Hi everyone.

Long time reader of your forums, and find the discussions VERY helpful.

I have been working on a tune, and have got halfway through it and the CPU load indicator is hitting like 85-90%. I have bought another 2G of RAM this week and installed it, and it didnt help at all. I am running a dedicated music production computer (2.8Ghz P4, 3G ram, that has never seen the evils of the internet, purpose built by Derringers about 3 years ago).

I have 2 Impulse drum machines running with each channel routed to its own individual Audio channel, each with the standard Live reverb plugin. I have Reason rewired into Live with 7 instances of the Subtractor running, each with a Midi track and an Audio track in live, and again most have the standard Live reverb plugin on most of the Subtractor Audio tracks. I have two Audio tracks playing some chopped up vocals, one with some heavy reverb, and the other with the standard delay plugin with 95% feedback, so the last word of the vocal cut repeats over and over slowly fading out after 8 bars...

Even at when the tune isnt playing, the CPU load indicator shows 28-30%.

Am i doing something wrong? I have routed the drums to individual channels to give better control as far as mixing goes (saw it in a interview somewhere), but now am having trouble compressing the all of the channels together. Dont know how to stick a single compressor over the whole 28 or so drum Audio tracks...

Can you think of a solution, cos at the moment, the computer is jamming up as it hits 90% and so i havent been able to work on this for a week now, and its really bugging me cos I'm heaps excited about this one... I have learnt so much since my last tune and have implemented it on this one so it sounds heaps better...

Sorry for the terribly long post, but I know that someone here will know how to solve this...

Thankyou in advance...

Kenny

Did you try to freeze tracks? It works for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Kenny Koncept Even at when the tune isnt playing, the CPU load indicator shows 28-30%.

This is strange, i think there is something wrong with your pc. How many items do you have in startup?

quote:

Originally posted by Kenny Koncept the CPU load indicator is hitting like 85-90%. I have bought another 2G of RAM this week and installed it, and it didnt help at all.

lol who would have thought!?

back to your problem... i haven't used live that much, but my experience was much like this. are you running ableton 7? in ableton 7, my projects would idle on 50% and i have a dual core 2.4ghz (4.8ghz).

i'm of the understanding that live is not the most resource friendly host. this is probably just how it is. what happens when you load old projects that didn't go so high? is this an actual problem with your computer, or is this poject just too complex?

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Thanks for the replies...

In regard to Freezing tracks... The only tracks able to be frozen are the two chopped up vocal tracks. Every other track that i try to freeze says that the input is set to 'in' due to the sound source coming from reason rewired in, or from the Impulse drum sampler.


This never happened to old projects, so im thinking that this may be too complex in regard to the routing of the drums. Maybe i have to go back to the 1 midi track for all 8 drum sounds thus not utilising 8 extra Audio tracks + reverb plug-in, but it is so much easier to mix the drums using the channel fader on the mixer view in ableton, rather than the rotary volume knobs on the Impulse drum sampler.

I would have thought another two gigs of ram to take it up to 3G would have immediately helped the prob... but no...

I had the same problem too but, I have a solution for you. All you have to do is..... the tracks that have the reverb and effects just hit the record button, and record your parts into the track, then disable the main track, ie. the impulse. then you can rearrange the recorded parts in the arrangement view. Works wonders for me, and well, I don't think it sounds worse, but, if you do, then you can just use the original parts when you are ready to render!

ps, if you want to disable the reverb plugs also, then rerecord into another audio track and disable them too. This is how I always work, and it always helps to use the reverbs and delays on your send and returns, uses way less cpu since you would only really use a couple for the send and returns.

when your arrangement is done you should be bouncing everything as stems and then mixing it...

quote:

Originally posted by Kenny Koncept Maybe i have to go back to the 1 midi track for all 8 drum sounds thus not utilising 8 extra Audio tracks + reverb plug-in,

Holy crap.

This is probably using a shit-ton of resources. Synths aren't the only thing that use processor power. I highly suggest you just throw a kick on one track, and everything else in another. If you really want to seperate things, then I suggest you use a Send for the reverb for your percussion. That ought to open up some resources.

I feel your pain, though. There are a couple of recent tracks that I can't quite finish until I get my new machine. My 5.5 year old machine hangs up JUST enough after freezing all of the freezable tracks to piss me off. Good luck.

The effects are usually to blame, when I have CPU hang-ups in Ableton. Try turning the delay you have at 95% off and see what happens. If you're looking for a more fading delay that does a better job than the normal delay, try the filter delay plug-in.

If I understand you correct, you have up to 25 instances of Reverb in your set. That is gonna eat up all your cpu resources.

Whilst bouncing to audio will solve the problem, I would suggest than you cut down the amount of Reverbs you have. Put a couple of them on the return tracks and use the sends knobs on your drum channels to apply reverb. Same to the subtractors you have.

Providing you tweak the reverb settings to your taste, sending many drum parts to the same reverb in different amounts should still give you the sound you are after rather than a different reverb for each sound. Using one reverb for different sounds also helps to "glue" the sounds together as they are coloured by the same effect.

In regards to compressing and equing your drums together:

You are right to send each impulse channel to its own audio track. Then all you need to do is route all the audio tracks to a new audio track. Stick your comp and eq etc on that track and away you go...

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Listen to and download all my tracks at www.gregnicot.bandcamp.com

freeze the tracks or export them as wav files and then use the wave instead of midi and vst....ram wouldent realy make a diff wen your cpu is maxing out you would need to get a faster processor if your maxing out...

quote:

Originally posted by G-Con If I understand you correct, you have up to 25 instances of Reverb in your set. That is gonna eat up all your cpu resources. Whilst bouncing to audio will solve the problem, I would suggest than you cut down the amount of Reverbs you have. Put a couple of them on the return tracks and use the sends knobs on your drum channels to apply reverb. Same to the subtractors you have. Providing you tweak the reverb settings to your taste, sending many drum parts to the same reverb in different amounts should still give you the sound you are after rather than a different reverb for each sound. Using one reverb for different sounds also helps to "glue" the sounds together as they are coloured by the same effect. In regards to compressing and equing your drums together: You are right to send each impulse channel to its own audio track. Then all you need to do is route all the audio tracks to a new audio track. Stick your comp and eq etc on that track and away you go...

This is the same advice that I got from my old teacher from my music production course.

I have since done this, and has solved my problems. Have the CPU load back to about 60% now.

In regard to the way that you have described routing each drum audio track to another drum submix audio track in order to compress it. I did this, and always thought this was the way it was done, but when i do this, its as though i hear a double hit of the drums or something. With just the kick solo'd, it sounds as though it echo's between every drum hit.. ???? Dont know what is happening there...

I have overcome this prob, by putting the compressor on a return track and and compressing all of the drums, by having the send knob on each drum audio channel completely wet.


Thanks muchly to everyone that replied. I knew that you guys would know the solution.

Kenny

quote:

Originally posted by Kenny Koncept I have overcome this prob, by putting the compressor on a return track and and compressing all of the drums, by having the send knob on each drum audio channel completely wet.

Bad idea. You can't get higher than a 50% wet signal using sends.
Compressors should be used as inserts.