Ableton Forum

When ever I am searching for an acapella (or a track)to toss in the mix I get stutters because it is attemtping to preview the track thru the headphones. I know that is has alot to do with the fact that I am trying to sift thru 20GB of acapella, but still need to figure it out. I am not preview or cueing up tracks so the quesiton is how do I turn this off to prevent stalling or sounds pauses.


Thanks for the help

Click the little headphone icon at the bottom of the browser?

No...I know how to turn off the audio output.

I want to stop the track from previewing at all (in any sense). I just want to be able to scroll thru the folders without the computer having to think about each file I scroll over. I know that I can use the mouse to move around but it would be nice to just hold down the up or down arrow and just stop when I find what I'm looking for.

Does this make sense? If not I'll try to be more clear. Of I'll put up a picture to explain better what I mean.


Thanks again for the help

looked around Live a bit, I don't think you can. I browsed my samples a bit and it doesn't seem to affect my computer's performance. is it giving you problems?

Tone Deft wrote:looked around Live a bit, I don't think you can. I browsed my samples a bit and it doesn't seem to affect my computer's performance. is it giving you problems?

I build all my sets from the ground up. So imagine something simple. Start with kontakt 4 orchestral stuff (let's say strings, horns, cello). Keep building with massive bass, absynth background synth, a few percussion from B3, fm 8 arrpeg stuff, some of the reakot preset stuff, and reason record wobble bass stuff (oh yeah and audio loops as well). Then I want to toss in an acapella to finish off. Well when I'm trying to just simply hold the down arrow to do things quickly (as oppose to grabbing for the mouse). Each time I dive into different folders, sometimes ones that I never have looked into (which I think is part of the problem because it seems that once live have dealt with a file before it get to know it and spends less time previewing and loading it) I get a stutter because live is concentrating on showing the wav or mp3 and getting it ready to preview via audio (by whatever means you have it setup.)

Since I don't know where my music is going to take me it is hard to sit down and load up all 20GB of acapella just because I might use then. I am not bitching just making honest observations that I hope can help to improve live as a performance software.

I understand that I am asking a little much out of my software and hardware (which is why I am less pissed at live 8 than I have been) but I really wish we had the ability to turn off that preview function all together. This might be another feature request??

Thank again Tone deaf......for all the help

makes sense. yeah, should be a feature request. anything to lighten the load on the CPU sounds good to me.

HeadrickProductions wrote:No...I know how to turn off the audio output.

I want to stop the track from previewing at all (in any sense). I just want to be able to scroll thru the folders without the computer having to think about each file I scroll over. I know that I can use the mouse to move around but it would be nice to just hold down the up or down arrow and just stop when I find what I'm looking for.

Does this make sense? If not I'll try to be more clear. Of I'll put up a picture to explain better what I mean.


Thanks again for the help

If the headphone icon is not enabled then I guess what you're referring to is the delay while Live looks at the folders on your hard drive - if this is causing problems then it's likely because there is a delay in accessing the hard drive(s)

firstly make sure there are no un-needed drives in use (no disks in CD drives you don't need or external HDs not being used)

otherwise maybe you need to defragment or permissions repair your drive or consider using a faster drive

I think it's unlikely there is any other way around this

Thanks for clearing that up. I am talking about that delay that you talked about. My computer is 7% fragmented. According to the new version of norton there is no reason at the moment to defrag but I might try it.

I have no cd's or Dvd's ( i thought ) in the laptop. The computer never touches the internet so no virus. Could you explain the permissions repair you drive part?? I never have issues in other DAW's but I do not do nearly the amount of things in other DAW's either


If there is anyone else out there doing similar things on a 7200rpm harddrive that could weigh in and say this is my problem. I would also think that having 8 gb of that could be UTILIZED, would greatly help this issue (but my computer knowledge is not that extensive but I'll do some research)


Thanks for the input alex.....I am curious as to what all you learned in the Ableton classes. I guess a specific question what is an exsample of what you consider advanced ableton stuff that would give me an idea of where I am in my ableton journey.....

Not sure if this is related to your computer's performance issue, but when you select an audio file in Live's browser for the first time, Live will build the (.asd) file. This file contains information about the audio file (waveform, warp, etc.). This might explain why you don't have the stuttering issue when you select a file for a second time.

Having the ability to tell Live to build the .asd file only when you add it to a project would be nice, but then you would not be able to preview the audio file at the tempo of your project. Even better would be the ability to tell Live to build the .asd files offline for all audio files in your Library, or in another location. Start the build process, and then go make some coffee.

I could have sworn there was a setting in preferences to turn off the automatic analysis Live does on audio files when browsing. Of course this does mean you would not be able to audition the file in sync with the song as it would play back at original pitch and speed. I was just looking for the setting the other day but couldn't find it! I even looked again today I think.

Was there never just a thing? Am I losing my mind?

HeadrickProductions wrote:...sometimes ones that I never have looked into (which I think is part of the problem because it seems that once live have dealt with a file before it get to know it and spends less time previewing and loading it)...

Right-click on all possibly browsed folders and choose "analyze folder", that way Live creates all those small asd files. Might at least alleviate the stutters?

glitchrock-buddha wrote:I could have sworn there was a setting in preferences to turn off the automatic analysis Live does on audio files when browsing. Of course this does mean you would not be able to audition the file in sync with the song as it would play back at original pitch and speed. I was just looking for the setting the other day but couldn't find it! I even looked again today I think.

Was there never just a thing? Am I losing my mind?

"Create analysis file", second option in the file/folder prefs.

housemusiclover wrote:

glitchrock-buddha wrote:I could have sworn there was a setting in preferences to turn off the automatic analysis Live does on audio files when browsing. Of course this does mean you would not be able to audition the file in sync with the song as it would play back at original pitch and speed. I was just looking for the setting the other day but couldn't find it! I even looked again today I think.

Was there never just a thing? Am I losing my mind?

"Create analysis file", second option in the file/folder prefs.

Oh dude, thanks! I must have been temporarily blind. It's right there. I just the other day realized that I never load audio loops in Live anymore, but do use sampler, so there's no point making those analysis files. It's nice not to have those asd files popping all over my folders now.

To the OP, have you tried turning off that setting in preferences?

housemusiclover wrote:

HeadrickProductions wrote:...sometimes ones that I never have looked into (which I think is part of the problem because it seems that once live have dealt with a file before it get to know it and spends less time previewing and loading it)...

Right-click on all possibly browsed folders and choose "analyze folder", that way Live creates all those small asd files. Might at least alleviate the stutters?

+1 to this - forgot about that.... if it is creating ASD files that could also slow things down, and so you could just use the "analyze folder" option when you aren't using it for a while.

Thanks for the help guys.....I'll try it after I get off my lazy ass and head over there.

Thanks