Ableton Forum

I use Ableton for live performance. It holds my clips, tracks, and vst’s which I play with a midi keyboard (No surprises), but whenever I try to run a guitar or mic through an amp or vocal effects, the latency is pretty unworkable, even while dragging the buffer down to a safe spot of 256 (or scarily to 128). My computer and system are pretty robust I think.
Is anyone here successfully using Ableton to run live instrument effects in a project that is also running different tracks and plugins?

B.

Hi, yes we use Live to run all of our band apart from guitar, so that's four vocals, drum triggers, drum racks, bass, lights, monitors, reverbs, delays etc. We stick to zero latency Native M1 plugins (mainly Fabfilter) and buffer size of 128 on an M1 MacBook Pro. Latency is 12ms and CPU around 30% with no problems. We've found that if plugins have samples and hence latency then Ableton includes them in delay compensation, even if they're turned off.

Plugins with latency can add to the sound but we found them unusable playing Live.

swett wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:03 pm

I use Ableton for live performance. It holds my clips, tracks, and vista's which I play with a midi keyboard (No surprises), but whenever I try to run a guitar or mic through an amp or vocal effects, the latency is pretty unworkable, even while dragging the buffer down to a safe spot of 256 (or scarily to 128). My computer and system are pretty robust I think.
Is anyone here successfully using Ableton to run live instrument effects in a project that is also running different tracks and plugins?

B.

I've done live shows using a Windows gaming laptop and a Focusrite scarlett all the way down at 64 samples and it was pretty reliable. 128 should be pretty stable (with the right Interface and laptop). That said you will need to make comprimises such as avoiding latency introducing plugins, CPU heavy plugins, and question opening up a VST you never opened before in a live setting.

I run backing tracks all the time over the last couple of years in Ableton in live shows, but all those tracks are audio tracks created from Ableton using plugins and such. I have a couple of MIDI tracks but those are just used for stage automation. I have a very well equipped laptop but I still don't think I'd want to take a chance with live plugins and such. That's just too way too unpredictable for a live show.