Ableton Forum

I searched to see if others have posted but didnt find it with my keywords.

This is a standing issue with Live (for me) since 2.0. Im assuming if others have the same issues, they might just accept it as being inevitable given what Live is being asked to do, resource wise. And they program love it so much that they dont say anything .. however ...

Live 'locks up' for a period of seconds .. sometimes up to 10 ... when asked to process certain commands or combinations of commands. I dont mean rendering or other obvious moments when it stops audio etc ..

For instance:

- moving clips in Arrange View, Live will pause and 'lock up' for 5 - 10 seconds. It could be clicking and dragging, or cut/paste. This is with one clip, or multiple clips.

- moving around in the Arrange view is 'sticky'. Sometimes its necessary to keep pushing with the mouse to get it to respond.

- mentioned before in another thread: zooming in close in Clip View, the display is sticky and locks up.

Only a few examples, but these make it difficult and frustrating to work with at times. Again if the app wasnt so amazing, it would be harder to deal with, but it is very annoying and not 'clean' in the way it handles certain things.

Of course this issue happens more when the resource meter is over 50%,. but often it happens with significantly less, 30 - 40%

Hoping if its my system, my specs below will tell you. And / or there are more optimizations about this coming in the next releases... thx ...

(if anyone else is getting this pls respond to this thread)





Sometimes clicking at the top of the main window seems to 'kickstart' it to complete the move.

what harddrive do u use ?? whats it buffer size and speed ??

if both are too low and slow, than this could be the reason for your prob...

im working on win2k and sometimes i do have a similar prob when i use my audio files direct from my storage ( maxtor 120 GB, 2 MB buffer, 7200 rpm ).

but primarily, i work on a utra scsi 160 hard drive which is givin me no probs at all....

try workin on a faster hd....

Does your mobo have onboard graphics and,if so,are you using it insteard of an AGP card?That'd be my first guess...that it's more a graphics issue.
ew

do all the windows tweaks eg

increase your swap file
change your desktop settings to the plain old boring one
turn off animated windows etc.
disable onboard sound in your Bios
update your bios
defrag your hard drive "very important"
in your Bios settings check if there is best performance options and tweak that..

actually go here as there is to many to mention
http://www.musicxp.net/

also your board is VIA chipset which is pretty buggy/picky on the older mainboards , see if there is an update for the Bios. maybe think about an upgrade as well ?? if possible. get an Iwill board if you do upgrade.

Thanks ..

Graphics card is Nvidea 9600 - latest drivers, fast stuff
\
The rest of the tweaks - backround service priority etc - I've been doing for a while. Chipset is updated ..

I have an onboard sound module, but I use two dedicated interfaces (PCI / USB) and the onboard chip driver is not installed. But I will kill it in the BIOS


My HD is 7200 RPM Ultra DMA Mode 2 on primary, Mode 6 on secondary (odd, just noticed that .. )

Could that make a huge difference?

(so what I am gathering is that my system shouldnt be this sticky?)

your system shouldnt really be like this. i have a 2.4 and mine works perfect i have over 10 tracks and can move them around fine in arrange view...are you trying to move clip which are currently playing ?as that will cause hangs..

also you might want to rollback on the SP2 as this has caused sluggish systems as well

Thanks for the replies

The problem has been happening since SP1, couldnt roll back even if I wanted to on this network.

I've only used Live on this machine with this disk, I need a new disk anyway so will be checking that out ...

One thing concerns me:

Most of the time when this is happening, I'm not doing anything that seems like it would need disk access. Moving clips around - only representations and file pointers - dont see where this would be related much to disk

Or moving the brackets in arrange view - again, sticky - like its calculating and somthing is interfering.

When I click in the menu bar the app locks up, turns 'white' around the borders, I get an hourglass, and it takes a few seconds for it to finish the calculations and free up

supster wrote:Thanks for the replies

The problem has been happening since SP1, couldnt roll back even if I wanted to on this network.

I've only used Live on this machine with this disk, I need a new disk anyway so will be checking that out ...

One thing concerns me:

Most of the time when this is happening, I'm not doing anything that seems like it would need disk access. Moving clips around - only representations and file pointers - dont see where this would be related much to disk

Or moving the brackets in arrange view - again, sticky - like its calculating and somthing is interfering.

When I click in the menu bar the app locks up, turns 'white' around the borders, I get an hourglass, and it takes a few seconds for it to finish the calculations and free up

I've noticed the same problem. This definitely seems related to the complexity of the project and/or the CPU activity. In one project in particular I've got 20 tracks, 50:50 audio and MIDI, usually about 10 tracks playing at any given time, lasting about 10', and there are definite lags with copying, cutting and pasting, which makes editing a bit of a pain.

P4 3.2Ghz / 1 Gb / 160 Gb WD drive / Parhelia graphics / Creamware Scope / E-mu 1820 / WinXP SP1 with usual tweaks.

i have always had tons of lags and i am optimized on a an amd athlon 3500 with 1 gig ram. whenever i have a heavy session the first thing i notice is the long time it takes to cut/paste and drag things in arrange... it kills me.
happens on every rig i use live on with heavy session (lots of reaktor, etc.)

pentajigga wrote:i have always had tons of lags and i am optimized on a an amd athlon 3500 with 1 gig ram. whenever i have a heavy session the first thing i notice is the long time it takes to cut/paste and drag things in arrange... it kills me.
happens on every rig i use live on with heavy session (lots of reaktor, etc.)

Yes happens to me with Reaktor as well. But I always took that to be a natural consequence of what I do with it alot:

I run massive reverberation EFX on the sends. Turning them off immediately frees up anywhere from 20 - 35% CPU (!!). On some projects I am running up to 85% and higher until I decide I'm ready to bounce.

However (extremely impt):

That is somewhat to be expected. Its when the processor is at 35 - 50%, and this is happening, where I begin to wonder.

What mode is your hardrive running at, and how much buffer do you have on it?

my harddrive is a western dig ATA w/ 8mb buffer, but sometimes im also down/uploading simulatneously...

We both have Athlon's.... I wonder if its the chipset ...

supster wrote:We both have Athlon's.... I wonder if its the chipset ...

I'm suspicious of your VIA chipset. When I built my current machine(see specs below) I opted for an Intel mainboard. I mean I figured if you're gonna go Wintel you may as well go all the way and ensure compatibility. As you can see I have only a modest machine and have never had a hiccup cutting and pasting and such. I use a dual TFT display setup with my VSTi's on one screen with no problems. I don't have huge projects but I do use alot of fx and plug-ins. I wil say this, I've seen Windows Task Manager shoot up to like 90% and stuff at times, pretty scary.

bump

Still no definite resolution on this:

A: Hardrive - $200

B: Chipset / Mobo - $300 or more ...


Either way I am investing too much in my studio to test it out.

Ableton if you are out there:

Why would cutting/moving/pasting clips in arrrange (for example) cause 10 second lockups in Live? when resources are below 50%

Is it accessing the hdd for anything and / or

Is the data being screwed on the bus by the chipset?

This would help me set priorities on what to throw my money at, and it is really getting in the way of working, this problem ...

My comp does the same when I'm moving alot of Big assed samples around for Dj ing. Basically I think it's to do with the fact that audio has main priority over screen refreshes and the like. Which means that there is never a hiccup in the audio stream "pretty essential for live work" . I know if i do the same things in Sonar then the screen refresh has priority over the audio and my sound goes all squmaibflebled up. I know which one I would rather