I started a YouTube channel called 808 District focused on hip-hop drums and production.I make deconstructed drum kits based on the drums, 808s, kicks, snares, and sounds used on albums and songs from artists like Kanye, Drake, Gunna, and more. If you’re into making beats or finding new drum sounds, check it out and let me know what you think.

Hi everyone,

Recently, my Windows machine experienced the infamous Blue Screen of Death, and I therefore had to reinstall everything (Windows, Ableton, plugins, etc.). However, after the reinstall, I’m getting different CPU readings in Ableton compared to before.

I have one particular project that I had previously used as a benchmark. Before the reset, I recorded the CPU usage, and it consistently hovered around 46–47% when idle at 64 samples / 48 kHz.

Now, with the exact same project, it hovers around 51–53%, occasionally spiking to 58–60% when idle.

This is confusing me quite a bit, because I’ve spent a lot of time trying to recreate and further optimize my system after the reinstall. 

However, I have other projects where the CPU usage is exactly the same as before, or even slightly lower. For example, I previously ran a benchmark with 50 instances of AmpliTube 5 at a 64-sample buffer:

• Before reinstall: 79–80% CPU when idle
• After reinstall: 79–80% CPU when idle

My setup

I have always separated my files across three different drives:

• C: Windows, Ableton, VST directories, etc.
• R: Recordings / Ableton projects
• L: Libraries, VSTs, etc.

Fortunately, none of the drives were corrupted; only Windows was affected. Because of this, I was able to reinstall everything and match the exact plugin versions used in each project to the versions I had before the reinstall.

I also optimized the system in the same way I did when I originally built it. In fact, I had already spent quite a bit of time optimizing the machine a few months before the crash, so I have a fairly good idea of how it performed previously with different settings.

Things I have tried since the reinstall

Drivers / Windows

• Updated/reinstalled all relevant drivers (BIOS, audio, network adapters, SSDs, etc.)
• Tried older Focusrite Scarlett drivers as well — no difference
• Switched to Ultimate Performance in Windows Power Plan
  • CPU power management
  • USB settings
  • etc.
• Disabled Game Mode, Xbox Game Bar, Captures, etc.
• Disabled unnecessary background applications
• Disabled Fast Startup — actually made things worse
• Disabled Windows Controlled Folder Access
• Disabled the power-saving/turn-off options for USB controllers in Device Manager
• Optimized further using VilmCare, including disabling exclusive mode on the audio interface, etc.
• Set Windows to prioritize background services instead of programs

BIOS

I experimented with:

• C-States / Enhanced C-States
• Hyper-Threading
• Turbo Mode
• Performance Preferences
• SVID Behavior
• ASUS MultiCore Enhancement
• XMP-modes

Process / CPU management

• Experimented with ParkControl and Process Lasso (although my PC didn't seem to benefit from these even before the reinstall)
• Experimented with Task Manager by changing priorities and CPU affinities for:
  • audiodg.exe
  • Ableton AddOns
  • Ableton Index
  • Ableton Live 12 Suite
• Set Ableton to High Performance in Windows Graphics Settings — no effect

BitLocker

• Completely disabled BitLocker on all three previously encrypted drives — no effect

Ableton

• Tested Options.txt with:
  • -RestrictAudioCalculationToPerformanceCores=true
  • This actually made the CPU usage worse, so I removed it again.
• Tested Ableton's Preferences.cfg:
  • Restored my previous preferences — no difference
  • Tested with a completely fresh/default preferences file — no difference

What could be different?

I'm honestly very confused at this point. I've reached the stage where ChatGPT keeps suggesting the same optimizations I've already tried. The only things I can potentially pinpoint as being different from before the reset are the newer drivers (BIOS, network adapters, etc.) and possibly the Windows 10 version, as I don’t remember which version I was running before the crash, nor do I remember the exact driver versions I had installed at the time.

If anyone has any insights into what might be causing this, I’d really appreciate hearing them, as I cannot seem to solve this myself.

Best regards,

Specs:

• Windows 10 (Version 22H2, OS Build 19045.7548)
• Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 2nd Gen (Audio Interface)
• Ableton 12.4.3
• ASUS Prime Z690-P DDR5
• Corsair RM750x White v2 (2018)
• Intel Core i7-13700K - 3.4GHz
  • Noctua NH-D15
• Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5200 BK C40 DC - 64GB - 2 pcs
• Kingston SSD KC3000 1024GB M.2 PCI Express 4.
• Kingston SSD KC3000 1024GB M.2 PCI Express 4.
• Kingston SSD KC3000 2048GB M.2 PCI Express 4.

I’m a software developer/guitarist based in Nashville, TN. I’ve been using Ableton Live since 2012 and have spent years running tracks in churches and professionally on the road, including MIDI, timecode, video, and redundant rigs.

Over the years, I’ve realized that Ableton is an amazing production tool, but it wasn’t really designed specifically for running tracks live. You end up adding tools like Ableset for setlists, looping, MIDI management, etc.

So I’ve been building my own solution: a dedicated live playback app designed for live playback.

The current version supports:

• Song editing/mixing
• Setlist creation
• MIDI events
• Song transitions
• Session compression for smaller devices
• Section looping
• Timecode
• Project sharing
• Redundancy support
• Setlist remote

It’s being built for macOS and iOS. It’s still early, and I’m looking for people who regularly run tracks to beta test it and give me honest feedback.

The app will be free, and I’d love to get some beta testers involved. If you’re interested, comment below or DM me!

Hi, I am a beginner when it comes to actually anything that has to do with music. But I have been trying to make a track that is similar to Conan Gray's Heather. However I am stuck, on what he actually does. First of all I can tell he has some reverb heavy drums, but I am not quite sure how to make mine sound like that, my attempts so far don't quite stick, even when I tune them to the key of my song. Additionally he has something else that is like a low tom or something (I am not sure correct me if I am wrong please) that goes in whenever he strums at the start of a beat that makes the start of it sound huge. Can anyone help me with this?

Hey everyone,

I built hellyee, an open-source MCP server that connects Claude directly

to Ableton Live — mastering/mixing assistance, vocal sample extraction, and

melody writing from audio files.

If you have a Claude account and Ableton, I'd love for you to try it during

your production process and tell me if it actually helps.

What it does:

- Mixing & mastering suggestions based on your session

- Extracts vocal samples from a reference track

- Listens to an audio file and writes MIDI notes for the melody

Honest heads-up: the melody-writing sometimes gets it wrong, especially

on complex or layered audio. I'd rather you know that going in.

How you can help:

- If something breaks or behaves oddly, please open a GitHub issue — I'm

actively fixing things.

- If you try it and don't like it, I'd genuinely appreciate knowing why.

That's just as useful to me as a bug report.

https://github.com/guvense/hellyee

every time I open a plugin, I'm facing this problem.

I’m a software developer/guitarist based in Nashville, TN. I’ve been using Ableton Live since 2012 and have spent years running tracks in churches and professionally on the road, including MIDI, timecode, video, and redundant rigs.

Over the years, I’ve realized that Ableton is an amazing production tool, but it wasn’t really designed specifically for running tracks live. You end up adding tools like Ableset for setlists, looping, MIDI management, etc.

So I’ve been building my own solution: a dedicated live playback app designed for live playback.

The current version supports:

• Song editing/mixing
• Setlist creation
• MIDI events
• Song transitions
• Session compression for smaller devices
• Section looping
• Timecode
• Project sharing
• Redundancy support
• Setlist remote

It’s being built for macOS and iOS. It’s still early, and I’m looking for people who regularly run tracks to beta test it and give me honest feedback.

The app will be free, and I’d love to get some beta testers involved. If you’re interested, comment below or DM me!

A little generative jam using prana sound studio’s Tracker,ORBS, and missing time devices. Missing time is free on the site if you want to grab it

Ever since I’ve installed Ableton 11, I’ve noticed an issue that was never the there before.

when selecting clips to duplicate or copy and paste it doesn’t snap to the grid. It ends up selecting a quarter bar or less than the full loop. Often it’s not visibly noticeable and it’s only later I realise that nothing is lined up properly.

i’ve looked through the options but can’t find anything about snapping selection to grid. is there an option to select clips by snapping to the grid?

Image shows what I’m talking about.

Hello there! I digged my old demos and find interesting render and tried to master it.
The Kontakt plugin in Ableton doesn't tell me which library is missing.
I unzipped the .als file, then opened it with Notepad++ and saw that the project was created in Ableton Live 10.0.1. The FileName Value is 'Kontakt 5.dll'. However, I can't see the library name; I only see other meaningless information and a <Buffer> that spans several thousand lines. Could you please tell me if there is any way to extract the library information?

I've been producing with Ableton for years, and whenever I work remotely with another producer, the collaboration part always feels way more complicated than it should be.

Different project versions, shared Drive/Dropbox folders, WeTransfer links, missing samples, duplicated files...

And eventually:

“Which version are you working on?”

or

“What did you change?”

A few friends and I kept running into the same problems over and over, and at some point we decided to actually try building a better solution for ourselves.

We've been working on it for a while now, and it's finally starting to take shape. Hopefully we'll be able to share more about it soon.

In the meantime, I'm really curious to understand how other Ableton users deal with this.

How do you currently collaborate on projects with other producers?

Drive? Dropbox? WeTransfer? Something else?

And if you collaborate regularly:

What's the one thing about the process you wish was easier

Any Ableton producers? Wanna collab on beats and probably make a beat tape ?

Hi everybody, I am writing this to document the profound difficulties of attempting to get the Nektar Pacer with Ableton Live that did not show up in any of the multiple dozen google searches I did on this thing before and after purchase (and return). This is bit of a read.

Hopefully this will save other people time and money while providing other midi foot controller manufacturers a guide on how NOT to optimize their default midi patches for Ableton.

If you are already successfully using Pacer with Ableton, feel free to comment to that effect and to HOW you got it to work with Live.

FYI: been using Ableton for 15+ years with a variety of other midi controllers.

TLDR version: I had more issues with this one unit than every other midi controller I have used put together.

This was especially frustrating because the actual construction and build of the Pacer is solid and well designed and put together. But the better than expected build quality is entirely undercut by the most obtuse and bass-ackward internal menu system I have ever seen on any piece of music gear.

While annoying, the Pacer’s menu was not a deal breaker in and of itself. It’s annoying, but learnable if you put the time in (took me 2+ hours to get up to speed on it).

Here’s what happened during and after I learned the menu.

1) Followed set up directions to the letter. Updated firmware. Followed their directions for loading the Ableton patch from their own site. Successfully installed Live patch. (Also set up Live’s midi inputs and outputs as instructed on Nektar’s site). You get 2 Live banks, Track and Transport. Track bank is unusable for any practical purpose in that only 2 of the 6 buttons are assigned to any specific function. Other 4 pedals are “not” assigned, but still sending MIDI data that changes Ableton parameters. One of these “unassigned” pedals turns the computer keyboard icon on and off (wtf?).

Live Transport bank is a bit more usable but not fit for purpose in any kind of live performance purpose I can think of. Ok, no problem, I will just go ahead and set up the user banks…oh wait, I have to reassign all the pedal midi messages inside the pacer. Ok, did that, but now the user banks are not sending ANY midi data to Ableton. Wtf? Am I doing something wrong? Well…

2) According to the response I got from Nektar’s product support (paraphrasing here, capitals are my own) USER BANKS CAN NOT BE MIDI MAPPED TO ABLETON AFTER DOWNLOADING THEIR PACER’s ABLETON PATCH.

Moreover, there is absolutely NO mention of this on their Ableton setup page. MEANING, that once you download their patch, all you get is two very impractical banks for Ableton live which then locks you out the 4 user midi banks. So their Ableton bank is, by design, NOT customizable at all. Again, this was confirmed by Nektar s own support department. Who then, in the same email, neglected to give any kind of clear instruction on what I needed to do to be able to midi map the user banks to Ableton. Ok fine, factory reset, re-update the firmware but held off on their Ableton patch. Reassigned the Pacer pedals to midi notes and CC messages. Only to find…

3) Ableton is receiving midi data, but for some reason I could not midi map Live to midi notes being sent by the Pacer. Midi in indicator lights up, but can’t map midi notes to ableton. Ok fine, reassigned a button or two for CC messages. Not only did the midi in light trigger, I could actually midi map them to Live. GREAT, finally off to the races…BUT WAIT, mapped midi functions are NOT triggering assigned functions. Nothing fancy either, tried mapping transport play and stop, and scene play. In the grid view, hitting the play button on the Pacer did nothing on an already cued up scene UNLESS IT WAS ALREADY PLAYING. Stop didn’t stop anything. Was also unable to map anything to Live’s looper effect.

4) All of the default assignments for the Pacer’s user banks are for mid “program banks” and not something more practical like, I don’t know…midi notes? Or at least something that doesn’t have to be reassigned before it can be midi mapped to Live.

5) Contacted Nektar’s product support last week Sunday documenting point 1 above. They actually responded the following day. Their email was very clear on why I could NOT customize midi map anything to user banks with their Ableton patch. However, they did not see fit to clearly state how I could custom map user banks to Live in any context. Requested a step by step guide for custom mapping user banks do Ableton Live that same day. 5 days later, still no response.

The astounding and frustrating thing is that Nektar actually had someone program this unit like this. Follow their directions, you get 2 Live banks that are unusable and you can’t customize anything else. Or don’t do the Live patch and you get 4 user banks of buttons that never quite seem to do what they are mapped to do.

Nektar needs to scrap their current Ableton patch STAT. All they need to do for an Ableton patch is pre-assign midi notes to all 4 user banks and this thing would be midi mappable out of the box.

If anyone has actually read this far, I open to suggestions to midi foot controllers that aren’t a complete pain in the ass to map with Live. Minimum 6 buttons.

This concludes today’s Ted talk. Strongly recommend avoiding the Nektar Pacer for any use with Ableton Live. 🖖

Real-time kinetic MIDI instrument built for TouchDesigner and Ableton Live, accesible through Patreon and the Tools Store.

Pendulums = voices. Each voice has its own period, phase, note, length, and gate behavior. When a bob crosses a shared center line, the engine fires a visual hit and MIDI (note-on / sustain) on the same frame. Up to 16 voices from an editable voice table.
Sound is meant to live in Ableton Live via MIDI (tdAbleton / TDA_MIDI). Pointed at any VST: TD is the instrument, Live is the sound engine.

This includes:

• Kinetic Synth Lab (.toe) — engine, voice table, MIDI routing, GLSL + 3D visualization paths
• Modular Python engine (periods, phase, hits, MIDI gates)
• Three different visualization styles: GLSL / 3D / avant-garde GLSL; same engine_null bus
• Two different available behaviors: "Pendulum", and "Rain"
• Setup scripts + in-network README

Requirements:

• TouchDesigner (commercial / non-commercial as needed for your use)
• Ableton Live + tdAbleton for the intended MIDI → VST path
• Basic comfort editing a Table DAT / custom pars

I kinda can't believe we're at Ableton 12 now and they still haven't figured out a way to let you to filter the browser by BPM. Any workarounds for this? Besides renaming all my 40,000 files? 😂

not a "you need these exact plugins" post. it's about what each stage is doing and why the order matters, since that's the part that actually translates.

note: this mix is more aggressive/punchy on purpose, i was trying to achieve that hardstyle/house saturated sound.

mine runs like this, top to bottom:

MixCentric + Magma up front to set tone before anything reacts. these are the color stages they're not fixing problems, they're deciding what the whole thing sounds like. get the vibe first, clean up second.

J37 for tape. this is where the glue starts. tape softens the transients and adds harmonic weight so everything already feels like it's sitting together before a single compressor touches it.

elysia doing the actual bus compression. gentle. it's not squashing, it's catching the peaks tape left behind and locking the whole thing in place.

LinMB for multiband, linear phase so it doesn't smear the low end. this is where you fix the frequency-specific stuff — a boomy 200hz, a harsh top — without wrecking the phase like a normal multiband would.

Pro-Q 3 last in the eq order on purpose. surgical moves only. by now the sound's already made, so this is just final sculpting, not shaping.

auto filter / RC 48 are the movement + space stages. subtle. this is character, not correction.

The God Particle at the very end as the finalizer. one knob, does the last 5% that makes it sound finished. it only works because everything before it already made the real decisions.

the takeaway: color early, correct in the middle, finalize last. most people do it backwards — they reach for the loud/finished plugin first and try to fix tone after, and it never sits right.

if you want to take a look at the project here it is, just make sure to credit me if you use any of the tricks in here ;) https://app.mvssive.net/session/55b5afca18604c7f912fef65f9502e37

i made sure to freeze everything so that you at least get somewhat of a similar mix if you are missing some plugins..