[Ableton] CPU Usage?

[Brothulhu]

I'm using FL, I didn't know you could toggle it for all plugins, eco is just in massive (and other NI plugins)

[Icetickle]

I'm using FL, I didn't know you could toggle it for all plugins, eco is just in massive (and other NI plugins)

I am not sure what it does but I'm sure that it helps with CPU.
http://www.flstudio.org/index.php/smart ... ll-pugins/

[charles1]

And what exactly do you think a rack is? It holds synths and fx! From what I've seen, you're the biggest misinformer here mate.

Trying to prove yourself, you jump on the bandwagon with some trivial semantic dispute.

Open up Ableton. Go to the library. Click "Plugins" - do you see Instrument Rack? No. Click "Instruments" - do you see Instrument Rack? Yes. Sure you can dispute technical definitions of a plugin if you've got something to prove but in general everyday speech you don't need to be so damn careful with your words. I'm using the terminology that Ableton uses. "Plugins", in this context, means 3rd party non-native devices in the PLUGINS folder of Ableton's library.

[Simulant]

Lol, ok whatever, you need to calm down! I won't be replying to you any further as I have better things to do than to get dragged into an argument.

Seriously, an empty instrument rack will have 0% cpu usage as it's the same as an empty audio or midi track. All a rack is, is a device that holds plugins and fx. I'm not disputing your definition, just your comment that racks use the most cpu.

[charles1]

Seriously, an empty instrument rack will have 0% cpu usage as it's the same as an empty audio or midi track. All a rack is, is a device that holds plugins and fx. I'm not disputing your definition, just your comment that racks use the most cpu.

First, I'm not making some blanket generalization that "racks always take up more CPU thank anything else in the world!" In my experience, excessive instrument racks are the biggest problem for me.

I understand your point though, and I agree with you that an empty instrument rack should take up negligible CPU, and I've found that it does. But that's not my point. I am not saying that an empty instrument rack does anything and I never said that. I think you will actually agree with me on this - my point is that an instrument rack with 5 patches in one single track takes up more CPU than those same 5 patches on 5 separate side by side tracks. In other words, an instrument rack is greater than the some of its parts. When an instrument rack has stuff in it, it adds something to the CPU usage that isn't there when the same exact patches are on their own separate tracks. I don't know why this is but I have found it to be very, very noticeable issue.

I think we're on the same page actually.

If you have more than 4+, you're really pushing it with CPU, but even 2-3 has an effect. I really don't understand why it's such a problem. if you had the patches playing simultaneously on their own separate tracks it would be the exact same thing, but who knows.

[YeahItsMe]

[quote="charles]. When an instrument rack has stuff in it, it adds something to the CPU usage that isn't there when the same exact patches are on their own separate tracks. I don't know why this is but I have found it [/quote]

I explained this earlier. The more samples/instruments/effects you have in the rack make a huge impact. My 800 sample drum rack with 4 compressors and 13 eqs made my CPU automatically be 20% by itself when playing. When not playing it was about 8-12% at any given moment. The computer scans your hard drive to find your samples everytime it plays and if you hve 40 going at once, that's 40 files it has to find in a matter of milliseconds!!!!

ALSO!!!! If an effect or instrument is turned on it will use more CPU ie turn off a compressor. Turn off some of your effects and you will see a dramatic change.

JUST MUTING the track will not make any difference

[lloydy]

Buy a fast powerful computer,problem solved!

Thread/

[YeahItsMe]

How about a solution that doesn't cost $$?

[lloydy]

How about a solution that doesn't cost $$?

Freeze function or bounce then.
I still say save up for decent computer with repair plan then cpu usage will only become a worry with heavy heavy projects.
Also stay away from heavy effects unless you plan on resampling/bouncing down a lot.To be honest i have a fast computer so rarely bounce or freeze but if i do i will save my plugin chains as a channel strip then delete them from my arrange so if i do want to work a sound a bit more i can just introduce it later on and work on it a bit more.I work in logic by the way so not overly sure you can do this in other daws.
Also increasing ram can help,2 gig is a bit on the soft side init but thats if your working in 64bit.Pretty sure if you run your daw in 32 bit it only uses 2gig max.

[Icetickle]

How about a solution that doesn't cost $$?

Freeze function or bounce then.
I still say save up for decent computer with repair plan then cpu usage will only become a worry with heavy heavy projects.
Also stay away from heavy effects unless you plan on resampling/bouncing down a lot.To be honest i have a fast computer so rarely bounce or freeze but if i do i will save my plugin chains as a channel strip then delete them from my arrange so if i do want to work a sound a bit more i can just introduce it later on and work on it a bit more.I work in logic by the way so not overly sure you can do this in other daws.
Also increasing ram can help,2 gig is a bit on the soft side init but thats if your working in 64bit.Pretty sure if you run your daw in 32 bit it only uses 2gig max.

If 32bit it uses 4GB max! Also plugins that came with your DAW should be less CPU hungry.. so I'm pretty sure I'm getting rid of Izotope Ozone.

[lloydy]

Ok my bad just looked it is 4 gig,excuse the misinformation.
Back on topic if you are using izotope ozone on a few tracks then yeah it will eat your cpu but seriously why would you want to use ozone advanced like that when it's a mastering tool?
I thought izotope alloy 2 was more the mixing tool?

[Icetickle]

Ok my bad just looked it is 4 gig,excuse the misinformation.
Back on topic if you are using izotope ozone on a few tracks then yeah it will eat your cpu but seriously why would you want to use ozone advanced like that when it's a mastering tool?
I thought izotope alloy 2 was more the mixing tool?

Alloy won't be a problem to the CPU?

[lloydy]

Never used it but would of thought it would be a bit lighter as its a mixing tool.Download demo and try it!

[charles1]

JUST MUTING the track will not make any difference

Yes, you're absolutely right - muting the patches makes absolutely no difference.

I explained this earlier. The more samples/instruments/effects you have in the rack make a huge impact. My 800 sample drum rack with 4 compressors and 13 eqs made my CPU automatically be 20% by itself when playing. When not playing it was about 8-12% at any given moment. The computer scans your hard drive to find your samples everytime it plays and if you hve 40 going at once, that's 40 files it has to find in a matter of milliseconds!!!!

I don't see how that explains what I said about the instrument rack.

Say that you had each sample in one of 800 tracks, with the compressors and eqs in the right place to cover all of the sounds they were originally covering. Everything is the exact same except each thing in the drum rack is now on it's own separate track instead, right? The computer still has to scan your hard drive for those samples, no? But in this scenario it takes up much less CPU compared to a rack.

However, the above scenario assumes that instrument and drum racks would have the same issue, which is totally plausible. But I'm just not sure because I always use a drum rack.

[lloydy]

The computer still has to scan your hard drive for those samples, no? .

No,unless streaming straight from disk!Samples loaded into a sampler are then stored in ram not streamed from disk unless it is set up to do so.

[lloydy]

Just another idea,i do actually do this myself when on my laptop but they say not too.You shouldn't run audio for your project from the same drive that your daw is running from.Apparently it is far more efficient to run from separate disks and should save on some cpu power.

[tpc_uk]

People say that a SSD with maxed RAM is the best solution.

I got lots of racks with 800 samples no problem - it just takes a while to load the project. it is annoying though tbf - I guess the good thing about ableton is how easy it is to bounce & process audio ...

My assumptions were that drum racks would have the samples in RAM as playback from the disk would just be too sloppy in terms of timing/latency, whereas for audio/bounced stuff it can play from the hard-drive?