Ableton Forum

ok. so I was running a virus check on my disk after a reboot (just a normal procedure for me) and I'd just downloaded the Reaktor demo so I wanted to check it out. I threw in some sequence clips and started throwing in Reaktor instances. I know it's heavy on the CPU so to my surprise, I could get 4 instances of Reaktor to run. BUT when I turned the virus scan off, the CPU meter in Live shot up to 120% and audio started to crackle like hell. then I could only get two instances to run before audio crackled from CPU overload.

I tried the same thing in Tracktion, which is a new "baby" sequencer costing 1/5 of what Live does; it could run 6 instances of Reaktor with room to spare (which should go to show you that Live 4 could use a little fine-tuning in the efficiency department). but when I turned Virex off, it did the same as Live - CPU overload and I had to delete two Reaktors to get it to run right.

I did more tests including using different VSTi's in each program and running a Live set where everything was bounced to audio clips and only a couple effects (no instruments) were being run. they all exhibited the same behaviour.

anyone know what gives? is this a Mac thing only (I'm running a 1.33Ghz Pbook w/1.25GB of RAM under OS X)? should I just scan my disk every time I run Live now?

What virus checker you using, sounds promising

guatamaham wrote: I tried the same thing in Tracktion, which is a new "baby" sequencer costing 1/5 of what Live does;

Tracktion costs 1/5th the price of Live and has about 1/20th the features of Live and is about 1/2 as stable.

rictheobscene wrote:Tracktion costs 1/5th the price of Live and has about 1/20th the features of Live and is about 1/2 as stable.

yes, which is why I have Live

however, I'd say that right now, Tracktion's more stable than Live. I've never had Tracktion crash on me. Live crashes on me at least once a day; sometimes several times a day.

anyway, my point about Tracktion was just that it's so cheap and many don't seriously consider it; yet it's much more efficient with VST's and VSTi's than a very-well regarded Live.

That's some whacky shit dude.
I really hope that's a magic pill for Ableton users, I've heard from PC users that they get stacks more power that us mac people so hopefully your littile trick will be a winner!