Audio dropouts in Ableton 9 now solved

I now think my problem is solved (I've only tested it briefly).

Apparently, I need to deactivate/activate Live's audio engine by clicking in the CPU load meter every time I change the buffer size in preferences. It turns out that, with my setup, the buffer size doesn't update automatically when typing it in, in stead I get massive dropouts/glitches. Only when first deactivating and then activating the audio engine after changing the buffer size the update is done.

As said, I've only tested this briefly but it seem to work.

While having trouble with Live 9 I went back to Reason 6, where I started a couple of small projects. In one of my previous blog post I wrote that, since I already have Cubase and Live I might uninstall Reason. Well, working with these projects have totally changed my view in that respect. Propellerhead's Reason is here to stay. I can't explain it, but very often wen I open Reason I get something done. Something exciting and rewarding. It's like when playing in a band, and after your solo, a fill, or something, your band mates is nodding their head your way, as to say: very clever - good job!  

Basically, what this means, is that I will continue to send my money to Germany and Sweden on every occasion they do something they can charge me for. I'm happy with that.

Troubleshooting Ableton Live 9 Suite

Example of audio dropouts in Ableton Live 9 Suite: Example of dropouts in Ableton 9 Suite by September Audio

The audio dropouts I get in Ableton Live 9 Suite have turned out to be quite severe, and the question whether the root cause is to be found in Ableton Live 9, in my soundcard driver or elsewhere on my computer still remains unanswered.

All I can do is systematically go through my setup and one by one removing the things I think might have an effect. This is what I know: Loading the exact same project in Cubase and Live shows that Cubase is perfoming well, while Live is kneeling at very little load.

These are the things I've done so far:
Removed everything Live 8 from my hard drive (just in case…)
Fresh install of Ableton 9 32 bit and Max for Live 6.1 32 bit
Contacted Stenbergs support. They are saying that they have not heard of any conflict between Ableton Live and their driver for my audio interface (Steinberg MR816X).
Reascan Plug-ins (no conflicting plug-in found)
Fresh install of my sound card driver. Cleaned my system hard drive (now 135 GB available of total 320 GB)
Run Repair Disk Permission
Moved Live packs to dedicated sample hard drive (153 GB available of total 500 GB)
Turned off WiFi and checked that there are no background tasks running on my computer (as far as I can see).

Unfortunately the problem remains

I sent a request to the Ableton support team last weekend, but taking into consideration that they've just released a new version of Live I guess they have plenty to do and that I will have to show some patience.

Exciting times for DAW owners

In the past I've considered uninstalling Propellerhead Reason from my hard drive. Reason certainly has its strengths and superior qualities, but three applications, the other two are Cubase and Ableton Live, is more than I need and one has to go. I have thought.
That was until I saw this: Propellerhead announcing Reason 7

Size isn't everything

Native Instruments is announcing the release of Komplete 9 and Komplete 9 Ultimate. The size (120GB/360GB) is alone reason enough for me skip this release. Not because I have any reason to doubt the quality of the content, but I anticipate that only a small portion of the Komplete library will be of interest to me and I think it’s better for me to fill my hard drive with sounds that I actually use. 360 GB of stuff that’s hardly used might seem like a luxury, but with time it becomes a nuisance.

Don't get me wrong. NI are providing the world with some of the most innovative tools for music production of today and their products are and will be part of my arsenal for many years to come.

Ableton Live 9 - not entirely flawless after all?

Ableton Live 9 has been the only DAW I’ve been working in since installing it last week, but not much music have been created. In the middle of my first real project with Live 9 I suddenly started to get serious glitches and audio dropouts and therefore most of my time has been spent troubleshooting my system. The Live set I’m talking about is of moderate size, with no 3^rd party plug-ins, and should not bug down either my cpu or my ram. The first thing I did was using the test tool in Lives preferences, and what I experienced was very strange. I could set the buffer size at 64 samples, maximum cpu load (80%) and get a glitch free test tone back through my system. BUT, when I raised the buffer size to 128, 256, 512, 1024 and 2048 the test tone would get increasingly glitchy until total distortion and dropouts at 1024 and above. Normally the result should be quite the opposite. From this I concluded that there is a problem with the drivers of my audio interface, which by the way is a Steinberg MR816X. I then remembered that I had experienced small glitches also when using Live 8 in the past, but at the time I thought to myself it was due to some background tasks running on my Mac Pro computer and I never gave it a more thorough check.

After doing a fresh install of the drivers of my sound card I left the theory that my audio interface is the root of my problem and started looking for other causes. Here’s a list of things I’ve done:

·         Made dummy live sets of different sizes for testing purposes. I made these sets with 3^rd party plug-ins because I then can make comparable projects in Cubase. Cubase has been running flawless with all these test projects. Ableton Live 9 has not.

·         Removed stuff from my system drive and made sure there are plenty of space left. All samples are located on my audio drive, which also has plenty of space.

·         Run Repair Disk Permission

·         Turned off WiFi and checked that there are no background tasks running on my computer (as far as I can see).

·         Monitoring cpu/disk load via my computers monitoring tool while playing back the Live set. Found no spikes. Cpu and ram consumption is below any critical level.

In spite of my efforts, the result is that Ableton Live is still glitchy, even when running Live sets with a moderate cpu/ram load, and the problem is getting worse when increasing the buffer size. I’ve seen a few other Live users talking about having problems similar to mine, but it’s too early to conclude that this is a problem with Ableton Live. At the moment of writing it’s equally likely that the problem is in my setup.

Hope to have a solution in place very soon.

Early impression of Ableton Live 9 Suite

So, I got my copy of Ableton Live 9 Suite. For me the ordering, payment, download and authorization went really smooth. Not so for many of those who jumped on the upgrade express train the very moment the release was announced on Tuesday morning. It turned out that the Ableton website couldn’t handle the traffic and it was taken down for a few hours. Patience is a virtue so I waited till the rush was over and made my purchase and download without any interruption during a couple of hours late Tuesday night.

When opening Live 9 for the first time it looks much like the previous version, only now with an updated look. The look is quite nice and I like the new default colour scheme. In the Preferences menu you can change to a different look, although the selection seem to be somewhat reduced compared to Ableton 8. Who cares.

What’s under the hood? The list of new features and enhancement is not endless, but for me the upgrade from Live 8 Suite to Live 9 Suite was a no brainer.

New features:

·         Record automation into clips in Session View

·         New automation curves

·         Enhanced browser

·         Glue Compressor

·         Improved EQ Eight

·         Compressor has got a new display (graphical representation of real-time audio processing)

·         Gate has got a new display (graphical representation of real-time audio processing)

·         Converting audio to MIDI

·         New MIDI editing tools

·         Live Suite now comes with Max for Live

·         Convolution Reverb

I’ve only had a couple of hours with Live 9, but so far my impressions are very good. Live was already a music production software of its own kind, designed to give the user the best framework for creativity in sound design and electronic music production. With the new version it’s now even better. The 64 bit version of Live 9 was rock solid and glitch free on my Mac (OSX 10.7) during these hours of initial testing.

Read more here: https://www.ableton.com/en/