Ableton Forum

Does Live 10 for Windows have low latency out of the box? Even with a laptop's built in soundcard?

i.e. no need to use Asio4all (which is not multiclient which is problematic)

Note: It's available in many DAW (e.g. Reaper), thanks to support of WASAPI that offers low latency out of the box with Windows.

Of course it's low latency. It's a professional DAW. However, you'll only achieve low latency if you use an equally professional audio interface.

The latency is caused by the audio interface and/or its driver - not the DAW software. The onboard audio of a typical laptop is only designed for consumer/domestic use, so it won't give you pro level latency.

By the way, ASIO4ALL is not an ASIO driver. It merely emulates an ASIO interface (by piggybacking the standard Windows driver) so that ASIO-only software (which is extremely rare these days) can be used without an actual ASIO interface. It doesn't magically turn a consumer interface into a pro low latency one.

Also, in most cases pro ASIO interfaces/drivers are single client - as that's part of how they achieve low latency, and it's (usually) what pro users want.

102455 wrote:Of course it's low latency. It's a professional DAW. However, you'll only achieve low latency if you use an equally professional audio interface.

This is a very bad choice if they still neglected this aspect for version 10. We're not in 2007 anymore. Bedroom producers with nearly no gear can become popular with songs made just with a laptop. So it's a bit sad to neglect "new" technology - WASAPI for example, that enables low latency with nearly all interfaces (built-in or not).

102455 wrote:The latency is caused by the audio interface and/or its driver - not the DAW software. The onboard audio of a typical laptop is only designed for consumer/domestic use, so it won't give you pro level latency.

This is wrong. We can get pro latency with Asio4All (but sadly then it's not multiclient). (I can compare with my pro MOTU interface, and strictly speaking about latency, Asio4all on my laptop builtin's soundcard has same latency than with my latest 1000$ MOTU. Nearly the same when I use my friend's RME).
Microsoft has developed WASAPI since 7/8/10. It enables low latency with nearly any gear (ok not with a 90s SoundBlaster 8bit ). Some DAW already use it (Reaper for example).

102455 wrote:as that's part of how they achieve low latency, and it's (usually) what pro users want.

Again, we're not in 2007. Producers sometimes might want to go on Youtube, listen to things, go back to Live, etc.



Please Ableton support WASAPI (it's not so complicated to do)


Also see this: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 2#p6252287

WASAPI will not make from a realtek onboard card a RME..
if that would happen, there would be no market anymore.

Tagor wrote:WASAPI will not make from a realtek onboard card a RME..
if that would happen, there would be no market anymore.

Of course I'm not speaking about transforming a laptop Realtek (with just a 3.5mm out jack) into an 192khz 24bit audio interface with 8 or 16 balanced 6.35mm line inputs, with mic input with good preamps, with SPDIF, with ADAT, etc.

But at least WASAPI would make it low latency, just that.

Just buy a decent audio interface! What's that saying about "you can't polish a t**d"...?

102455 wrote:Just buy a decent audio interface! What's that saying about "you can't polish a t**d"...?

You obviously didn't read the topic - I own a MOTU 828 MK3, and sometimes use a RME too.

It's not about that. It's about the fact that it's technically possible (thanks to WASAPI) to have low latency, even with built-in soundcard.

I think most users don't care about this, because they have an audio interface, so it's not a priority for Ableton. Most people who can afford to buy the software, would be able to buy an audio interface as well.
Also a large percentage of users run it on Macs, which have decent latency out of the box with the built-in soundcard.

nc2010 wrote:Please Ableton support WASAPI (it's not so complicated to do)

Exactly, why not?

I know this thread is a few months old, but its kind of frustrating that people just keep throwing in the old "buy a professional audio interface" argument. Obviously in the studio, YES - definitely use your outboard low latency 192KHz 24 bit audio interface. Great. What about on the road? Yeah... how about that? Maybe cart RME and MOTU interfaces everywhere we go? No thanks. Apple users don't have to. Why should Windows users.

Here's whats annoying - Since Windows 8, Windows has supported low latency audio with WASAPI. The audio stack was further improved with Windows 10. ASIO is a Steinberg driver technology built to address the fact that Windows did not previously have low latency audio drivers. But now, from my understanding, WASAPI and AudioGraph APIs in Windows 10 support very low latency (although I think AudioGraph may only be available to UWP applications):

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ency-audio

I understand that it is actually a lot of work to implement support for a new audio API (well, its not even that new anymore). But why not? Its 2018, there are a LOT of Windows Ableton Live users. Do I need to buy a MacBook Pro to do low latency music on the go? (sure, CoreAudio drivers are actually very good... but thats not enough reason for me to switch to Apple and start hating myself every day)

I did buy a MacBook Pro 2017 several months ago, and to each their own, but I honestly can't stand MacOS. The laptop itself is great hardware, and I also tried running Windows on Bootcamp but it had GPU issues for me (I am not trying to make this a PC vs Mac post - if you love MacOS, good for you, but some people really really f*cking hate it haha). Anyway, I actually returned the Macbook Pro (which did work very well with Ableton Live of course), and I got a Surface Book 2, which just suits me better in every other way... but if I want to use Ableton Live, it means I need to connect one of my low latency audio interfaces (I even just got a Scarlett 2i2 just to have a small portable interface... but on the go I would still prefer to be able to work with the built in Realtek audio - sure, I can use ASIO4ALL, which DOES give me low latency, but it's a dodgy hack. ASIO4ALL is a band-aid fix, and it can be flakey in my experience - YMMV)

So is there ANY hope that Windows users will be able to use Ableton Live on their laptop with low latency while travelling etc (and not using ASIO4ALL)? It doesn't seem so. It looks like Microsoft has done a lot of work in this space, but if pro audio software developers don't support the low latency APIs Microsoft have built, then whats the point? Ableton say nobody is using WASAPI? WTF does that even mean? How do we use it if your software doesn't support it?

If we look in the graphics design space, Microsoft has done a LOT of work creating some of the most innovative devices for visual design work (Surface products, Surface Dial, Surface Pen etc - love them or hate them, they are incredibly innovative, and Microsoft have proven that it IS beneficial to have touch on a PC) - they are now very competitive in this space, which is primarily dominated by Apple - how is Microsoft making this change happen? Through partnership and collaboration with the market leading design software provider - Adobe. Take a look at the past few Adobe Max conferences, and the integration with touch pen and surface dial is awesome. Adobe worked with Microsoft to achieve this level of support. Apple are still very strong in the world of design, but Microsoft has managed to get first class device support from the leading software company in the field.

So back to the audio world - what I think would be really cool would be if Ableton actually collaborated with Microsoft to solve this Windows audio driver problem - and I think it really is a problem. We will know its been solved when we can use an audio interface achieving low latency without needing to install third party drivers, and never need to be told to install ASIO4ALL ever again lol.

Like I mentioned, its fine that in the studio we should be using pro outboard gear. But it would be nice to be able to hit the road with just our Windows laptops and have usable low latency support for the built in audio hardware, without having to install hacks like ASIO4ALL. If Apple introduced a new low latency stack, Ableton would (probably) support it ASAP. So why not support Windows the same way? Its a changing world. Not all creatives are on Apple devices these days.

Well, thats my 5 cents (well, probably more like $1.25 looking at the length of this post!) Don't hate on me for preferring Microsoft over Apple - that's just my own opinion - no war intended.

I agree that Live ought to fully support WASAPI, especially Live of all DAWs.

Live is seen as a versatile software which can be used in many environments to tackle many kinds of approaches to workflow. A user with a current version of Windows ought to have no trouble installing Live and making use of WASAPI drivers without any kind of difficulty. This would make for a great user experience since one of the very first letdowns for many brand new users is discovering that after having installed for instance a light version of Live software which came bundled with their snazzy new midi controller suddenly has to have the latency issue tackled before being able to slap those keys or pads in a responsive and meaningful way.