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Live streaming Ableton production sessions to learn from one another and share the experience


Polytrix

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Hey! Hope you're all well during these crazy times.

I've been thinking about this more and more more recently. I've found you all very helpful and inspiring in the past and I've reached the stage where I feel as though I'd quite like to live share my production sessions I think mainly with the aim of getting advice and tip offs to achieve certain sounds and finish projects. I adore collaborative working and it really pushes me to finish stuff, I think it kind of adds the pressure I need to finsih things. I've got endless unfinshed projects some of which have really good ideas in already and I keep telling myself to put more time into regular production sessions to actually get my first album fully done. I'd like to share the experience if anyone would like to join me. This isn't any attempt at shamless self promotion or ego driven at all, that's not what I'm like at all if any of you know me but it's more sort of to share the experience and get tip offs in the moment. I'd like to regularly do this and stream it no matter how good/bad it ends up being. 

Do any of you already do this? If so link me up to your streams please. 

How would I go about setting this up? 

?

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I've never livestreamed a desktop session (old consoles a couple of times and B movies a bunch) but pretty much everyone uses OBS.

 

Not sure what your CPU load looks like but I know a lot of PC game streamers use a whole second computer and capture device for streaming (literally capturing the monitor output from one computer on the second one), to lighten the CPU load on the computer running the actual game.  Depending on your hardware and how CPU intensive your Live sessions are that might be a concern.

 

I can't really give you much advice beyond that, though.

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Seems like there are already many others streaming their production sessions with Live, have you checked any out? https://www.twitch.tv/search?term=ableton live production

I have learned so much tricks and tips just off youtube searching "ableton live tutorial" and just trying interesting things out on my own. This is good because it builds this knowledge into your muscle memory through practice and adds tools to your creative toolbox. Combine this with playing/creating something new regularly and that's basically my formula for getting better at this stuff.

Personally I do not watch streams almost at all because I feel that almost always it is very slow going and nothing happens. I mean my own jam sessions are 2-3 hours sometimes and it's just spent tweaking 1-2 loops and searching for sounds trying out different things. Nobody wants to see that shit really and dumping it all on someone random and asking "hey what am I doing wrong" is asking a lot probably. It's another thing of course if I am doing a collaboration with someone, but in this case I am personally invested in the project as well.

Sorry to be too much of a downer, but this seems like exactly the service you get from some real producers who do 1on1 Live tutoring.

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I did it for work, that exact same thing, at the beginning of the lockdown, to teach my classes. It can be pretty CPU demanding (depending on the quality of the vid and the sample-rate of the project), and induce lots of latency (up to 30s in my experience).

I went for OBS and Soundflower, software-wise.

Do you want to live-stream your walkthrough or, simply to record then stream it ?

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All very fair points. Yeah it wouldn't necesarily be all that entertaining for viewers I suppose. Yeah, I watch tonnes of tutorials anyway. To be fair, I'd probably quite enjoy watching any of you make stuff regardless of if there's not that much going on. I suppose I idealistically hoped it would be easier. My laptop probably doesn't have the juice. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi !

After read this post I went to twitch platform to try by myself and get a better opinion of it. I think the feedback you will have depend of what you construct with others and what you're looking for. We get the chance in these times to have some cheap and good technology to be able to share our work in real time ! I would say that you have to try at least to get another experience !

For example in the same time I streamed, someone came, and ask to do something together. He had all the instrumental part and the curiosity to add some voice on it. So we did, and now there is a trip-hop song in its way ! I connect everything with my sound card and OBS Studio, it's quite simple to parameter everything and tutos are on YouTube if you want confirmation of your settings.

The last thing I would say is : if you do things by your own, why not share this time with others in order to make grow your tree ? ?

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I'm getting major buffering on Ableton Live suddenly. Fuck knows why as I'm running a year old laptop with 8th gen i5 processor which I thought would be able to handle Live. And I thought I solved it by sorting out the Power Management and setting it to high performance but it started to play up tonight again so I doubt I can do any live streaming at all excuse the pun lol.

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On 5/23/2020 at 3:24 AM, TheBro said:

I'm getting major buffering on Ableton Live suddenly. Fuck knows why as I'm running a year old laptop with 8th gen i5 processor which I thought would be able to handle Live. And I thought I solved it by sorting out the Power Management and setting it to high performance but it started to play up tonight again so I doubt I can do any live streaming at all excuse the pun lol.

Thats weird because I started having issues a couple days back with Live too. I would have one project with barely any plugins or devices (no software instruments at all!), all the tracks MIDI only and one audio track to catch the sound from my hardware.. and fans spin up like it's takeoff and Live says it's at 20% CPU. My laptop is maybe 4 years old but it's a top of the line macbook and I don't remember not being able to hear my monitors over all the fan noise!

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On 5/23/2020 at 2:25 AM, odyriin said:

Hi !

After read this post I went to twitch platform to try by myself and get a better opinion of it. I think the feedback you will have depend of what you construct with others and what you're looking for. We get the chance in these times to have some cheap and good technology to be able to share our work in real time ! I would say that you have to try at least to get another experience !

For example in the same time I streamed, someone came, and ask to do something together. He had all the instrumental part and the curiosity to add some voice on it. So we did, and now there is a trip-hop song in its way ! I connect everything with my sound card and OBS Studio, it's quite simple to parameter everything and tutos are on YouTube if you want confirmation of your settings.

The last thing I would say is : if you do things by your own, why not share this time with others in order to make grow your tree ? ?

Thanks, those are all good points.

I guess streaming is a better way to make friends and find collaborators than just putting sounds up on soundcloud or something like that.

 

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4 hours ago, thawkins said:

Thats weird because I started having issues a couple days back with Live too. I would have one project with barely any plugins or devices (no software instruments at all!), all the tracks MIDI only and one audio track to catch the sound from my hardware.. and fans spin up like it's takeoff and Live says it's at 20% CPU. My laptop is maybe 4 years old but it's a top of the line macbook and I don't remember not being able to hear my monitors over all the fan noise!

It is strange. I'm thinking about updating my Soundcard although I don't believe that's the answer. Also I'm going to email Ableton tech support to see what they say.

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In soundcard even the ones near 100€ or less are fine. Personnaly I get an AudioBox96USB from Presonus and it's good, people with Scarlett aswell far from I heard. But with computer it's another issue : more your CPU is high, more you will have performances in your back. Between 400/500€ value normally the work could be done. Did you try to close every programs in order to be sure that all the performances go to the ones you want and only them ? Maybe close all the hiddens ones who take some "energy" to concentrate everything in your software and your stream.

 

On 5/24/2020 at 12:03 PM, thawkins said:

Thanks, those are all good points.

I guess streaming is a better way to make friends and find collaborators than just putting sounds up on soundcloud or something like that.

 

You could do both. I think when you get your automatism into this streaming way to show your work, when it's charging/you take a break, it could be time to announce your last release or to chat about things you love and make your music this way ; there is so much possibilities ! Find your particularity and let it be, you will have the receipe for enjoyment ?

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I will eventually get round to doing this and I really appreciate the continued commenting. That's nice.

 

I've actually started to have weird glitching/popping issues on my system too! Focusrite have told me to change the driver on my 1st gen 6i6 to a different beta driver (I upgraded to their most recent driver online and since then even when steaming audio on spotify/youtube etc it's like it won't keep up) - ??build in obsolecence??!

 

I can see where this is going to me needing a new interface. Mad annoying. To be fair they seem pretty helpful tho. Fingers crossed.

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54 minutes ago, Polytrix said:

I will eventually get round to doing this and I really appreciate the continued commenting. That's nice.

 

I've actually started to have weird glitching/popping issues on my system too! Focusrite have told me to change the driver on my 1st gen 6i6 to a different beta driver (I upgraded to their most recent driver online and since then even when steaming audio on spotify/youtube etc it's like it won't keep up) - ??build in obsolecence??!

 

I can see where this is going to me needing a new interface. Mad annoying. To be fair they seem pretty helpful tho. Fingers crossed.

Remember that streaming stuff is not only dependent on your audio interface - it's also your network connection and CPU (which actually handles the audio before it gets to your interface).

Before ditching your interface for a new one I would suggest shutting off everything unnecessary and just trying to see how many tracks at what latency your DAW can handle input-output wise.

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No this is just straight out glitches whilst streaming audio. Pain in the arse. 

Apparently it could be DPC Latency Issues whatver that means.

 

''

 would like to see if you are experiencing a DPC Latency Issue, as I have seen DPC cause issues like this in the past. If you are unfamiliar with DPC, it is the protocol that Windows uses to assign Priority to Drivers and Devices connected to your computer, and if Audio isn't assigned enough priority, various issues can occur.

- First, please follow the steps in the linked guide for optimizing your version of Windows for audio:

Optimisation for Windows 10

- Please also try all available USB Ports on your computer, as well as different USB Cables

- Next can you download this program, LatencyMon, and run it while playing back audio at the same time, making sure to actually replicate the drop out or disconnect problem.

- After replication click Edit > Copy report to clipboard. Paste this into a NotePad and save it. Send that in your reply.

- Please also go to the Drivers Tab, sort by Highest Execution, with the highest on top, and send a Screenshot of that page.

- Also go to the Processes Tab, sort by Hard Pagefaults, with the highest on top, and send a Screenshot of that page.

- How to take a screenshot in Windows: 
''

 

Might help other people

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On 6/1/2020 at 8:54 PM, Polytrix said:

I've actually started to have weird glitching/popping issues on my system too! Focusrite have told me to change the driver on my 1st gen 6i6 to a different beta driver (I upgraded to their most recent driver online and since then even when steaming audio on spotify/youtube etc it's like it won't keep up) - ??build in obsolecence??!

Have you tried whacking the buffer size a little bit in the MixControl software - Oddly I had it also stutteruttering a week or two ago but changing the buffer size to something else (and later in the week shifting back to what it was before) seemed to fix it.

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It's weird but I've found there's a sweet spot on my interface where if I INCREASE the buffer past that it's actually more likely to give me buffer problems.  I get better performance at 256 or 512 samples than I do at anything over 1024 (I used to bump up my buffer length all the way to 2048 for mixing when I started using hardware inserts regularly, until I figured out the reason I was having buffer underrun issues was that I needed to make my buffer smaller). Not saying that's your issue, just an example of how this stuff can be weird.

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The worst was updating a laptop that shipped with Windows Vista to Windows 7.  Turns out a lot of Vista-era laptops' onboard audio hardware just didn't work with 7 and the result was random periods of extreme slowdown and audio stuttering that would last 10-20 seconds, every 5-10 minutes if audio was playing in any application.  Known problem, no solution was ever found.

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I've actually identified the issue.

 

It's ''usbport.sys - USB 1.1 _2.0 Port Driver, Microsoft Coropration'' - that's the source of my latency.

 

Someone please tell me how the hell to  uninstall that as it's clearly corrupted! According to device manager,  its driver has been updated but I think there is maybe a way to access hidden drivers or something to update those or actually uninstall them so windows refershes it. Seems like a common problem too but I can't seem to find the manager to replace it. Interestingly my wifi connection was also introducing latency so I'm now ethernet cabled. 

 

Please god someone tell me how to do this!

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8 hours ago, Polytrix said:

I've actually identified the issue.

 

It's ''usbport.sys - USB 1.1 _2.0 Port Driver, Microsoft Coropration'' - that's the source of my latency.

 

Someone please tell me how the hell to  uninstall that as it's clearly corrupted! According to device manager,  its driver has been updated but I think there is maybe a way to access hidden drivers or something to update those or actually uninstall them so windows refershes it. Seems like a common problem too but I can't seem to find the manager to replace it. Interestingly my wifi connection was also introducing latency so I'm now ethernet cabled. 

 

Please god someone tell me how to do this!

Uhh don't touch that. This is what makes your USB ports work. I don't care what the device manager says.

Edit: for example IIRC some laptops have the built in keyboard hardwired to the USB port as well internally. It's a cheap hack but if you blow your USB drivers away then you basically lose the keyboard and can't do anything (remember, external keyboards also connect through USB). Might be a convoluted scenario that rarely happens but why risk it. ?

Rule of thumb here: if you don't know what it does and how to fix it or what is going on... then don't touch it. Windows is pretty tolerant for users messing around, but you can just end up with a situation where you mess something up and then have to fix it going into safe mode while following some weird online tutorials.

Issues like these are why I just got a Mac - since hardware and software is made by the same company, this avoids a lot of the issues that come from laptop hardware itselt not working correctly with the software. Basically I can be reasonably sure that the computer on it's own is working correctly, without going through some damn root cause analysis forensic experiment.

Lately of course Macs get their share of issues too..

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