Ableton Forum

Hi all,

I have this weird issue with Ableton 10 when I press spacebar to playback my arrangement; the actual audio is coming out about 1 second later compared to the actual sample positioning. Any idea what might be causing this?

I would not know it anyway, but you are better of stating what system you got with specs......

Also what audiointerface, os etc.

my guess would be that you are using a Windows machine with a crappy built-in soundcard, and the crappy default audio driver, which has a huge buffer size and hence latency.

but, without the specs of your computer and audio interface, it's all wild guesswork...

Hi all,

sorry forgot to mention my setup - I have latest version of Ableton 10 running in MB Pro Mid 2014 with 2,2MHz i7 and 16GM or RAM and built-in soundcard with latest version of High Sierra. Currently used Sample rate is 48k, buffer 1024 samples and driver error compensation 0ms. I could use Ableton 9 with 512 samples but Ableton 10 is causing audio jitter with that so can't go lower than that.

I have other projects where this playback latency does not happen that were made with Ableton 9. These projects do not produce playback latency in Ableton 10 either. However new projects made in Ableton 10create playback latency. Weird. Not sure if these are caused by certain plugins or new settings..

does the lag happen every time you stop/start the transport, or only sometimes?

fishmonkey wrote:does the lag happen every time you stop/start the transport, or only sometimes?

everytime and constantly throughout the track. I tested by lowering the buffer to 256 and it does help but then naturally starts causing audio jittering due Ableton 10 is a hog compared to Ableton 9. Is there any other solution for this then lowering the buffer?

if it only happens in some sets, then more than likely it is related to a plugin or sample library that you are using.

you could probably work out which one pretty quickly with some methodical testing.

One plugin I find to be troublesome in the latency department, is Izotope Vocal Synth. It always does what the OP described.

Gregwaah wrote:One plugin I find to be troublesome in the latency department, is Izotope Vocal Synth. It always does what the OP described.

Don't you mean all plug-ins with high latency? If your devices or plug-ins have high latency then this is so. Use other ones until mixdown.

armas wrote: However new projects made in Ableton 10create playback latency. Weird.

So a new largely empty project has high latency for no apparent reason?

Stromkraft wrote:

armas wrote: However new projects made in Ableton 10create playback latency. Weird.

So a new largely empty project has high latency for no apparent reason?

empty project does not have latency - as mentioned, the reason most likely is the plugins used from wich I have hooked on Massive, iZotope Ozone 8 and then Ableton Reverb.

of those three, Ozone is likely to be latency-prone plugin. dig in to the Ozone documentation for ways to minimize latency...

iZotope Ozone 8

That is your issue. Delete it until you need it.

Hi, Interesting post- I have this problem too - Did you get a fix? I'm using Ableton 10 running on new 10 core iMacPro, 64Gb RAM and built-in soundcard with latest version of High Sierra. Ableton 9 with same setup (and using same project) works perfectly and doesn't have this playback latency.

majorjoy wrote:Hi, Interesting post- I have this problem too - Did you get a fix? I'm using Ableton 10 running on new 10 core iMacPro, 64Gb RAM and built-in soundcard with latest version of High Sierra. Ableton 9 with same setup (and using same project) works perfectly and doesn't have this playback latency.

Have you read the posts through in this thread?

The issue is noted above as being a loaded instance of Izotope Ozone which, due to the fact it has a LOT of overhead for processing, requires additional (substantial) time to work on the audio so creates a large delay. It is recommended to remove it while doing production and only add it in the mixing stage after you do not need to do "real-time" stuff.