Ableton Forum

iBook G4 800MHz, Reason 3.0.4, Live 4.1.4 and 5.0.2 (Demo):
I have a Live song that uses a fairly demanding Reason Supersaw patch. With all automation and fx going in Live the Song peaks at 65% CPU. When I mute the rewired audio/midi channels the peak drops to 35%. Closing the Reason song drops the CPU to 27%. Idle CPU usage is similar: with Reason song open it's at about 20%, with closed song (Reason is stilll running, rewire channels still specified in Live) the CPU drops to 10%. Reopening the Reason setup increases idle CPU usage to 15%.
This basically means two things:
1.) I need to resample (was prepared for that one)
2.) Reason takes CPU when rewired into Live even when its not in use, i.e. the incoming/outgoing channels are muted? (WTF?)
Any guesses why? Bug? Feature? User error?
thanks a lot ...

Hi K,
Although Live uses less cpu when you mute tracks/switch off effects, Reason's cpu usage is not affected by muting the Live track it plays on. Live will use less cpu to process that track, but Reason still has it's own processes running (visual interface etc). Live cpu display shows the cpu "potential" available for processing audio, not the entire cpu power available in the whole computer. It doesn't even include Live's visual interface in the cpu display. So I reckon you see this behaviour because there is less cpu potential available to Live since Reason (or some other app) is also running in the background, not because Reason is still using cpu resources "through Live" as it were.

If that made any sense... hope it helps.

hey telekom,
thanks for your feedback, but I guess its a Reason audio thing indeed. When I open the Reason song on its own and play a few notes, the CPU usage bar stays at two lit LEDs after the notes finished, which is roughly 10% CPU. Weird.

Didn't I read somewhere that ableton has a way of disabling tracks/plug in's completely, I also have been a bit puzzled by this.