Ableton Forum

I recently installed Ableton Live 8 Intro on my PC and am having trouble with the CPU. I have a project going with only 5 MIDI tracks (each its own impulse instrument.), no audio effects and my CPU meter is at about 85%. What could be happening? Should 5 Impulse tracks really peg my CPU like this? I have moved my Firepod's buffer all the way up to 12ms and it hasn't helped (should it with MIDI?.) I recently formatted my hard drive so there is nothing on this computer except reason and acrobat reader. It has a 2.1Ghz CPU and 1Gb of memory running windows XP home. Whats going on here?

Thanks,
Mac

Hi Mac,

it sounds like you might be using high sample rate settings, which would noticeably increase the CPU usage. Does the problem persist when you use 44.100 Hz (standard CD quality)?

Best,
Jörg

Hi JOrg,
Thanks for replying. I am definetly at 44.1K. Any other ideas? Am I wrong in thinking 5 tracks of MIDI instruments shouldnt be draining my CPU this much?

Thanks,
Mac

Update:

I have a version of live lite 6.0.11 that I just installed. I am running 4 midi tracks with 4 Impulse instruments which is almost the exact scenario i was having probelmes with in 8 Intro. In Live 6 lite my CPU was running at about 11% vs 85% in 8 Intro.


Should there be this much difference? I would just assume run live 6 lite, but the features are so limited (only 4 MIDI tracks in a session... REALLY?)

Any ideasas to whats going on here?

Im intereted in upgrading to the full version of 8 during the sale, but im not really in a place financially to be buying a new computer as well.

Hi,

try turning off multicore support in Preferences --> CPU if it's turned on, see how it behaves. Does that change anything?

thaks for the tip SC...i'll try that when i get home.

yeah multicore is off...in fact it wont even let me select multicore (it must know my CPU isnt multicore.)


any other ideas?

there's been a lot of weird stuff since live 8 came out. I'm having the exact same problems you have, but on live 8 ahead... It's odd but not normal

Another Update:

Another update:


I tried this last night and it baffled me:

In 8, I recorded 5 seperate audio tracks of guitar (each track had an audio effect. phaser, ping pong delay, etc.) Then I created a beat using an Impulse MIDI track. All of that running had my CPU at about 15% (which is fine)

Then I opened my set that had 5 MIDI tracks (each with its own impulse insrtument) , no audio tracks and no effects of any kind. This set had my CPU up around 65% and it was starting to bog down (meters weren't running smoothly etc.)

I dont understand how 5 midi tracks can tax the system more than 5 audio tracks with effects.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Mac