Ableton Forum

So recently when using Ableton (Suite 8 ), I will playback my tracks (usually 1-2 audio and 5-10 midi) and certain notes within some of the midi tracks will literally shift keys or sound like different notes. I thought to myself: "Oh must've accidentally moved a couple things." But then when I double-click the midi clip, the notes are exactly as they appeared before. Only instead of being what it should be, certain notes (sometimes even all of them) within the succession are in an entirely different pitch than what was initially recorded. So for example; a C will turn to a D, but will still APPEAR in the grid as a C. What's even stranger though is that when I re-open the project, the problem will either go away temporarily, or will comeback within a few minutes of me working on the project. I am ready to pull my hair out, for my songs are becoming literally RUINED as a result of this.

Is this a problem that anyone has ever encountered before? Any help is appreciated.

PrettyLights96 wrote:So recently when using Ableton (Suite , I will playback my tracks (usually 1-2 audio and 5-10 midi) and certain notes within some of the midi tracks will literally shift keys or sound like different notes. I thought to myself: "Oh must've accidentally moved a couple things." But then when I double-click the midi clip, the notes are exactly as they appeared before. Only instead of being what it should be, certain notes (sometimes even all of them) within the succession are in an entirely different pitch than what was initially recorded. So for example; a C will turn to a D, but will still APPEAR in the grid as a C. What's even stranger though is that when I re-open the project, the problem will either go away temporarily, or will comeback within a few minutes of me working on the project. I am ready to pull my hair out, for my songs are becoming literally RUINED as a result of this.

Is this a problem that anyone has ever encountered before? Any help is appreciated.

No. And this is a very complicated problem that could be one of... anything.

?Start from the ground up. Make sure your hearing is okay. It's possible that you have an ear infection that's causing you a loss of pitch perception. (this actually happened to me once, a while ago.)

?Then look at your MIDI data. Check your pitch bend. If you have a controller, disconnect it to see if the pitch bend on that is broken. Also check through Ableton's options there to make sure no pitch bend has been recorded in the automation.

?Check your Vst/Instruments. Make sure it's not anything in any of their settings, or that any of their settings have been automated accidentally.

?Check your effects. Make sure that one weird free wobble vst isn't a free trial and it's messing with you or something.

?Check your Audio driver settings. Close all other programs and run live with only a few instruments, don't let your cpu usage meter go over 20%, see if it still happens. Try different audio drivers, or updated ones. (Which drivers/interfaces are you using, btw?)

?Use Ableton's built-in tutorial for setting up your audio settings.

?Contact Ableton support and cry on the phone for a few minutes. That usually works for me as a last result. Just puppy dog eyes them and something will happen. c:

Best of luck to you. :T

Have you used pitch bend automation ?

This has happened to me once before. I found that it was a glitch when using pitch bend modulation in session view, and it would randomly make the pitch of the notes change when put in arrangement. It got to the point where I thought it was fixed and I would export the song and it would come out messed up again.

If you haven't used any pitch bend modulation then I can't help you, but if you are then remove it from the clips and replicate it using automation in arrangement and it should fix it.

@Eventful It's funny you mention the ear infection, because I just recently was misdiagnosed with an inner-ear disorder, that in the end I discovered was in fact "PET" (a very rare and recently discovered disorder). Although this occasionally hinders my ability to hear, I am sure that in this case I'm hearing things as they really are.

I went back in and checked everything I possibly could. Currently I am not using any controller, (was in the car and had no room to plug anything in) but this is something that has occurred both with and without. There was no pitch bend on any of the tracks with the issue, and I had not yet added any effects for I was still in the composition stage in that particular song. Also, no automatons out of the ordinary.

All my audio drivers are up to date as well (My CPU's sound card is "Realtek HD Audio", probably means nothing.). Just discovered though that there is a driver titled "ASIO" along with MME/DirectX, which is what I've been using this whole time. Switched over to the ASIO for a few moments, no luck (Would you happen to know the difference between these to? Is one or the other more beneficial?)

There were two tracks in particular that were getting all messed up. The one was initially transposed to -24, and I was playing the riff in C. When I played it back, it would all the sudden (at random) jump a half step up to C#, but while still appearing on the grid as the root note C (everything else was also where it should be visually). So what I did was drag the transposition down to -25. Yay, a temporary fix, but then, after the third or so time I played it back, it would suddenly jump down to a B...And yes, that's what it SHOULD do, but this is where it turned into an endless cycle of mess...As far as the other track, the notes were just all over the place, some right, some wrong, some almost sounded in-between pitches. Mind you though, this only happened about half of the time I played it back. It would sound perfectly ok one time, but then the pitches would shift the next, or maybe the third time. It's all entirely random, yet NOTHING appears differently in Ableton either way.

It's strange because it's almost as if the issue is progressive. It's something that's happened to two of my projects now, but hasn't onset until I've been working on them for at least a day or so. This leads me to believe it may have something to do with some sort of overload, but then in contrary I never let my CPU usage get past 60% or so. In this particular case it's not even going over 40%, so I don't know how it could actually be related.

Should I consider investing in an interface (I'm relatively new to this whole game; only 16 years old and have only been producing for around 6 months, all digital and samples so far.) to try and solve or at least hopefully prevent this from happening in the future?

*Another question I had was if repairing Live's library might benefit in this case? For this particular project I am not using any VSTs, so I thought that maybe repairing Live might help freshen everything up again. My only concern though is that if I do repair Live, that it will reset every macro I've ever altered in any of my projects (I do not generally save any of Lives pre-installed instruments as Presets because I always switch around the macros on the fly depending on what sound I'm looking for in a particular song's case.). So, will repairing Live reset all the macros in all of my projects if I have not saved each of them as presets? Because if so, I'd be in a hell of an even deeper hole.*

Oh and I'd call Ableton...but it's 10pm, and Christmans hahaha, maybe tomorrow.

P.S. i greatly appreciate the extent of your initial response.




@Sibanger Yes, and everything appeared baseline.




@Rap masta rj Unfortunately this was ruled out, thanks though.

PrettyLights96 wrote:I am sure that in this case I'm hearing things as they really are.

Good. It's painful to hear from the doctor that you might not be able to make music for a while. =3=

PrettyLights96 wrote:I went back in and checked everything I possibly could. Currently I am not using any controller, (was in the car and had no room to plug anything in

It probably doesn't affect your directly, but try it not in the car when you're troubleshooting. I would never produce in a car. =P

PrettyLights96 wrote:All my audio drivers are up to date as well (My CPU's sound card is "Realtek HD Audio", probably means nothing.). Just discovered though that there is a driver titled "ASIO" along with MME/DirectX, which is what I've been using this whole time. Switched over to the ASIO for a few moments, no luck (Would you happen to know the difference between these [two]? Is one or the other more beneficial?)

Yes. A driver named "realtek something" will be the generic driver. Do not use this. It's designed for people who send emails and listen to iTunes on their computer. Useless, slow, and bulky to us. MME/DirectX will likely be geared more towards gaming sound. I'm not an expert on DirectX or why they're making sound drivers, but it's not standard. I don't know about it's performance. ASIO, however, is the dedicated driver specially for us, as music people. Use it. Always. But it's better with an audio interface-

PrettyLights96 wrote:It's strange because it's almost as if the issue is progressive. It's something that's happened to two of my projects now, but hasn't onset until I've been working on them for at least a day or so. This leads me to believe it may have something to do with some sort of overload, but then in contrary I never let my CPU usage get past 60% or so. In this particular case it's not even going over 40%, so I don't know how it could actually be related.

What kind of PC is it? Your MME drivers might be the reason you're having problems at such low loads.

PrettyLights96 wrote:Should I consider investing in an interface (I'm relatively new to this whole game; only 16 years old and have only been producing for around 6 months, all digital and samples so far.) to try and solve or at least hopefully prevent this from happening in the future?

Yes yes yes. A good audio interface will come with it's own driver (Which will be better, faster, smoother, and more powerful than any other driver you have). It may fix the problem, it may not. But everyone should have one of these, even if it's just a cheap little box with one in and one out. Don't impulse buy, though, ask us about them first. Some interfaces are not quite what they claim to be. >D<

PrettyLights96 wrote:*Another question I had was if repairing Live's library might benefit in this case? For this particular project I am not using any VSTs, so I thought that maybe repairing Live might help freshen everything up again. My only concern though is that if I do repair Live, that it will reset every macro I've ever altered in any of my projects (I do not generally save any of Lives pre-installed instruments as Presets because I always switch around the macros on the fly depending on what sound I'm looking for in a particular song's case.). So, will repairing Live reset all the macros in all of my projects if I have not saved each of them as presets? Because if so, I'd be in a hell of an even deeper hole.*

Macro knobs, or mapped controls? Neither of these should be effected by re-installing or repairing your Live Library.

PrettyLights96 wrote:P.S. i greatly appreciate the extent of your initial response.

Of course. c:

Use Asio, much better performance. Not the Asio/mme pseudo shit, you might need the "Asio4all" driver which should work with the realtek chip.

Two more ideas for the pitch problem:
44100hz vs 48000hz: If the soundchip works in 48khz but your (sampled) instrument is in 44.1khz it will be played higher, but not exactly a semitone higher. With the asio4all driver you will be able to select the samplerate, so i would try this before getting a new interface.

Pitchbend has been mentioned already, make sure to check the clip envelope for any pitch data. I had a problem once with a misbehaving bitchbend on a keyboard, had to recalibrate it.

First off, before I respond any further, have discovered that this may in fact have to do with the pitch bend (I did not ignore the other posts, it's simply that the advice given was not effective in my particular case.). I am now facing an entirely new problem though. I've tried everything regarding the envelopes, and I CANNOT get it to zero. The second I click the baseline (0) to adjust it, immediately it will jump to something like +22, or +59. And same with dragging down (-22, or -59). The difference in pitch is pretty literally unnoticeable, but my chronic OCD is killing me with this. The problem in this specific case was happening between more than one MIDI clip within a track. I'd have one recorded with a bend, and then (withour consolidating the clips) I had one or two other clips within the track that I had recorded at a seperate time. I took the ones without the pitch-bend and attempted to insert a breakpoint at the beginning and end of the clip (to sort of "separate" the envelopes from eachother...even know they aren't really connected in the first place because they're seperately recorded.) The problem was SOLVED, but as I said, when inserting the breakpoints, the pitch jumps up (different each time) to something like 22 or 59. And when I try and drag it down to 0, it then goes to -22, or -59...So now what?

Eventful wrote:

PrettyLights96 wrote:I am sure that in this case I'm hearing things as they really are.

Good. It's painful to hear from the doctor that you might not be able to make music for a while. =3=

PrettyLights96 wrote:I went back in and checked everything I possibly could. Currently I am not using any controller, (was in the car and had no room to plug anything in

It probably doesn't affect your directly, but try it not in the car when you're troubleshooting. I would never produce in a car. =P

PrettyLights96 wrote:All my audio drivers are up to date as well (My CPU's sound card is "Realtek HD Audio", probably means nothing.). Just discovered though that there is a driver titled "ASIO" along with MME/DirectX, which is what I've been using this whole time. Switched over to the ASIO for a few moments, no luck (Would you happen to know the difference between these [two]? Is one or the other more beneficial?)

Yes. A driver named "realtek something" will be the generic driver. Do not use this. It's designed for people who send emails and listen to iTunes on their computer. Useless, slow, and bulky to us. MME/DirectX will likely be geared more towards gaming sound. I'm not an expert on DirectX or why they're making sound drivers, but it's not standard. I don't know about it's performance. ASIO, however, is the dedicated driver specially for us, as music people. Use it. Always. But it's better with an audio interface-

PrettyLights96 wrote:It's strange because it's almost as if the issue is progressive. It's something that's happened to two of my projects now, but hasn't onset until I've been working on them for at least a day or so. This leads me to believe it may have something to do with some sort of overload, but then in contrary I never let my CPU usage get past 60% or so. In this particular case it's not even going over 40%, so I don't know how it could actually be related.

What kind of PC is it? Your MME drivers might be the reason you're having problems at such low loads.

PrettyLights96 wrote:Should I consider investing in an interface (I'm relatively new to this whole game; only 16 years old and have only been producing for around 6 months, all digital and samples so far.) to try and solve or at least hopefully prevent this from happening in the future?

Yes yes yes. A good audio interface will come with it's own driver (Which will be better, faster, smoother, and more powerful than any other driver you have). It may fix the problem, it may not. But everyone should have one of these, even if it's just a cheap little box with one in and one out. Don't impulse buy, though, ask us about them first. Some interfaces are not quite what they claim to be. >D<

PrettyLights96 wrote:*Another question I had was if repairing Live's library might benefit in this case? For this particular project I am not using any VSTs, so I thought that maybe repairing Live might help freshen everything up again. My only concern though is that if I do repair Live, that it will reset every macro I've ever altered in any of my projects (I do not generally save any of Lives pre-installed instruments as Presets because I always switch around the macros on the fly depending on what sound I'm looking for in a particular song's case.). So, will repairing Live reset all the macros in all of my projects if I have not saved each of them as presets? Because if so, I'd be in a hell of an even deeper hole.*

Macro knobs, or mapped controls? Neither of these should be effected by re-installing or repairing your Live Library.

PrettyLights96 wrote:P.S. i greatly appreciate the extent of your initial response.

Of course. c:

Haha misunderstanding there, I was in the car prior to troubleshooting, but arrived home before I started the process.

Started using the ASIO driver, but I am now running into "popping" and "crackling" sounds when playing back tracks. I started a new project where the CPU goes nowhere over 40%, so obviously that's not why the blips came up. Turns out, when I switched back to the MME/DirectX (which I now realize sounds significantly more muddy, and just worse in general ) this problem was gone. Any temporary fix for this for the time being so that I can continue to use ASIO without this issue? In my preferences, it shows the buffer size as 512 samples, and is highlighted in grey (so basically I can't adjust it). But then if I click the "hardware setup" button, it displays the buffer size as 288 samples...Not sure which one is accurate, but even when adjusting this up and down, nothing got any better. (there is a blue box within the adjustment bar, and when dragged over sets it to 512, is this where it should always be rather than the already displayed 288?) I also tinkered with the DEC, but this was of no help either. Sorry to start a tangent with yet a whole other conflict now.

I've got a (I know I need to replace this eventually) Gateway. Model is: "NV5504u". If it weren't for the external display I have this hooked up to, I would have a different laptop. I pretty literally can't see what I'm doing if I'm using solely the laptop in itself, because the screens aspect ratio (and resolution) are pretty horrible.

PLEASE, any information and/or advice about interfaces (would be used strictly with Ableton) would be greatly appreciated. Because I know squat, and honestly don't even know how or where to start looking (I'm sure Google would of a great benefit though, which I will start using to look now. Haha) Are there any specific interfaces though that would be better for plugging in a real instrument? Because I've been a guitar player for years before I even was interested in any of the production stuff. So basically, I want to record guitar (and vocals) in order to incorporate it into my current electronic music. Should I be looking for something with 2 inputs, 3, 4? Any brands to look at, or steer clear of?

They aren't mapped, but instead just turned to a specific setting. So for example, if I have a piano that I drag from one of live's pre-existing instrument packs, I would change the "Release" from say "80" down to "60". But I did NOT then save that instrument as a new preset. My question is, would that "60" reset back to "80" if I were to repair my library?

be tonal wrote:Use Asio, much better performance. Not the Asio/mme pseudo shit, you might need the "Asio4all" driver which should work with the realtek chip.

Two more ideas for the pitch problem:
44100hz vs 48000hz: If the soundchip works in 48khz but your (sampled) instrument is in 44.1khz it will be played higher, but not exactly a semitone higher. With the asio4all driver you will be able to select the samplerate, so i would try this before getting a new interface.

Pitchbend has been mentioned already, make sure to check the clip envelope for any pitch data. I had a problem once with a misbehaving bitchbend on a keyboard, had to recalibrate it.

Thanks for all the info man, but this issue has been something where the notes shift half-steps at the least. The whole thing with the sampled instrument being played higher is interesting though, I'll have to go back and see if I can re-pitch some things in order to get a cleaner sound.

Did you ever sort it ? I'm having this issue. It's when I had an auto filter on a drum buss, the pitch of my high hats were drifting in and out of key, disabled the filter and it stops. WEIRD