Ableton Forum

Is anyone able to use SampleTank 2 XL as a plugin within Live without crashes?

If so, how? What version of Live, what version of SampleTank, what is your setup, etc.?

Here's what I sent Ableton support (abbreviated). I just sent it, so I didn't hear anything back yet.

I'm sure you've heard this one before (I've found it on Google a couple of times).

Software:
Ableton Live 6.0.3
SampleTank XL 2.2 (also happened with SampleTank XL 2.1)

How to re-create:

For a minimum debug project, I created one MIDI channel, no Aux Returns, no mastering plugs, etc. A Bone Dry SampleTank MIDI channel going to the master outputs.

1. I loaded up SampleTank preset in Loops called "Hip-Hop R'n'B 1 100bpm" into slot 1 in SampleTank.
2. SampleTank prefs are High Quality (although this happens in High Performance too) and Global Sync ON (OFF doesn't seem to fix it either).
3. Create a clip in session view with C2 held for 5 measures (Live tempo is at 120)
4. Trigger Scene 1 (the one with the loop)
5. Trigger Scene 2 (which is all silence).
6. Set the global sync in Live to "none" so that scene launches 'instantly' cut off one scene and starts playing the next.
(Note: If you do this slowly, with the global sync to bars, the problem is less likely to occur, but still can occur)

That's the setup. NOW, I just TORTURE sampletank and live by rapidly switching between scenes 1 and 2.

The sound will be fine and playback is fine while you do this. However, if you then try to close Live (or do a File-New to create a new project), one of the following will happen:

a. CPU will go to 99% and the GUI will hang and never close (or load the new template project if you go that route)
OR
b. Live GUI will instantly go away, but the process live 6.0.3.exe still shows up in task manager. You just can't kill it even with End Process
OR
c. Live GUI will show "a serious error has occurred. Live will shut down when you hit close" (Note: Live actually never shuts down, it just keeps popping up that dialog box everytime you hit Close on the dialog)

IK Multimedia haven't been much help AT ALL. They just say it works fine with everything else and call it a day.

I will not even PRETEND to know what internals of Live are or the complexities involved, but Session view is different from the other DAWs they (IK) in that it lets you CUT OFF sound instantly from one scene for audio and midi devices as you switch to another scene. I'm not sure how you guys handle this programmatically (sending a MIDI Panic maybe?), but SampleTank is just not handling it well! Absynth, V-Station, etc. all handle this with ease, but I bet that SampleTank is either too slow or doing something really weird when you 'cut it off' like that suddenly switching to another scene and back and forth between clips (almost like ST gets out of sync when it doesn't get the notes off and gets a midi panic instead).

I have a project I can send (if required).

+1 on Windows. Seems not to happen on Mac (but it's an AU)

- Best
- Pasha

Thanks for the post! Yes, I've had the same things happening. Using SampleTank with only one instance and routing it multitimbrally, as you're supposed to, but of course it will also crash with multiple instances. Then, switching quickly between scenes or scrubing playback will instantly crash Live everytime. And yes, sometimes Live will state serious error and that it will close after I click okay, but I click okay and it stays up, or other times, the whole app will just instanly dissapear but remains in task manager. Most of the time though, I get a small application error window, which I close, then Live closes and is usually not present in the task manager, but again, sometimes is, as you mentioned.

As for re-opening Live, sometimes I can simply open it back up as normal, but other times, attempting to re-open Live yields no response and I have to reboot completely, depending on how it crashed. So, at least we can recreate the problem and can narrow it down somewhat.


Now, I actually spent some time this past week playing more with latencies (both hardware and plugin) and I've been able to reduce the number of crashes. What I did was set the latency on my interface to 4ms (192 buffer samples) but then set the PLUGIN latency/buffer size within Live to 64 instead of "As Audio Buffer". For now, this seems to be working pretty well; I'm able to play instruments real-time without many crashes. This appears to have stopped the SampleTank crashes actually, but in Live 6, other things still cause crashes very frequently like even things such as turning the Live metronome on or off, or muting/un-muting Live tracks, or adding/deleting Live effects. So as for Live 6, that aspect seems rather random.

But as for Live 5, the above-mentioned technique seems to resolve the issue comlpetely so far. You will of course need to play around with different latency combinations yourself, depending on your set up, like increasing hardware latency even more and then trying out different plugin buffer sizes within Live. As for now, this is the only hope we have I'm afraid, until either Ableton or IK release an update that resolves this.


Also, I actually received an e-mail reply from IK support over the weekend stating that they "are looking into why certain users of Live [and SampleTank] crash and others don't". So, it seems there is some hope!


doni