Joshua Casper on Jul 21, 2016 in Ableton Live 4 comments

If your Live session is making your computer grunt & groan under the workload, then this article from Joshua Casper is for you. Here's a multitude of ways to cut back on the CPU load in Ableton Live.  

Reduce the Sample Rate of Live

reduce sample rate

Make use of the Freeze function

PRO TIP: I like to freeze the device laden channel and create a new audio channel below it. Then you can click the frozen channel and drag the audio file into the new audio channel. After which I deactivate the frozen channel, but keep it in case I ever need to go back, unfreeze and make changes.
freeze flatten unfreeze tracks channels

Close Non-Essential Programs & Processes

Use the Beats warp mode whenever possible.

consolidate complex pro warped clips

Tips for Reverb

reverb global quality parameter

Tips for EQ 8

save cpu EQ 8
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Joshua Casper

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Joshua Casper is an accomplished live performer, DJ, producer, and music educator. His specialties are centered in and around Ableton Live and Native Instruments. His educational material has been featured on Ableton.com and Maxforlive.com as well as a myriad of large music production websites. His music has been featured on Dubstep.ne... Read More

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Discussion

KLBK
The freeze and eq tips are solid, but the rest is basically just lowering your quality. The beats warp mode works for beats, but adds a lot of artifacts to melodies and textures.

If you have to use all of these to get your workflow on, I'd rather work destructively, bouncing or freeing hi-quality audio, before starting the next resource consuming task. Nobody wants low quality audio, right?
Jul 21, 2016
Joshua Casper
That's what the tip says. Use beats mode "when possible". If it isn't possible bounce (resample) the audio using Complex Pro (or which ever other warp mode at the desired BPM) then re-import to use beats mode, or even better yet no warp mode.

These tips are for people that need to do things like this so their computers don't fry or freeze. I used to have to do all of these to some degree or another before I got me new machine.
Jul 22, 2016
John
What I like to do with a frozen midi/audio clip as mentioned above is create the audio track but instead of just dragging the part on to the new audio track.Hold Ctrl & copy it on to the new track.This way you can keep any work you have done intact until you are completely happy with it & then get rid of it.
Jul 22, 2016
Morteza
I'm on Asus laptop, 12Gb ram, Cpu Corei5 7200U. I know there are lots of reasons for high cpu usage, but does my cpu have enough power to handle a project? Sometimes with 4 tracks running, cpu metter in ableton goes up to 325% .
Jul 12, 2019

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