Ableton Forum

I am resisting the temptation of buying Logic or Digital Performer
to run Live through for the much needed STABILITY.

Mac Activity monitor displays 90-100% while Live's CPU monitor displays 20-30% ???

My Gear:

MacPro dual 3Ghz / 3GB RAM / Apogee Symphony-Rosetta 800-Big Ben / 2x 500 GB SATA Drives( one for Audio the other for Sample Libraries) / NI Komplete/ Waves SSL & L3

Latest session specs:

-48K/24 bit
-3 instances of Kontakt (1 loaded with with 9 instruments)
-1 instance of Stylus (2 instruments)
-1 instance of BFD
-10-15 SSL Plugs
-10-15 Ableton Plugs
-1 L3 Plug
-Reason (1 combinator, 1 NNXT)
-10 audio tracks (stereo)

The "D" lights up occasionally.
The CPU meter is jumping up into the high triple digits.
At momemts of high musical activity performance comes to a STUTTERING CRAWL.

Questions:
Would this session run smoother on Logic or Digital Performer as a Master?
Should I stay away from 24 bit files with sessions this size?
What could I do to enhance my equipment to compensate for the performance
issues?

Am I EXPECTING TOO MUCH from LIVE?

Your thoughts and comments sincerely appreciated.
Best Regards,
dp

Why Do you need to record all of these parts at the sametime?

jonesonyou wrote:Why Do you need to record all of these parts at the sametime?

These are the finished tracks recorded additively. The performance issues happens durring playback (mixing)

IS Mastering in another DAW the only other option then?

dpel wrote:I am resisting the temptation of buying Logic or Digital Performer
to run Live through for the much needed STABILITY.

start by disabling plug ins until you find out which ones are killing your session.

i would start with the waves plug ins, and reason.

try it with bootcamp perhaps!

I don't have anything close to yer puter power, but I'd say you were pushing it even with the specs you mention.

Make a few creative decisions early on and print some FX/Synths to audio I'd say...not just to ease the CPU burden, but to help you in yr mix.

i would normally render my track before i master anyway.....use freeze as well...i never get live past 50% CPU - maybe you should use a DSP based plugin system to get some of the load off the cpu POWERCORE i use.

Stop using reason - while reason is low on CPU - Ive found rewire to be a CPU hog. Instead export audio loops/phrases into live.

Otherwise - with all the stuff you have loaded - Im not really surprised you having issues. Try freezing some tracks, though if your getting hard drive access issues, that might not help - I dont know how a mac manages memory - I assume not much different to a PC, and I would guess Kontact is a bit of a memory hog, so freezing tracks may help reducing drive access overall...

Personally I dont think that Live is quite the most CPU friendly DAW around, but the difference between it and others (from a PC perpective at least) isnt alot - quality of efficiency of audio devce drivers has way more of an impact. I do think that Cubase SX3 and 4 seem to be able to handle simple chains of plugins more efficiently, but of course its nowhere near as flexible.

ehm... eh... Freeze?.... Flatten?

you're asking a lot.

save mastering plugs such as L3 and SSL for final mixdown, they need higher latencies so running them as inserts while recording other tracks is no a good idea unless you freeze tracks. You want low latency recording, you don't run mastering plugs (some of which add 1,024 or more samples to the latency).

You can unfreeze tracks and mix comfortably on higher latencies such as 1,024 or 2,048 once you have sorted out levels and automation etc.

Reason is really LOW on CPU overhead btw, although in rewire you must consider 2 programs are running simultaneously, even if Reason is running at less than half the CPU load of Live on my PC (when no tracks are running). I can run reason at 64 samples on my soundcard, definately not something I can do in Live (128 for a few tracks but typically 256 is the best compromise)

Kontakt (IF LOADED WITH SEVERAL INSTRUMENTS simultaneously) and Stylus RMX are both heavy on RAM. BFD is a worse CPU hog.

I would say freeze more tracks or render some vstis to audio and lay off the Waves plugs until you've got your mix balanced and automated, then step up the latency for smoother mixing with the waves plugs.

Excellent ideas comments everyone!. Shout-outs to my fellow Canadian countrymen!

I will Freeze more, Print more, save Waves for last and use my newly purchased UAD card for verbs etc.


Much appreciated.
dp

[ignore]

Mac Activity monitor displays 90-100% while Live's CPU monitor displays 20-30% ???

^^Everybody's replies seem to be ignoring this.

I am amazed that Live's CPU monitor is only showing 20-30% with all those plugins loaded though. Are you sure that's right?

difference wrote:

Mac Activity monitor displays 90-100% while Live's CPU monitor displays 20-30% ???

^^Everybody's replies seem to be ignoring this.

I am amazed that Live's CPU monitor is only showing 20-30% with all those plugins loaded though. Are you sure that's right?

Maybe it has to see with the open rewire session.

Live is showing how much cpu he uses without putting reason and the rewire link in the count. Or live reserve some cpu in the system to keep some juice left and just show up what he uses maybe.

This type of thing is pretty common on windows with cpu intensive apps or apps that needs to respond pretty fast, cubase was acting that way and i'm not sure but I think protools do the same. It's prolly normal in fact even if we talk about a mac.