Ableton Forum

Simply moving the playback cursor around by clicking in the arrange window causes the CPU meter on my PC to register a hit. This also happens whenever Live starts playback, stops playback and loops around in its loop brace.

The amount of CPU hit is directly related to the amount and type of VSTi any set has. But this happens even if the VSTi tracks have no clips. All you need is a track with a VSTi. It does not happen at all when using Live's own internal plug ins or if you are using audio loops only.

The actual amount of CPU hit appears to be as if Live is playing every VSTi for a brief moment but you can't hear it. Its almost as if Live is priming the VSTi for playback. But it doesn't do this to its own plugs.

In big sets with a lot VSTi I can get spikes of 75% which can cause my machine to stutter if its set to playback around two loop points.

Does this happen to anyone else?

Win XP SP2 Intel P4E 3GHz 2GB RAM

yes, this also happens me (Live 6 & 7, dont know about 5). Until now i was not annoyed enough to do some proper testing of the circumstances. At least on my setup the amount of "spiking" during the cycling/beginning of looping (in arrange only) vastly differs depending on which vst plugins i use in the set.

Like you stated it is especially a problem if your set has a high cpu load. I had one specific set where the cpu load nearly doubled which resulted in nasty crackling every beginning of the loop until the cpu could catch up with number crunching.

Bunky Freaks wrote:yes, this also happens me (Live 6 & 7, dont know about 5). Until now i was not annoyed enough to do some proper testing of the circumstances. At least on my setup the amount of "spiking" during the cycling/beginning of looping (in arrange only) vastly differs depending on which vst plugins i use in the set.

Ah, glad its not just me then. I hadn't really found it to be a problem until fairly recently. I think Live 7 is just that bit more CPU intensive anyway and that's the straw that breaks the camel's back on my now rather old system.

Of course, it could be just a sneaky way of getting you to buy Ableton plugs instead of third party ones.