recorded audio clips, playing simult - 32% CPU

(definite GUI slowdown while recording 40 tracks simultaneously to Arrange. Also had some screen lag when recording the Session clips, because at the end I had for example 39 other clips playing on 39 tracks, while the 40th one was recording)

forge wrote: I dont know what you're trying to do with your 52 tracks which is why I said I'm not saying you shouldnt want it

They all have a purpose, its a big epic track with orchestrated pads in parts and lots of special effects.

but to be honest, whenever I have tried to use Live to do any "proper" DAW stuff I have been disappointed

Well there you go, what does that tell you. That is ok with you?

That isnt what ableton wants and its not what we want, therefore we come on here and push to make it what we want.

Some people apparently dont like that. Its too bad.

never got any more of that work from that client again because it took me so long and it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life

I decided then I wasnt going to use Live for things like that

You actually came to that conclusion about thier product because it embarrassed you and cost you money. And you are a long time user that i would lay odds 95% of the time knows exactly what thier doing and how to set things up.

Ableton should take note, This is definitely not what they want.

I dont agree they are selling it as a high end DAW to compete with Pro-tools etc -

Thats where you are wrong - they are. Its very clear from all of thier advertising and target market that this is a "Complete Music Production Tool".

They take that seriously and expect everyone else to as well.

I think it is a MUSIC PRODUCTION tool and that is where it is way ahead in terms of inspiration and creativity

Im a bit lost here - where are you making the distinction between DAW and MUSIC PRODUCTION TOOL.

In the first case do you mean "ready to multitrack live intruments up to full orchestral scores" and in the second case are you saying "only small numbers of virtually created tracks"?

Also - I dont know where you are getting the idea that I multitracked live drums or instruments in my current project here. Its all virtually created, all of it.

And ultimately where does it matter where the original source audio came from when you are mixing down the entire thing virtually in the end anyway. Audio is audio.

but I really dont think people should expect it to replace pro-tools etc because it's still not up to it

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Then they had better fix that, dont you think. Because its not supposed to be that way and you of all people should not really be saying that.

Im telling you this audio business is the main reason why, its not 'lack of features' at this point.

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Josh, for what it's worth I'm sorry if you consider me to be of type A B or C. It is not my intention. I just hang out on the forum and try to be helpful. Obviously that is not always the case

Josh Von wrote:[.......

Then they had better fix that, dont you think. Because its not supposed to be that way and you of all people should not really be saying that.

Im telling you this audio business is the main reason why, its not 'lack of features' at this point.

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you're right the lines are getting a bit blurred between this somewhat broad term DAW and the term "music production tool" - I guess in my mind I'm thinking DAW is the term used to describe the the more extreme recording gear you would find in a big studio - which is definitely what pro tools is aimed at being and I wouldnt say Live is

you cant deny that there are still definitely alot of things Pro tools etc do that Live probably wont for quite some time, if ever, that are aimed at broadcast and high end users - some ppl often say they still rewire Live to PT etc for this very reason - why do you think they added multi-track bounce as one of the L6 features?

There is no score editor at all so for proper orchestral stuff it is a whole world behind the others

the MIDI editiing is still very basic

there are ALOT of audio editing things that pro-tools does that Live probably never will

I'm definitely not disagreeing that they need to hear these testimoies at all - and I'm also definitely not saying I dont want it to ever be a "real DAW"

For me personally I am not trying to use live in this way, and when I have I have found it disappointing and so I came to the conclusion that it just isnt there yet, or that I'm not really going to expect it to be yet - but that hasnt been a problem for my music production because I havent needed it to

it's really only when I've had "real work" to do I've noticed it (I mean audio engineering there for most part - I've still used Live for the music and been VERY happy)

I'm not really disagreeing with you Josh, I'm actually agreeing here in most but all I'm adding is that I dont really expect the kinds of things you are expecting from Live at the moment and for bigger multitracking projects like that I probably just wouldnt use Live as the main sequencer but would either rewire or whatever - I just think the real time/live performance CPU hit thing is just too prohibitive there

the most ambitious thing I've done to date is an orchestral arrangement using Sampler and EIC on only about 16 midi tracks + a couple of vocal tracks - un frozen it really choked my computer - but I'm still on an athlon 2200

the EIC + sampler seems to need alot of juice because I can do ALOT better with other tracks

I would love to see more DAW development in the future, but I don't think it's there now - the simple fact that they havent yet added a way of soloing group tracks says to me they definitely are approaching it from a different angle than I would expect a DAW to be - (but again it's how you interpret the term) - I've been moaning about the group solo thing since version 3 and I was truly astonished to see it wasnt there in 6 - it's such a basic thing that you would really expect from a "real DAW"