Ableton Forum

Hey first I would like to say how much of an improvement performance-wise Live 6 is over 5 guys...Yes I have a dualcore system with just about all new components, but even so I know that 5 does not run on here as nearly smooth and stable overall - its huge

However there is still a basic performance issue with Live Ive seen since 4 that hasnt seemed to approval at all and that is - It seems like a memory leakage or a buffering problem of some kind.

Try this (on PC, cannot speak for other side at length):

- Open a decent sized project with numerous channels and mixed audio / MIDI clips in arrange view

This does not have to have a predominance of running or even 'lit' VSTs for that matter. Just a reasonable amount of mix / eq / compression, some delays, maybe a Live MIDI bass or lead sound

- Run it, make sure it is fairly smooth (no bad delays, hanging after commands - can duplicate / copy in Arrange view - no bad stuttering)

- Now leave it sit for a few hours and see what happens.

When we come back - first there is no response from the interface (hangs) ... then .... audio starts sputtering (coming back to life)

... and in general behaves like it has gone into some kind of hibernation and we need to let it sort out where it placed everything in memory and then wait till it clears up something to function

More often than not this can take up to 5 minutes and its faster to save, close out (which also usually hangs at this point, takes up to a minute or two or "Stops Responding" in which case we have to taskman kill it.

Live 5 (4 also possibly? forget) had this problem as well. I am no expert on the code but I did get the feeling that this was at the root cause of a lot of the other problems with 5 --- audio, arrange view editing performance.

I can say for sure --- this machine is all new components so its not related to anything on my old machine. Also, have seen this same exact scenario on many student / client machines (PC) with different hardware entirely

Im wondering how many other people have seen this

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*bump*


Memory leaks are very bad, once a project gets to the final stages it becomes very unstable this way. Cannot guarantee it will load or quit without crashing

Any comments? Not just ableton. Speak up people

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I just loaded a set and will leave it until tonight, then post. I usually don't see this problem, but I'll let you know. My main thing when returning to the computer is having my BCF "disconnected" and needing to be power cycled.

This happens to me all the time, I'm on a G5.

Well, FWIW 13 hours later,

it starts playing immediately with no slowdowns

sorry supster

..same here with G5

What's the deal with G5s, it seems like they hate Live with a passion

this set is still playing fine this morning

But it's not like I've never experienced mysterious slowdowns when returning to the computer. Resetting my controller & remote assignments always clears it up though.

Josh do you have something active as Mackie Control? Try setting it to 'none' in the prefs, turn the device on/off, and then activate the M.C. again. All without closing Live

Does your whole OS slow down, or just Live?

Try to open any other memory consuming application with lots of memory usage and try if it happens with that too.

Maybe it's something with your OS setup?

how much RAM do you have?

I'm just back from a gig with a VJ, playing double bass and triggering a lot of stuff plus live recording.
Using a brand new Macbook Core 2 Duo and what you described happened during the show as I left the Mac for a while playing my bass !! Weird and makes it almost unusable ! I've been usig Live live for the last 4 years never a problem with the same set (almost).
I struggled for 2 days before the show but finally the THING happened. I had to wave the sound guy for the ambient loop I had prepared in case, as the only way is not only to open the set again, but to quit and reopen Live itself. What a nightmare on stage.
So now what ? Go buy a sampler ?
Please Ableton do something, Live is a live tool isnt'it ? Help. BTW I have 1 giga RAM

sweetjesus wrote:how much RAM do you have?

Gig:

Athlon 64 X2 4200+
1 GB DDR
2 x 7200 RPM; 1 x SATA; 1 x Firewire 400 external
nVidia A8N-SLI mb Award bios
nVidia GEForce

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Its just Live - although nothing ive had on this system uses up nearly the amount Live needs to run the kinds of projects I run.

Which is understandable considering the amount of clips / channels in the project no doubt.

Abes definitely fixed something huge about the way that it handles clips in arrangeview for most people that ive seen. Even without the dualcores

Including a couple of clients of mine that had useless arrangeview syndrome (that I had for so long) ... couldnt copy / edit / duplicate clips on a frozen arrange that immediately clearup up when i recommended they upgrade to 6 - single core, fixed the problem immediately

So huge strides have been made with that. But something is still really wrong i think because this is still happening

its not just me remember its a lot of people i work for / with as well that this is happening to

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PS: its been so bad a couple of times this week, i almost lost a really important project for an album release.

I only recovered it by using all the tricks I learned from salvaging 5 projects on my old machine - like delting prefs, moving VSTs out of the VST directory etc.

Otherwise I would have been on here desperate trust me

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I'm also using a 7200 RPM for my projects.
I really hope the Abes take this issue seriously, I might not be able to use Live live anymore so far. Home project is one thing but I don't see myself quitting, erasing prefs etc. on stage...
Our work is depending on Live, don't let us down.

I did some work on this over the weekend; had no choice as the problems were again getting in my way of making any progress on my projects.

I think I have some answers so pardon the longish post, this could help out a lot of people imo

First: Check Main Data Drive

- Ive been using the same 7200 RPM drive as my main studio (data) drive for a few years. Based on this thread, and some deduction I decided to move all of my studio data to a new internal SATA drive.

Moving the data -which includes all audio clips and project data - to the SATA drive gave me an immediate improvement on load times.

There was less 'white screen of death' under XP -- the project loaded up faster, in about 50% -- 75% of the prevoius 5 - 10 minute load times, and

Seems less likely to bomb out with "Serious Error" along the way, just based on the new drive alone.

SO recommend looking seriously at your data drive again - even if it seems solid and predictable for other applications. Live might need the absolute fastest throughput possible to avoid getting snagged up with a lot of audio clips (see below)

Second: Minimize Number of Clips

EVen with the new drive I was still getting long load times / white screen of death / and a better than 50% chance that the project would not load the first try ... and bomb out

(wasting 20 minutes to half hour total every time .. waiting to load ... bombing out ... closing ... rebooting ... troubleshooting .. etc etc )

So I disabled my VST directory (renamed it) - loaded up my project - and

- consolidated all the clips I could in arrrange view

- deleted all unused tracks or tracks with disabled clips

- cleaned up session view of duplicate or clips definitely will not be using in the project anymore

- saved project, quit

- renamed VST directory back, restarted

- restarted project


The project now loads up reliably and in reasonable time .. 1 to 2 minute timeframe

Lessons Hammered Home:

Live apparently still has a much MUCH (double emphasis) higher memory requirement and associated complications dealing with Clips than other DAWs.

The number of clips - individual, discreet clips, or edits of clips- in your project makes a huge difference.

Exactly why this is I am speculating (because Abelton doesnt publicly discuss this kind of thing from what I have seen over the years) ... I am speculating this has to do with the amount of data each clip needs to represent in memory.

Live has to track every parameter of every clip, and either this is much more data than Logic / Cubase / PT needs to track, AND/OR it is (have to say it) a question of faulty / inefficient code that makes live problematic and unstable with this

So - moral of the story is always keep an eye on your clip count.
Much more than you need to with other DAWs.

Even when you think the amount of 'cuts' in a track of clips is reasonable, dont count on that. When you edit audio in arrange, do lots of drum edits, make multiple clips out of single clips ... watch out.

Keep an eye on that and as soon as its convienent, re-consolidate the many clips into a single clip again. And as soon as the project becomes unstable for any reason:

Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate.

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Thanks a lot for your post. Very useful.
The only thing I don't understand (or maybe I don't want to…) is why Live 6 gives me those "sound hesitations" version 5 wouldn't. It seems there definitely is a big change in the way Live handles memory.
I'll manage to cleanup my live set and consolidate like crazy and I'll post my results. I'm just very annoyed we have absolutely no feedback so far from the Abes, very frustrating.