Ableton Forum

How much can your computer handle before being bogged down to the point of clicks and stutters, or the inevitable crash window (which hasn't happened to me on the 64 bit version, yet)? I don't mean empty audio tracks with just a sine wave playing, I mean actual tracks with effects and automation, or instrument tracks.

I have a suspicion that I'm not getting enough out of my machine because of heating issues, or perhaps my Duet2 is part of the problem? Here is generally what my computer can handle, it would be nice to hear what other people are getting out of their machines... please post specs along with a sample of what your machine is capable of...

My Machine and Audio Interface:2011 17" Macbook Pro 2.3 ghZ i7 , 16gb ram, 256gb SSD, all sample files are on an external thunderbolt 7200 rpm drive.. Duet2 as an interface...

My Max Session
I can usually get away with having plenty of midi and audio tracks in the set, but what really matters is how many can actually be played simultaneously without causing click and stutters and the eventual stopping of play all together.. So, what I can basically get away with is -

~ 12 audio tracks, and ~ 8 midi tracks feeding Omnisphere, Kontakt, Virus TI, Massive, Sylenth or whatever... Obviously it changes depending on the instrument or effects proccessing or sample library size, but for the most part Live comes to a screeching halt around this amount. Another thing I have noticed is that after working for a couple hours Live will begin having problems. I'm guessing this is because my computer begins to get really warm. Once I power off and wait about 40 minutes I can usually go back to working for another couple hours before the machine starts to get bogged down again.

Does anyone else experience this? Any other macbook users, in particular? What are you guys getting out of your imacs, your desktop pcs, or etc.. ? I feel like I should be able to play more than 3 instances of massive at once on top of kontakt and omnisphere, but the machine seems sensitive to a heavy workload. I'm considering the thought of buying an imac, or perhaps waiting for what I hope will be a new line of Mac Pros next year, because it's hard for me to make as complex of a song as I would like to with all these limitations. I constantly find myself wanting to add more layers, but the computer just can't take it

So, what is your experience like?

Your performance seems low given your hardware. Have you taken the Ableton 8 performance test?
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111880

Well if the 64 bit version doesn't give you trouble then I think is clear that you are facing RAM limitations on the 32 bit version, specially if you are using contact and omnisphere.

I still get the problem in 64 bit mode, the only difference is that it doesn't out-right crash, the CPU meter just hits around 90% and everything starts to stutter / play at half speed / click.. it's quite frustrating...

For instance, in a set I have going right now, I've written out about 80 bars of music.. the set consists of -

Drums - 10 tracks + 1 instance of stylus running 6 patch loops
Sub - 1 instance of massive and 1 instance of operator, plus 2 audio tracks, 1 for minibrute & 1 for slim phatty
Instruments - 16 tracks all together (8 midi with one instance of omnisphere) + (4 midi + 1 instance of kontakt 5) + (6 tracks, 2 massive, 2 sylenth, 2 fm8)....

then of course I have lots of automation and plugins going on, but in total i'm only using about 32 tracks. I feel like I should be getting more out of my machine, but i can't pinpoint the problem at hand :/.....

.. I have an app that tracks memory and frees up unused memory, and I still have about 6 gb of ram available, and the set is freezing up.. any idea?

dysanfel wrote:Your performance seems low given your hardware. Have you taken the Ableton 8 performance test?
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111880

I havent done this yet, but I will when I get home and will update this post, thanks