Ableton Forum

When I try to use crystal in Live 4.04 the vast majority of its presets max out Live's CPU meter. This doesn't happen in Fl studio 5 where I can use crystal without any problems. Anyone else experience this?

Yup. Crystal is a HOG. I usually record samples from it instead of using it as an instrument.

Same here - I'm on an ancient G3 400Mhz, but thanks to Live 4 I've actually been able to do more than with the old version due to dramatic inprovement in effiency.
With Crystal I tend to tweak settings until I get a sound I like and then record a sample of it, which I can then play with Live's own Simpler, and record into a track. The bonus with this is that you can create pretty groovy layered sounds and complicated chords that may be difficult to play if you had to do it all within Crystal, but is easy once you have created your sound with Crystal and made it a separate soundfile.