Ableton, all plugins cause *automation* pdc issues, very good discussion within.. lots of info!

[Gamma-UT]

I'm genuinely curious, why bother with Live at all then?

Live is very good for developing arrangements and trying out ideas. I tend to start in Live, get to the arrangement stage, print stems and finish in Logic.

[Mushy Mushy]

How would I automate an fx send level in an arrangement view clip?

Hmmmmm good question.
Guess you wouldn't

By this stage of the production I would have migrated it all over to Cubase.

I'm genuinely curious, why bother with Live at all then?

It does many things quicker and easier
It's infinitely more fun and immediate
I've never encountered this PDC problem "in the real world"
It's a change of scenery
It has M4L
It installs easily on my work PC and netbook without a dongle
I do love it. All of it.

[Wormhelmet]

How would I automate an fx send level in an arrangement view clip?

Hmmmmm good question.
Guess you wouldn't

By this stage of the production I would have migrated it all over to Cubase.

I'm genuinely curious, why bother with Live at all then?

It does many things quicker and easier
It's infinitely more fun and immediate
I've never encountered this PDC problem "in the real world"
It's a change of scenery
It has M4L
It installs easily on my work PC and netbook without a dongle
I do love it. All of it.

+1 here

[vurt]

its not a bug, its a feature.
to add a bit of humanity to the music you bunch of robots!

[samsam]

How would I automate an fx send level in an arrangement view clip?

Hmmmmm good question.
Guess you wouldn't

By this stage of the production I would have migrated it all over to Cubase.

I'm genuinely curious, why bother with Live at all then?

It does many things quicker and easier
It's infinitely more fun and immediate
I've never encountered this PDC problem "in the real world"
It's a change of scenery
It has M4L
It installs easily on my work PC and netbook without a dongle
I do love it. All of it.

+1 here

Yup. V well put MushyM.

[twisted-space]

It's infinitely more fun and immediate

Yeah, I totally agree with you on that point and it's what got me into Live in the first place.
I only use Live now though, so I have to find workarounds for it's little quirks. I'd never finish anything if I had to start messing about exporting stems and what-not.

I have enough trouble finishing stuff as it is.

[Mushy Mushy]

It's infinitely more fun and immediate

Yeah, I totally agree with you on that point and it's what got me into Live in the first place.
I only use Live now though, so I have to find workarounds for it's little quirks. I'd never finish anything if I had to start messing about exporting stems and what-not.

I have enough trouble finishing stuff as it is.

Just change your mindset and it becomes extremely liberating.

When Live is open my brain is automatically put into creative write mode.
When Cubase is open it switches to mix mode.

That way I don't get bogged down fiddling with timbres when I should be automating and vice versa.

[robogone]

I'm genuinely curious, why bother with Live at all then?

It does many things quicker and easier
It's infinitely more fun and immediate
I've never encountered this PDC problem "in the real world"
It's a change of scenery
It has M4L
It installs easily on my work PC and netbook without a dongle
I do love it. All of it.

+1 here

Yup. V well put MushyM.

Another +1 here.

Seems that PDC gets waaaaaay too much attention and only manifests in a significant way if you go to some extremes that just don't exist for the majority of people.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I'm genuinely curious, why bother with Live at all then?

It does many things quicker and easier
It's infinitely more fun and immediate
I've never encountered this PDC problem "in the real world"
It's a change of scenery
It has M4L
It installs easily on my work PC and netbook without a dongle
I do love it. All of it.

+1 here

Yup. V well put MushyM.

Another +1 here.

Seems that PDC gets waaaaaay too much attention and only manifests in a significant way if you go to some extremes that just don't exist for the majority of people.

While I agree with all the above points (I am a Live user for a reason), I don't think the case has to be that extreme to have problems from it. Like someone said earlier in the thread, many people could suffer slightly from it and not know, but the track may feel a little off, you just can't pinpoint it. Before I understood the issue, I definitely had tracks where the timing felt a little off even though it shouldn't. Not off in a cool groove way, just a ever so slightly messy way. I think many people probably suffer from that, especially if you work at high buffers. I used to always work at 512. So I think I'd often have small timing issues with Rhythmic effects if they came after a few plug-ins.

It's easy enough to avoid the issues by living by a few strict rules with live. If you don' tknow about the issue, you still might have been affected in a very real way, the track having been a bit more messy than intended...

I actually believe it deserves the attention it gets. People should be able to have faith in the timing of the track that it is as intended. There may have been lots of people not quite happy with a track that don't even know why.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I'm glad to see the thread title was edited although still not accurate as all plugins don't introduce latency as has been discussed here and various other threads.

Not sure what you mean.

Are you seriously trying to say that any plug-in does not cause latency of the audio buffer? If this is what you're saying you are completely wrong. And it is very easy to prove and has been demonstrated time and time again. Any third party plug-in, even a ZERO Latency plug-in will add latency of the audio buffer. This is a fact, agreed upon by everyone including Ableton.

And although clip envelopes work better than automation, synced plug-ins are effects as well. It's not just automation.

Yes, thank you for proving my point. You said third party plugins. I didn't. Should I use the term noticeable latency? When I live monitor my Live mixes while playing third party plugin instruments, I am not hearing latency. I think the original description was completely inaccurate.

So yes, I am serious. If you have issues with Live and they don't get addressed in multiple releases still, I suggest people stop banging on a wall wishing it was a door. Use another DAW that suits workflow better.

I have used third party plugin chains plenty in Live while recording guitar and live monitoring. Latency jumps of 128 samples to 256 samples are even noticeable. I don't get those noticeable latencies. This small jump in samples can completely throw playing off if you are anything over about 6 ms latency max on interface to live monitor. Live does not give me issues with any of that.

Well first of all even though I said "thrid party plug-ins", the addition of the words "third party" is redundant. A plug-in is by nature third party. Lives native devices aren't plug-ins, they are devices. But I understand it's just a miscommunication of the term we were using. So that misunderstanding is solved.

As for not coming across the issue. Well sure, it's entirely possible to not come across the issue. Doesn't mean it isn't very real or doesn't affect people. I could drive a car that is know to stall immediately when engaging 5th gear. However if I never need to use 5th, it may not be a problem for me, but it still is for others. That's a pretty basic concept isn't it? Sure I could say well if you need to use 5th gear, buy a different car. But when discussing something that doesn't work, the option to use something else is always obvious. Sorry but I've never really understood the "Well it doesn't happen to me so what's the big deal" philosophy. The issue doesn't particularly affect me either, but I still think it's important for people to understand and for Ableton to take seriously.

[Wormhelmet]

I'm glad to see the thread title was edited although still not accurate as all plugins don't introduce latency as has been discussed here and various other threads.

Not sure what you mean.

Are you seriously trying to say that any plug-in does not cause latency of the audio buffer? If this is what you're saying you are completely wrong. And it is very easy to prove and has been demonstrated time and time again. Any third party plug-in, even a ZERO Latency plug-in will add latency of the audio buffer. This is a fact, agreed upon by everyone including Ableton.

And although clip envelopes work better than automation, synced plug-ins are effects as well. It's not just automation.

Yes, thank you for proving my point. You said third party plugins. I didn't. Should I use the term noticeable latency? When I live monitor my Live mixes while playing third party plugin instruments, I am not hearing latency. I think the original description was completely inaccurate.

So yes, I am serious. If you have issues with Live and they don't get addressed in multiple releases still, I suggest people stop banging on a wall wishing it was a door. Use another DAW that suits workflow better.

I have used third party plugin chains plenty in Live while recording guitar and live monitoring. Latency jumps of 128 samples to 256 samples are even noticeable. I don't get those noticeable latencies. This small jump in samples can completely throw playing off if you are anything over about 6 ms latency max on interface to live monitor. Live does not give me issues with any of that.

Well first of all even though I said "thrid party plug-ins", the addition of the words "third party" is redundant. A plug-in is by nature third party. Lives native devices aren't plug-ins, they are devices. But I understand it's just a miscommunication of the term we were using. So that misunderstanding is solved.

As for not coming across the issue. Well sure, it's entirely possible to not come across the issue. Doesn't mean it isn't very real or doesn't affect people. I could drive a car that is know to stall immediately when engaging 5th gear. However if I never need to use 5th, it may not be a problem for me, but it still is for others. That's a pretty basic concept isn't it? Sure I could say well if you need to use 5th gear, buy a different car. But when discussing something that doesn't work, the option to use something else is always obvious. Sorry but I've never really understood the "Well it doesn't happen to me so what's the big deal" philosophy. The issue doesn't particularly affect me either, but I still think it's important for people to understand and for Ableton to take seriously.

I too think it is important to understand. That's why I take issue with it described inaccurately or exaggerated as in the initial title.

I also don't understand how anyone coud live monitor playing an instrument using buffers like you and Theo use. 512 samples or 1024 samples is completely unusable playing keys or guitar into any DAW. I also always recommend using a pro audio interface. If someone spends thousands of dollars on software and is using a built in sound card with ASIO4All drivers, my suggestion would be to cut back on the software spending and take approx $150 to buy a pro audio solution with ultra low latency ASIO drivers on dedicated external hardware. As I said before, this has been discovered to be an issue since a few versions ago. Maybe it's just me, but I think trying demos and researching forum issues for the product is a small and worthwhile pursuit before shelling out cash for a product.

Yes, it would be great if Ableton addressed the issue or all those encountering it, but how many years should someone wish for that before moving on to work in an environment that doesn't cause them grief?

[JoeCat]

More opinions no one gives a sh*t about:

1) Ableton not meant to be a production DAW? Maybe not 1.0, but is there any way to even have that discussion now? Is the Suite version for EDM DJ's who might just happen to need a pizzicato oboe hit and multi-mic'd acoustic drums?

2) This IS a very serious issue for many producers which IS very audible. What often happens is, working under the assumption your DAW is working properly, it can be hard to determine what's making a track sound "off" - you don't typically bounce your tracks to line up the audio and see where the problems are.

Put a synth with a third-party reverb on a track and bounce it. Then feed both it to a midi-modulated filter effect. You can visually see the difference in the audio, and this can create timing problems that may not be obvious in a mix, but give the production "lag" or "push" where you don't want it. Knowing exactly how the problem is caused and why is important.

I remember a similar type of problem in Ultrabeat (Logic) - users could not figure out why their drag-drop samples where sometimes missing transients. Turns out Ultrabeat could not process the first 10 or 20 samples. The Logic library compensated, and ALL sampled hits were prefixed with 10-20 samples of silence. Shrugs from a lot of forum posters, but if it's your main drum sequencer and you're samples are missing transients, it's a big deal. The workaround similarly involved a lot of work (adding silence to all your samples), and negated much of the ease-of-use of the software.

I don't expect software to be perfect (I'm a developer), but this is an important, audible bug with a workflow-killer of a workaround, and can in fact be a deal-breaker.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Echoes in the Attic]

I too think it is important to understand. That's why I take issue with it described inaccurately or exaggerated as in the initial title.

I don't remember what the thread title used to be, but I don't recall it being inaccurate or exaggerated. Certainly nothing in the thread has been.

I also don't understand how anyone coud live monitor playing an instrument using buffers like you and Theo use. 512 samples or 1024 samples is completely unusable playing keys or guitar into any DAW. I also always recommend using a pro audio interface. If someone spends thousands of dollars on software and is using a built in sound card with ASIO4All drivers, my suggestion would be to cut back on the software spending and take approx $150 to buy a pro audio solution with ultra low latency ASIO drivers on dedicated external hardware.

This is sort of a red herring. The issue isn't about live monitoring. As I said, I use 128 sample buffer (and I use a fireface400 which is more than adequate). But there are many cases where someone might want a higher buffer, for example for mixing after all recording is done and the cpu is stressing with a high plug-in load. This is one scenario where suddenly timing will change and automation can go out of whack. Or people who are improvising pre-recorded loops. Latent plug-ins can mangle the timing and automation as well even with low buffer. There are plenty of scenarios. Using a higer buffer settings is just one way to get problems from the bigger issue.

Yes, it would be great if Ableton addressed the issue or all those encountering it, but how many years should someone wish for that before moving on to work in an environment that doesn't cause them grief?

I think you;ll find that people are always more passionate about something being wrong with something they otherwise really like, than someone being wrong with something they don't really care about and would ditch. If I use Cubase for a while and some things really bothered, I'd leave no big deal, because I don't love everything else about it enough to care. But Ableton I really like.
I can only speak for myself, but like the other posts describing the benefits of Ableton, I think it's really the only that does what it does, so until Bitwig comes along, moving isn't an option. I'm fairly certain Bitwig has a good chance of winning me over though once it's out.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]