Ableton Live 10 Released

[pdxindy]

There could be a number of factors causing your different results, but Live certainly isn't widely considered as inefficient.

My impression after years of Live use (and frequenting the Ableton forum) is that Live is considered as inefficient...

[.jon]

And yes, Live is near universally acknowledged as heavier on the CPU than other DAWs, it's pretty crazy to me you're even arguing this?

Nah, it's really not. What you may think doesn't necessarily qualify as "universal". And add the fact that I've already tested the claim and it was false. I'm not arguing anything, just saying how it is.

Maybe it's a mac issue, doesn't really matter much to me tbh- Ableton Live performs just as well as Reaper what comes to plugin count.

[DHR53]

Er, 229. to upgrade... I think that's what I paid for it. I was thinking they would add the new synth to the Live full version. Bummer!

[elxsound]

And yes, Live is near universally acknowledged as heavier on the CPU than other DAWs, it's pretty crazy to me you're even arguing this?

Nah, it's really not. What you may think doesn't necessarily qualify as "universal". And add the fact that I've already tested the claim and it was false. I'm not arguing anything, just saying how it is.

Maybe it's a mac issue, doesn't really matter much to me tbh- Ableton Live performs just as well as Reaper what comes to plugin count.

Some of the complaints about CPU use might be related to the recent OS security updates on Mac. The betas prior to release and prior to the recent security updates showed a reduction in CPU, plus faster loading times with projects compared L9.

Now, I’m reverting to old workflow pre-2011 of freezing tracks especially on larger projects.

I initially though this was just Live, but it’s not. I’m even experiencing a worse performance with MS Word.

But other than that, I’m with .jon on this one... As a DAW whore for various work projects Live has performed about the same compared to other hosts including Reaper and Logic among others.

Universally accepted might not be what you feel it is, or the universe is just speaking to you differently.

[DHR53]

Using all of the other DAWs at various times, I found that although I thought of Live as displaying high cpu usage while working on a compositions, in the the arrange, playback seems to always play... and the performance seems to balance out.

I have sort of ended up with Live in the end.

[pottering]

Most Live's processes are realtime, they are not printed to a .wav file in a cache folder.

Biggest unnoticed CPU user will be Warping, which some treat as "just playing a sample" but it is actually recalculating the timestretch and pitchshifting every time it plays.

I run Live at 44.1 kHz, but people running at 96k could see a lot of CPU just playing multiple tracks of 96k audio warped to play at another BPM with Complex or Complex Pro.

Of course what many people do when buying a new 4000 dollars computer is upgrading their projects to higher sample rate.

Also Reaper has "anticipative processing"m which perhaps affects testing if the test is done just playing recorded audio or MIDI. If tested with an instrument being played realtime by the human user, maybe the CPU difference will be smaller between Reaper and Live.

[machinesworking]

And yes, Live is near universally acknowledged as heavier on the CPU than other DAWs, it's pretty crazy to me you're even arguing this?

Nah, it's really not. What you may think doesn't necessarily qualify as "universal". And add the fact that I've already tested the claim and it was false. I'm not arguing anything, just saying how it is.

Maybe it's a mac issue, doesn't really matter much to me tbh- Ableton Live performs just as well as Reaper what comes to plugin count.

You're literally the only person whose ever claimed in all the time I've used Live since version 3, that they've done legitimate to failure performance tests and had Live beat any other DAW. On any platform against any DAW except Bitwig Studio.

And again on either platform Reaper is universally recognized as the plug in count leader. A quick google will show you that you're all alone in thinking Live is on par with Reaper or Cubase, Logic, DP, Samplitude, etc.

I obviously like Live, it's probably always going to be my secondary DAW, but in no way is it CPU efficient and it's not a Mac thing. Either you're going off heart rather than mind, or Reaper is hosed on your system.

[machinesworking]

Most Live's processes are realtime, they are not printed to a .wav file in a cache folder.

Biggest unnoticed CPU user will be Warping, which some treat as "just playing a sample" but it is actually recalculating the timestretch and pitchshifting every time it plays.

I run Live at 44.1 kHz, but people running at 96k could see a lot of CPU just playing multiple tracks of 96k audio warped to play at another BPM with Complex or Complex Pro.

Of course what many people do when buying a new 4000 dollars computer is upgrading their projects to higher sample rate.

Also Reaper has "anticipative processing"m which perhaps affects testing if the test is done just playing recorded audio or MIDI. If tested with an instrument being played realtime by the human user, maybe the CPU difference will be smaller between Reaper and Live.

Mostly from what developers have mentioned over the years it has to do with Live being developed at first for live performance. It polls even inactive tracks for activity, you mousing or sending MIDI to it etc. Most DAWs like Logic poll only record armed tracks, everything else gets a larger buffer for instance which decreases the CPU load. DP9 is fussy, it doesn't like activity when the playhead is running, noticeable glitches in audio, and I would assume it's why it has a higher track count, Live is using CPU cycles to ensure smooth playback even if you add a CPU hungry plug in while the sequencer is running.

I do not know how Reaper handles it, but MOTU are straightforward about the pre-rendering DP does to lower CPU usage. There's even an Effect Performance window that shows you whether a plug in/track is being pre-rendered or running in real time.
I'm pretty sure Live does none of that, it just lowers CPU when the VST isn't playing.

So yeah, it's very possible that Live would perform better with multiple software instruments being played in real time than Reaper, DP Cubase etc. but for songwriting Reaper is going to beat the pants off of Live in terms of track count. If you're OK with committing to audio early this isn't that big of a deal of course.

[Jax Pok]

Where's the 3D version ? I want that one...

The earth is flat so no 3D possible. I'm still undecided on upgrade to Standard or suite I only need any added midi tools.

[rod_zero]

In windows Live is definitely heavier than Reaper for me. But I like to have computers with good specs so I really don't suffer much from it. I also separate composing from mixing and when I start to add native devices and plugins for mixing I already printed the virtual instruments to audio.

[aMUSEd]

Trying to use AU plugins in Live (had them turned off previously but have a couple of plugins that don't exist in VST) - I thought (according to the manual) aupresets were supposed to appear in the browser when you open out the little arrow but they are not - how do I enable it to see them? They are all in default locations so you would assume this should work, it does work in Logic and Studio One.

Do I need to add preset locations as a 'place' perhaps?

[Gamma-UT]

Trying to use AU plugins in Live (had them turned off previously but have a couple of plugins that don't exist in VST) - I thought (according to the manual) aupresets were supposed to appear in the browser when you open out the little arrow but they are not - how do I enable it to see them?

It seems to be broken. I've sent a support request as I noticed this over the weekend. Plugins like those from Audio Damage would show factory AU presets in the browser under Live 9 but they don't show up in 10.

The situation isn't really helped by the search on "Ableton Answers" barely working at all and Ableton deciding to move anything related to how the software works from the old forum to the so-called Answers forum. So it's hard to tell whether this is a widespread issue or something related to folder permissions.

[Reefius]

If your VCA fader results in all the tracks reaching 0 at the same time, then it's not preserving their relations thus affecting the mix way more than any other method. However, that is not how they work.

That is exactly how they work, because of the logarithmic way faders work. If you manually lower multiple faders then the lowest one will reach zero first, which means that not all sounds will fade out equally.
Lowering a VCA fader will lower all linked faders proportionally, resulting in all faders hitting zero at the same time, and thus also resulting in a smooth fade-out of all sounds simultaneously.

[aMUSEd]

Trying to use AU plugins in Live (had them turned off previously but have a couple of plugins that don't exist in VST) - I thought (according to the manual) aupresets were supposed to appear in the browser when you open out the little arrow but they are not - how do I enable it to see them?

It seems to be broken. I've sent a support request as I noticed this over the weekend. Plugins like those from Audio Damage would show factory AU presets in the browser under Live 9 but they don't show up in 10.

The situation isn't really helped by the search on "Ableton Answers" barely working at all and Ableton deciding to move anything related to how the software works from the old forum to the so-called Answers forum. So it's hard to tell whether this is a widespread issue or something related to folder permissions.

Ah I wondered if it was a bug but didn't really use them before. I have found if I add them to Places they do load OK but just not where they should be.

[mgw38]

Trying to use AU plugins in Live (had them turned off previously but have a couple of plugins that don't exist in VST) - I thought (according to the manual) aupresets were supposed to appear in the browser when you open out the little arrow but they are not - how do I enable it to see them?

It seems to be broken. I've sent a support request as I noticed this over the weekend. Plugins like those from Audio Damage would show factory AU presets in the browser under Live 9 but they don't show up in 10.

The situation isn't really helped by the search on "Ableton Answers" barely working at all and Ableton deciding to move anything related to how the software works from the old forum to the so-called Answers forum. So it's hard to tell whether this is a widespread issue or something related to folder permissions.

That was always a bit of a hit and miss. There were a number of vendors were aupresents would not show up in Live 9 as well. But it seems that Live 10 does not show any aupresets anymore. That is particularly annoying for plugins that only exist in AU format (like Sinevibes).