Hello guys,

I have a massive problem when using Ozone 5 in Ableton Live. Nearly every time I drop Ozone 5 on the master channel my whole Ableton project gets delayed for about a quarter of a second. It is than impossible to record midi notes in real time and so on.
Also my CPU and RAM are often at the limit (70-90%) when I have this problem, because I don`t need to master tracks without content . The thing is, when I remove Ozone from the master channel, I still have the delay, which means the whole project is than delayed and if I keep on working on the project, I always have to deal with the quarter second of delay (which is really anonying).
Do you know how to solve this problem? I would really appreciate that!

Thanks
ceja

 

Make sure you have no other programs running, of course. And maybe try clicking the CPU load meter off then back on to see if that works.

I love Ableton, but they have to work on its efficiency.

 

Maybe check your buffer? Typically, you want to raise the buffer size when mixing and lower it when recording/composing.

 

Yeah I commented before that it's probably the PDC (Plugin Delay Compensation) bug that they haven't fixed in years but then I deleted it as I wasn't sure that this information would be of any use to Ceja.

 

There is no problem with machines... today almost everyone has it enough RAM and CPU power...

I have my routine... and I will share it with all

1) project

1.1) main beat

I work with drums/bass/loops etc... when I found sound I like -> mixdown channels to audio track (save this pre-project in ableton as 1 stage, if I have to change something)

1.2) load audio files of main beat

play with instruments etc... shaping sound, entering midi... etc...
I this stage I do not use lot of processing (fx), just sound basic sound shaping and minimal set of fx (compressor, eq etc...) with ableton integrated

when I finish -> mixdown synth channels to audio tracks (save project 2 stage)

1.3) playing with vocals, other fx, main arrangement stage

load all audio files on channels, adding fx etc... and playing with arrangement (play clips and save into arrangement)
when I finish everything -> mixdown rest channels to wavs (ofcourse, save as 3 stage abl.project)

2) pre-mastering

- load all channels into DAW you use, I like Logic
- in this stage I play with fx au's and I try to get final lovely sound I like
- mixdown from Logic to one wav/aiff file (left -3db of space for finall mastering process)

3) mastering

- buy bottle of good wine, and play with one wav/aiff file and Ozone or Tracks or whatever (I prefear Sonnox plug's)

 

The main mistake,

Playing with instruments, fx, mastering plugins etc... in one project.

That's because of now-days plugins... per example, load 3 instance of Diva and 3 instance of D-16 Lush and try to play something all together... even when you have rocket - there will be 150% CPU usage

 

Nikon, that may be true, but Ableton is CPU crazy. I have a 2.6 GHz 16 GB Mac Mini now, but even when I had my Mac Pro with 12 cores and 32 GB RAM, Live's CPU would go nuts. And we can say all machines are capable but the plugs aren't staying the same either. They're catching up with the potential of todays specs, hence, why they require more power or certain system requirements to operate.

I love Live and will always work around the issue, but it's a little crazy.

 

Use the presets in Ozone that arent labeled (high Latency)

If you are getting same results on default presets...

Upgrade ur PC or use another mastering plug.

Ozone 5 is designed for modern, faster machines.

 

Nikon.. Just from reading all that I got a headache.
I seem to be stable on studio one 64 bit.

I used to get a lot of delay (lag) openning plugins on able ton that mAde me rage. That was before I upgrade my sound card. I haven't mess with ableton in a long time.


P.s. what sound card do you use

 

Nah, that was the case with vsti's when we had single core processors, same again with dual and so on.. No matter the cpu power of its gen there will always be new plugins that will use it up in a couple of instances.


As mentioned it's an ableton bug causing the delay, I used to get the problem a while back with sylenth but thankfully all is good now. The main problem about that for me was it also delayed all automations, was a right pain trying to get it lined up in time and even then when it all sounds good, you render your project and it would be out of sync again.

 

"You're holding it wrong".

Some modules from Ozone need the overhead to work, that's why there is latency.
Ozone is a mastering suite. It's not designed to be used for live recording.

Br,
Olaf

 

You know I scanned it so quick I didn't even notice that he was talking about live recording. I need to get some sleep, this is getting ridiculous.

 

I do a lot of recording real instruments and mixing on the fly, so what I generally do is get a working mix with my plug ins, but if things start bog down, i just go ahead and save that as a "mix selected tracks to stereo master" temporary mix. Then I go back and mute the tracks I just mixed down, and leave the plug ins set for later, but turn them all off. Then when you playback and record, your computer is only working on one stereo track plus what you are trying to record at the time. If you know the number of samples of latency you are dealing with, you can just cut the beginning of the stem file that many samples and move it. And just like voting, remember to "save" early and often.

 

well that's true . If you insist in using Live before mastering you should stick with the eq and simple forms of compression / expansion ( no read ahead ) , bit of reverb maybe and turn off the other modules *yes*

 

For who have a cpu issue, cause from various consequences: Huge Live Set with loads of plugins, HD slow ( 5400rpm), quiet "old" machine …

Take care of several things to make it better for your workflow, to optimize your disk and your cpu:

1.On each OS, Win or OSX, please do maintenance and try to find the best way to make your os viable in the audio-workstation environment. There is tones of tutos on the net,
but if you need help don't hesitate to ask.

2. Ozone is well known having delay problem.Even on a big PT HD or super machine, there is a delay with Ozone. So the best way to work with is to freeze track and leave some cpu power...

3. When you are working with a quiet big session or demanding in cpu, try to put all the audio file in RAM, you can do that on double clicking on it and choose RAM as much as possible.
That gives less HD playbacks problem ( see the "D" on top right of your session).

4.Use Activity monitor( for mac) to monitor any process of your USER mac session, and then close all unwanted programs. Same for win I think , there is an .exe to see all your process and kill all you don't need.

5. Check if your session needs all channels open in your Live Audio preferences . Because if you use just a L/R stereo out and nothing else, and you still have all the channel of your , let's say 16 channel sound card, checked in Live Audio preferences, its ask to Live to watch out every second if there is an income audio in 3/4 or output audio in 14 or in 5/6 etc… All these task ask calculs so cpu hungry.

cheers

 

Usually a good idea to get rid of PDC is to not put Ozone on the master, but create a new track and place Ozone mastering suite on that track and call it something like 'Overall' or whatever...then send all your group channels to the 'Overall' channel, then send it to the master...then only place a limiter in your main master channel, that way you MAY be able to bypass PDC while at the same time attaining much more control over your levels...

If you are into mastering as you go along like me, the important things to have is just your Limiter and Multiband Compressor as they will give you the characteristic loudness and compression you need, but you have to be smart with it, mastering as you go along is a very difficult skill to master, you have to make sure you get your multiband compression and limiting at a standard level where it would give you the mastering sheen you want...and it takes a while to get it right trust me...