Ableton Forum

Just wondering if anyone has any input on this...

I have had this issue with Ableton for many many years, and I decided to finally try to figure out what is happening today.

I use Ableton primarily for my live sets. I have two midi devices that get triggered, along with my audio clips. Those midi devices have audio that gets returned into Ableton onto their own tracks, using the external device instrument. I always have to play my live set upon first opening of the software, because if I have to close and re-open Ableton, or put my computer to sleep and re-open, my midi tracks are delayed from the rest of my tracks, not correlating to the numbers I set for latency. This means, if I close Ableton during soundcheck, I have to either restart my computer or unplug and re-plug in my audio interface (focusrite 4i4) before I perform. I've always assumed this was some sort of a midi problem. But, on testing, it appears to be something else:

In a round-trip latency test, there is much more audio latency only upon first opening Ableton. If I restart Ableton, or put the computer to sleep, there is not nearly as much latency. So, rather than my midi being delayed on re-opening, the audio is actually delayed on first opening of the app:

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I thought this might be a Focusrite issue, a laptop issue, or a Windows issue. But, I replicated the same test in Flstudio, and this doesn't appear to happen. The latency on first opening of the app, and then on re-opening of the app seems to be exactly the same:

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Anyone notice this, or have any ideas on how to prevent this? I did this twice in both apps to make sure it was the same result.

Did you try with another audio interface? That might be an issue between Live and your Focusrite.
And did you ever asked Support about this?

[jur] wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 25, 2025 12:22 am

Did you try with another audio interface? That might be an issue between Live and your Focusrite.
And did you ever asked Support about this?

No, honestly, I haven't contacted any support. It's always been sort of an annoyance, but I just dealt with it and made sure to unplug my interface and plug it back in, or restart my computer, so that I could open up Ableton fresh before I played.

I also thought it might be the interface. Unplugging the interface, re-plugging it in, and then re-starting Ableton seems to also change the latency back to it's delayed state. But like I said, it doesn't do this in Flstudio. It's the same latency either way. So, that makes me think something's up with Ableton.

This is something that's been an issue for many years for me, so it's happened with a lot of different interfaces. All pc's.

Ultimately, I was just kind of curious if anyone's noticed this at all and found some sort of tweak to make the latency consistent. I might open a ticket just to see.

Nogyoff wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 25, 2025 1:03 am

But like I said, it doesn't do this in Flstudio. It's the same latency either way. So, that makes me think something's up with Ableton.

Yes I get it, that's why I wrote:

[jur] wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 25, 2025 12:22 am

That might be an issue between Live and your Focusrite.

But since you've already tried with other interfaces, I'd recommend reaching out to Support.

Thanks, just opened a ticket.

Cheers!