DAW Drama: Ableton Live 9 High CPU Fixes

so besides the tips here, are there any more ways to reduce cpu load in live? live 7 used to be good on cpu, same with 8 before 8.1, but live 9, especially 9.1, just seems to be a complete wimp. i can flatten tracks all day, but run one instance of ozone on the master with imaging, exciter and reverb, and i am spiking upwards of 90%. does running a 32 bit copy on a 64 bit system have anything to do with it?

Are you using a 64bit version of your DAW, then yes. Because then it has to bridge Ozone which itself can be pretty heavy when put on the master for a whole song with 30+tracks+chains of FX, sidechains and other compression on it. I have not used Live but I seem to recall it has an automatic 32/64bit bridge that comes with the program?

Currently I use Presonus S1 2. 64bit and if I start to bridge stuff through 3rd party dev's the CPU consumption grows exponentially. So I tend to just get the 64bit version and be done with it. Not that its in any way superior over the 32bit one. In fact using a 64bit DAW just mean you miss out on some mean f#¤¤%n FX-plugins.

Your operating system can be 64bit and you can use a 32bit DAW all day long on it, no problem. Its internally in the DAW the problem arises.

edit. to add. Or maybe the last version is just a lemon. It happens in the lifetime of many of these programs.

live 9 has no built in 32/64bit bridge, live 8 did. however, my version of live is actually 32bit, the copy of live 8 i had was 64bit. never even noticed, just assumed. i guess i am just up against the 4gb limit with 32 bit software.

Is it a big project with loads of Vst's and samples going? I think Win7 only delegates 2gb to 32bit programs.

This http://ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php could probably help (as could going back to live 8 :p). Remember to backup the exe.

nope. i do most of my production in maschine, the sampling and drums and bass. i export them on separate tracks, and use ableton for mixing, chopping and rearranging, and some basic mastering. at most, i have 5 active tracks. i have started the habit of flattening, where you take a track that has multiple effects on it, freeze it, and then save it with the effects on it as a new track. basically, it keeps the sound of whatever plugin(s) used to change its sound without having the plugins loaded.
yea, it has to be the 2gb limit. i tried the 4gb patch, but it couldn't patch live's executable. i could do some pre-mixing in maschine before i export, that may help. however, reverting back to live 8 is out of the question!
thanks for the help GB!

You're welcome. Just a short note. When you freeze a track it actually bounces an audiosample of the whole thing. A large sample is more gentle on the CPU than VST's, but once you run it through an effect guess what its not gentle on. 64bit is probably the way to go if you want to use live for this purpose.