Disk Dropouts

General
1

Hi everyone,

I’m experiencing a major issue with Ableton Live 12, which I have been able to reproduce on two different Macs. I use AbleSet to control my live setup and I’m encountering unexpected disk overloads, leading to audio dropouts during performances.

My Setup:

• MacBook M3 Max & second Mac with M1 Pro

• Ableton Live 12 Suite (latest version)

• AbleSet controlling track playback, MIDI & automation

• Internal SSD with plenty of free space, no external drive used

• Buffer size tested from 128 to 512 samples

• Sample rate: 44.1 kHz

• No VST plugins active, only native Ableton functions

The Issue:

• During my live show, a disk overload occurs after some time , even though CPU usage is only around 2-4% .

• The D-symbol in Ableton starts blinking , and all audio tracks experience short dropouts .

• The issue is unpredictable but seems to happen more frequently in medleys with many tempo changes.

• It still happens even with Warp disabled on all tracks and with a reduced project size (originally 45 GB → now 20 GB).

• AbleSet is actively running and controlling various aspects of the show.

What I Have Already Tried:

:white_check_mark: Rebuilt the entire project from scratch → No improvement

:white_check_mark: Disabled Warp on all clips → No improvement

:white_check_mark: Disabled the tempo track (set a fixed tempo instead) → No improvement

:white_check_mark: Reduced project file size (fewer tracks, shorter files) → No improvement

:white_check_mark: Tested Ableton with no plugins at all → No improvement

:white_check_mark: Adjusted buffer size between 512 and 128 samples → No improvement

:white_check_mark: Tested running the project from an external SSD → No improvement

:white_check_mark: Haven’t tested yet: Running Ableton WITHOUT AbleSet

My Suspicion:

Since the issue occurs on two different Macs and persists even after optimizing the project , I suspect that AbleSet might be interfering with Ableton’s disk streaming process .

Possible reasons:

• High API polling rate in AbleSet → Overloading Ableton’s audio engine?

• AbleSet’s network/UDP communication → Delaying file loading?

• AbleSet’s clip control or MIDI triggers → Causing unexpected disk reads?

My Questions for the Community:

:question: Are there any known issues with AbleSet causing disk overloads in Ableton Live 12?

:question: Is there a way to reduce AbleSet’s polling frequency or API requests?

:question: Has anyone else encountered this issue and found a workaround?

I would really appreciate any help or insights! :raised_hands:

I tested the project without locators, and it seems to be working for now. So, maybe the locators are causing the problem.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hey @Saschpak, welcome to the forum!

I’ve heard of similar issues before, usually these disk dropouts are related to Live being overwhelmed with the number of locators. Usually, saving and reopening your project file after adding new locators or modifying existing ones solves the issue.

It’s a kind of hacky workaround, but for now, I haven’t heard of any other solutions, unfortunately.

If you like, you can DM me your project file or upload it to my support inbox so I can try to reproduce the issue on my machine (M1 Max MacBook Pro).

I hope this helps and look forward to your reply! :slight_smile:

3

Yeah a similar issue happens to me after I use the automatically place locators tool like Leo is saying. But my workflow now is:

place locators > collect all & save project > quit live > reopen project and continue.

1 Like
5

Thank you!

However, the issue doesn’t arise after placing the locators. It occurs randomly within the project after saving and reopening it.

6

Just adding one more thought here. One of my bands uses one large project with all of our material and multiple versions/medleys of some songs; our project is 15GB and 24 hours long (yes, I realize that is totally crazy). AbleSet works SO well at managing all of this.

Two things I have to do to make sure playback is smooth due to a GUI issue in Live:

  1. zooming in a good bit (so only a song or two are visible at one time)
  2. scrolling down in Arrangement view to the bottom of that window (where I mostly have busses without any audio files).
    If I’m scrolled up with the majority of my audio channels visible, I can get playback issues (usually first noticed as lagging video output).

I don’t know if this would help your issue, but it’s worth a shot.

1 Like
7

I used to have all my songs in one Ableton file (setlist) (it was about 50GB) and had the same issues. Have you tried using Ablest Project File option? It is awesome. We have over 250 songs. It indexes them and then loads them one at a time on-demand. Never had an issue since

1 Like