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Topic: Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live (Read 8792 times) previous topic - next topic
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Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Hello,

I really don't know if this is the right place to post a topic about a DAW. If it's not, please just delete this thread

Anyway..

I've gotten Ableton Live 8 and I'm experiencing issues with some songs. These songs have lots of warp markers in the analysis. The analysis has been done by Live's automatic warping algorithm, it's untouched by me.

Most problems appear when I play very high-speed songs, like "Stamp on the ground" by Italobrothers (150 BPM) or "Welcome to the club" by Manian (152 BPM).

But they appear also in low-speed songs like "Work bitch" by Britney Spears (128 BPM).

In these songs, I experience a sudden slowdown when the warp markers begin to compact, and then a sudden speed-up (more than the master tempo!!) when they are less close.

These slowdowns/speedups appear many times during the song, making them horrible to listen.

Suggestions?

Plus, I also have Ableton Live 9.1 Suite, but I can't use it because it stutters a lot. Stuttering appears even if the sampling frequency is normal (44.1 kHz) and CPU usage is very low (5-6%).

The audio buffer is the same as Ableton Live 8, which has the same configuration BUT doesn't stutter at all.

Can you help me?

Thanks in advance,
Tyrexionibus

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #1 –
I run Ableton 8 on a dual core 1.8GHz ASUS netbook with 4Gb clean as a whistle.

So unless your PC is even less powerful it looks like a solvable problem.

More info please.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #2 –
I have a MacBook Pro, Late 2009, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM 1067 MHz DDR3. OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 .

Ableton Live 8 runs flawlessly, it's Ableton Live 9 that doesn't.

When I begin playing, it stutters a lot. Music doesn't stop but graphics do. For example, when I drag&drop a clip into the Audio channels it stutters during the dragging process.

It's very annoying.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #3 –
The problem in Ableton Live 8 lies on the warping algorithm. It creates too many warp markers and thus makes it difficult for Live to computerize the song.

Beats and Complex algorithms fail on "Stamp on the ground", while Texture seems to go well (with grain size and flux set as default).

By definition of the Live 8 user manual, Texture algorithm is to be used on songs that have an ambiguous pitch. The UM says that it is typically used for orchestral compositions, although "Stamp on the ground" is made electronically, hence it has a regular pitch and tempo (150 BPM).

I don't know why Texture seems to be the best for it, really.

No effort for "Work bitch", every warping algorithm seem to fail.

Do you have any suggestions?
Tyrexionibus

(P.S.: Take the songs I've listed as an example, I didn't want to sound not concrete)

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #4 –
Does this all happen with other software as well (if you don't have other in hands, just try with some freeware DAW software)?

Could it be a audio driver problem (aren't Mavericks quite new O/S) or too small playback buffers (too tight latency settings) problem?

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #5 –
This happens in Live 9 but not in Live 8.

My configuration:

- Intel Core 2 Duo (I've ticked the "Multicore" option in the CPU menu, is this wrong??)
- Buffer size: 256 samples (latency: 7.85 ms), the same that's in Live 8

I use CoreAudio as audio driver. My mixer is a DENON DN-X1700 which has an internal soundcard. Live uses it.

Is this configuration good for you?

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #6 –
For playback you can use 50ms buffer as well (tight latency setting is needed for some recording tasks only).

Enabling multicore support has caused some issues on other DAW software so, you could try if disabling the support has any effect in this. Also could it be a sync (clock source) issue?

Stutter happens usually when GPU and audio device conflicts ... is the graphics GUI in Live 9 changed much from 8 and you could check if these devices shares resources with other devices?

On Windows world there are utilities for to test if there are botlenecks for realtime video/audio streaming. Are there any for Mac you could run?

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #7 –
I've tried disabling the Multicore function, with no effort.

When I drag a song from the folder browser to the Live 9 interface, graphics suddenly get stuck, even if music is off (playback/recording not started).

I'm really evaluating your quote, there must be a conflict between audio and video.

I don't know any apps to test it out, unfortunately.

That's very strange though. The Live 9 interface is very similar to the one which is present in Live 8. Only minor changes have been applied.

Moreover, CPU usage is at 5-7% even in playback/recording, so I don't believe this is a CPU issue.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #8 –
Did the stuttering issue got fixed already?

Is it possible to adjust something graphics related in Live 9 or O/S. IIRC, few years ago there were freezing issues on few Windows DAWs and the reason for this was a selectable graphics option in Windows ... "graphics harware acceleration" which had top be disabled.

If you can list the IRQ reservations table of your system just look if there are devices using the same IRQ.



Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #9 –
hmm, please be more clear. I've never heard of IRQ reservations. By googling I've found they are kernel-related, but no more.

And take a look at this table of "Traditional IRQ Reservations" in the Apple core: http://tyrexionibus.com/uploads/2014-02-03_09.10.41.JPG

But be aware that these IRQ reservations are for non-PCI devices, while my GPU is connected via PCI Express.

Also, I haven't found any software to see the IRQ's on OS X.

Live has a poor visual configuration, it cannot detect any conflicts.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #10 –
UPDATE: It seems to be a NVidia-related issue.

One user @ the Ableton support forum says: «The known issue with those Nvidia's was that when downclocking they caused huge dpc spikes (search dpc latency geforce / nvidia / video / or something along those lines to find out). The solution was (I think) to install rivatuner and force the 3d acceleration to a constant setting.»

I will try RivaTuner, but I need help because I may ruin my GPU with it, if I don't know what to do.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Tyrexionibus on
UPDATE: It seems to be a NVidia-related issue.  One user @ the Ableton support forum says: «The known issue with those Nvidia's was that when downclocking they caused huge dpc spikes (search dpc latency geforce / nvidia / video / or something along those lines to find out). The solution was (I think) to install rivatuner and force the 3d acceleration to a constant setting.»  I will try RivaTuner, but I need help because I may ruin my GPU with it, if I don't know what to do.


Hmm... sorry but I can't help in this. Dunno if DPC is even related to OSX but adjusting/disabling hardware acceleration might be the solution for your freezing problem.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #13 –
For what it's worth the default way in which Ableton inserts warp markers is very poorly suited for entire songs and could very much contribute to your degraded performance.  Ideally you want it to "adjust pitch" (no time-stretching), need only one warp marker (at the start/1.1.1 point or other appropriate location), and then have it "warp straight from here" via the right-click context menu.  There's a great blog that explains the ins and outs of warp markers in Ableton which was invaluable in my cresting the learning curve - Pretty sure I've got the link on my home computer and will post it here when I find it.

Also, having a lot of tracks loaded in parallel (even if they're inactive) can easily cause stuttering and other performance issues in Ableton.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #14 –
I've tried deleting all warp markers except for the first, but some songs still slowdown'n'speedup suddenly.

However the warping algorithm used was Complex, Texture or Beats.

No beat-adjusting means only pitch-adjusting, so you mean the Re-Pitch algorithm is the best fix for this?

If I'm not wrong, it doesn't beat-adjust, and it works by pitch-only (according to the master tempo though).

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Tyrexionibus on
No beat-adjusting means only pitch-adjusting, so you mean the Re-Pitch algorithm is the best fix for this?


Yes.  Otherwise I'm not all that good for answering your other questions, however here's the link to the tips blog I mentioned earlier, which was indispensable in my getting an understanding of warping in Ableton:

http://hobo-tech.com/ableton-live/

Scroll down to the "WARPING 101" entries.  Note the first one is titled "Turn off auto warp"

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #16 –
Quote from: Remedial Sound on
Quote from: Tyrexionibus on
No beat-adjusting means only pitch-adjusting, so you mean the Re-Pitch algorithm is the best fix for this?


Yes.  Otherwise I'm not all that good for answering your other questions, however here's the link to the tips blog I mentioned earlier, which was indispensable in my getting an understanding of warping in Ableton:

http://hobo-tech.com/ableton-live/

Scroll down to the "WARPING 101" entries.  Note the first one is titled "Turn off auto warp"


Thank you for the info, I'll check it out. With Live 9... I'm temporarily stuck. I will keep on using version 8 in the meantime, there aren't many differences though.

Issue with warping and stuttering in Ableton Live

Reply #17 –
OK, something has changed.

I've erased my HD and reinstalled a fresh copy of Ableton 9.1 .

Now the latency is very low (64 samples, or 7.21 ms) and I'm appreciating this very much.

However, the stuttering issue remains: when doing drag&drop from the Library to the Live Set, the graphics stop for a while. Live music and recording do not stop.

The "Auto-Warp off" and "Re-Pitch on" trick seems to work, thanks for the help!!

Only the stuttering issue remains; can you help me solving this?

Thanks in advance,
Tyrexionibus