Ableton Forum

Hey guys,

If this question has already been answered, please link me to the correct thread and I'll delete this post. I used search and couldn't find anything that related to my question.

I was messing around with a layering a kick and I noticed that with just the kick playing, my CPU usage was already at 30%. This seems unusually high for me, because I had a whole separate track playing that peaked at about 40% usage. I was thinking about upgrading my RAM to 8GB or 16GB for shits and giggles, but my question is could this reduce the CPU usage within Ableton? This happens on a Macbook Pro 13" 4GB RAM 500GB hard drive with a 2.4GHz i5 processor. The Ableton Performance test results for me show 45% usage.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

No, cpu calculates, ram stores data.

the CPU showing 30% with just the kick showing sounds like there is WAY too much going on with that kick.
My whole set runs at around 30% and I use a ton of plugs and effects.

What are you using for layering a kick, or what other CPU heave plugs to you have in your set? Whats your buffer size set at?

To answer you question a bit further
Ableton Live is only a 32bit program, capable of only utilizing just under 4 gigs of RAM.
Adding more than 4 gigs of RAM will not allow Ableton Live to anything more.
Yet your thinking is somewhat sound, if Ableton was 64bit, and could access more RAM, Live Sets with tons of samples and sample layering should work much better.

However, I cant imagine a few kick layers (samples) jacking up your CPU like that, sounds more like a CPU hungry plug.

hevvykevvy wrote:Hey guys,

If this question has already been answered, please link me to the correct thread and I'll delete this post. I used search and couldn't find anything that related to my question.

I was messing around with a layering a kick and I noticed that with just the kick playing, my CPU usage was already at 30%. This seems unusually high for me, because I had a whole separate track playing that peaked at about 40% usage. I was thinking about upgrading my RAM to 8GB or 16GB for shits and giggles, but my question is could this reduce the CPU usage within Ableton? This happens on a Macbook Pro 13" 4GB RAM 500GB hard drive with a 2.4GHz i5 processor. The Ableton Performance test results for me show 45% usage.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Not sure what your OS and all is, but some apps in windows and mac can use the GPU from your graphics card to assist with calculation instances. So, you may want to look at upgrading the speed of your graphics card processor as opposed to your RAM.

Perhaps someone smarter than me can attest to this?

Peace!

JuanSOLO wrote:the CPU showing 30% with just the kick showing sounds like there is WAY too much going on with that kick.
My whole set runs at around 30% and I use a ton of plugs and effects.

What are you using for layering a kick, or what other CPU heave plugs to you have in your set? Whats your buffer size set at?

To answer you question a bit further
Ableton Live is only a 32bit program, capable of only utilizing just under 4 gigs of RAM.
Adding more than 4 gigs of RAM will not allow Ableton Live to anything more.
Yet your thinking is somewhat sound, if Ableton was 64bit, and could access more RAM, Live Sets with tons of samples and sample layering should work much better.

However, I cant imagine a few kick layers (samples) jacking up your CPU like that, sounds more like a CPU hungry plug.

I was mistaken, its my kick and snare that is hitting about 30. To layer the kick I'm using 2 vengeance samples and Ableton native effects. The snare is one sample. I'll post the actual .als when I get home, I forgot my laptop at home. I am using OSX Lion and my MacBook is a late 2011 model. I'm not sure what my buffer size is, however, I'll post what it is when I get home as well. Any suggestions on what it should be? I'm still super new at this and have no idea how anything should be set up.

Thanks to everyone who has helped thus far. I really appreciate it.

JuanSOLO wrote:To answer you question a bit further
Ableton Live is only a 32bit program, capable of only utilizing just under 4 gigs of RAM.
Adding more than 4 gigs of RAM will not allow Ableton Live to anything more.
Yet your thinking is somewhat sound, if Ableton was 64bit, and could access more RAM, Live Sets with tons of samples and sample layering should work much better.

That's not strictly true. If you've only got 4Gb ram then it's likely that Ableton won't be using the full 4Gb due to all the other background processes running, even if no other applications are open. So adding more ram could very well increase the amount available to Ableton.

To answer the original question; maybe - adding ram will decrease CPU usage IF the ram is getting maxed out and being paged. You can check on this by opening Activity Monitor and looking at the System Memory tab. If your system is paging you'll see it there.

Ram is dirt cheap and it seems almost rude not to upgrade it from 4Gb. Upgrading to 8Gb will cost about $50 and 16Gb about $150.

saxon2000 wrote:Not sure what your OS and all is, but some apps in windows and mac can use the GPU from your graphics card to assist with calculation instances. So, you may want to look at upgrading the speed of your graphics card processor as opposed to your RAM. Perhaps someone smarter than me can attest to this?

Unless something has changed recently (which I doubt) then support needs to be coded in the application for this and Ableton said they hadn't.

To follow up:

My buffer size is 512 samples, with no driver error compensation, overall latency 24.7 ms. I don't know how to either print screen on this MacBook or post a download link, but there are no plugins in use, only 3 Vengeance samples with native Ableton effects (reverb, compressors, etc).

to jonny72:

in Activity Monitor, I'm showing 1.79 GB free, about 840 MB wired, 1.14 active, and 249.4 MB inactive with 2.2 GB in use. This is with iTunes, Safari, Live and Gmail open. Is this normal? For the record, I do plan on upgrading to 16GB soon, simply to do it. It originally had nothing to do with Live, but if it'll help that would be a major plus.

hevvykevvy wrote:To follow up:

in Activity Monitor, I'm showing 1.79 GB free, about 840 MB wired, 1.14 active, and 249.4 MB inactive with 2.2 GB in use. This is with iTunes, Safari, Live and Gmail open. Is this normal? For the record, I do plan on upgrading to 16GB soon, simply to do it. It originally had nothing to do with Live, but if it'll help that would be a major plus.

The stats to the right are more relevant - the page ins, page outs and swap used. If you've activity there then your system is paging, which involves cpu and disk activity. Easiest way to tell if the extra ram would help; restart your Macbook, open Activity Monitor, open Live and start making music, keep an eye on the paging figures in Activity Monitor.

A ram upgrade may or may not help. It won't make things any worse and the 8Gb for $50 upgrade is a no brainer for me.

jonny72 wrote:

hevvykevvy wrote:To follow up:

in Activity Monitor, I'm showing 1.79 GB free, about 840 MB wired, 1.14 active, and 249.4 MB inactive with 2.2 GB in use. This is with iTunes, Safari, Live and Gmail open. Is this normal? For the record, I do plan on upgrading to 16GB soon, simply to do it. It originally had nothing to do with Live, but if it'll help that would be a major plus.

The stats to the right are more relevant - the page ins, page outs and swap used. If you've activity there then your system is paging, which involves cpu and disk activity. Easiest way to tell if the extra ram would help; restart your Macbook, open Activity Monitor, open Live and start making music, keep an eye on the paging figures in Activity Monitor.

A ram upgrade may or may not help. It won't make things any worse and the 8Gb for $50 upgrade is a no brainer for me.

Agreed. I will just do a 16 GB upgrade to say I have 16 GB in my computer to sound like a boss when I talk to people who don't know much about computers. I'll post my results when I do the upgrade and let you all know if it helps (may be a while, pretty poor at the moment).

Thanks for everyone's contribution.

jonny72 wrote:

hevvykevvy wrote:To follow up:

in Activity Monitor, I'm showing 1.79 GB free, about 840 MB wired, 1.14 active, and 249.4 MB inactive with 2.2 GB in use. This is with iTunes, Safari, Live and Gmail open. Is this normal? For the record, I do plan on upgrading to 16GB soon, simply to do it. It originally had nothing to do with Live, but if it'll help that would be a major plus.

The stats to the right are more relevant - the page ins, page outs and swap used. If you've activity there then your system is paging, which involves cpu and disk activity. Easiest way to tell if the extra ram would help; restart your Macbook, open Activity Monitor, open Live and start making music, keep an eye on the paging figures in Activity Monitor.

A ram upgrade may or may not help. It won't make things any worse and the 8Gb for $50 upgrade is a no brainer for me.

the critical figure is the page outs, they only occur when your physical RAM is full. a page out occurs when some still in use data needs to be written to disk to free up some RAM for something needing to be paged in (loaded into RAM).

lots of page ins and some swap are normal, no matter how much RAM you have.

Let me guess, do you MIDI trigger it?
I had that much CPU hikes with Lion that I switched back to 10.6... and that was in november... no fun

What version are you using? I remember there was a lion fix sometime...

Definitely nothing to do with your specs..

hevvykevvy wrote:Hey guys,

If this question has already been answered, please link me to the correct thread and I'll delete this post. I used search and couldn't find anything that related to my question.

I was messing around with a layering a kick and I noticed that with just the kick playing, my CPU usage was already at 30%. This seems unusually high for me, because I had a whole separate track playing that peaked at about 40% usage. I was thinking about upgrading my RAM to 8GB or 16GB for shits and giggles, but my question is could this reduce the CPU usage within Ableton? This happens on a Macbook Pro 13" 4GB RAM 500GB hard drive with a 2.4GHz i5 processor. The Ableton Performance test results for me show 45% usage.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

myusik wrote:Let me guess, do you MIDI trigger it?
I had that much CPU hikes with Lion that I switched back to 10.6... and that was in november... no fun

What version are you using? I remember there was a lion fix sometime...

Definitely nothing to do with your specs..

hevvykevvy wrote:Hey guys,

If this question has already been answered, please link me to the correct thread and I'll delete this post. I used search and couldn't find anything that related to my question.

I was messing around with a layering a kick and I noticed that with just the kick playing, my CPU usage was already at 30%. This seems unusually high for me, because I had a whole separate track playing that peaked at about 40% usage. I was thinking about upgrading my RAM to 8GB or 16GB for shits and giggles, but my question is could this reduce the CPU usage within Ableton? This happens on a Macbook Pro 13" 4GB RAM 500GB hard drive with a 2.4GHz i5 processor. The Ableton Performance test results for me show 45% usage.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

I'm still super new, so I'm not sure what MIDI triggering is. I have drawn the notes into Ableton on a MIDI track, if that's what you mean.
I'm on Lion 10.7.3.