Understanding Ableton Buffer Size and Latency

Рет қаралды 152,417

7 жыл бұрын

Here is an in depth guide on how to use Ableton preferences to control latency when using midi controllers or running live instruments through Live. The short answer is a smaller buffer size = shorter latency times however, there is much more to it than that. Here is a tutorial on how to leverage latency vs CPU usage so no matter what you are trying to accomplish, you can set live up to work with you rather than against you. If you found this video useful consider subscribing to the channel. Thanks for watching.
🔊 LEARN ABLETON WITH ME: Via my Ableton Online Courses - courses.seedtostage.com/
🙏 SUPPORT: If you want to support the channel, consider following my music:
EarthCry - linktr.ee/earthcry | Papadosio - www.papadosio.com/
🎧 SUBSCRIBE: Stay on the cutting edge! (Hit the bell so you don't miss new videos!)
kzfaq.info?s...
🎹 MY ABLETON DEVICES AND SAMPLE PACKS:
gumroad.com/seedtostage
🎛 MY SOCIALS:
/ earthcrymusic
/ seedtostage
/ earthcrymusic

Пікірлер: 186

@JoseFlores-mn8pz 3 жыл бұрын

I need to watch this video every once in a while haha

@jfb_surfing 11 ай бұрын

Same… hahaa

@nanannanananan 4 жыл бұрын

thanks I spend whole weekend trying to fix this problem😊 bless you

@davidethan8123 4 жыл бұрын

my buddy was over with his bass and i was watching like 3 other tutorials and i still had no idea wtf i was doing.... then i watch this video the next day and solve the issue within the first minute !!!!!

@_f_unicorn_7941 4 жыл бұрын

You just made that crystal clear cheers! I've only just begun the journey and after all the other frustrating bit, you just made that one easy.

@Danything123 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for taking ur time explaining all this stuff. helps a lot bro!

@DonProcyon 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the info. Very clear and easy directions for adjusting latency problems.

@tharionnia6929 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much for sharing this. You have explained it in full details, making me understand it a bit better.

@Paul-gp5om 3 жыл бұрын

I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how this works, but this video has made things so much clearer :)

@johennes6021 4 жыл бұрын

thank you very much! I am usin Live for years now but didn't know exactly how this works best. I always thought properly setting up MIDI and Audio latency in Live only work in two different folders of the setup menu but you just showed me that I was wrong ;-) Great & very helpful vid!

@djlinusmunich 3 жыл бұрын

Really like your stuff! Keep up the good work!

@edgarpavia912 3 жыл бұрын

Brooo you absolute BEAST. Just learned how to set up some Pre Master Routing. Excited to get some phat mixes but for the first time finally ran into the issue of LATENCY. SO MUCH FUN. Bur dude you absolutely explained it perfectly. TY

@danielgv1526 4 жыл бұрын

Excelent video, man. Most people talk about buffer size without having the slightest idea!

@novachis24 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you! This is very clear.

@jimsaintamour2 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you that was super helpful!

@Deerson 3 жыл бұрын

That's exactly the best video about buffer size!! thanks a lot

@spaceagejunkie 4 жыл бұрын

Just made my recording experience so much better. Been doing this wrong for so long

@SuperHellaLol 4 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Very helpful

@GuidoVerrier 3 жыл бұрын

Wauh thank you finally someone who explains things so I understand!

@ionse 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you man i love you, i was having troubles with my CPU overloading i been trying to fix it changing the CPU usage, freezing tracks and all that kind of stuff, i got an icore 7, 16gb ram 256ssd lenovo yoga 710 and nothing seemed to work for me, then i tried going higher with the buffer size on the hardware setting with the focusrite mix control from my focusrite interface, and that made the change, so no i know i can record on 64 samples and mix on 256 to 512 samples, its weird how this is working for me, but no more overload on the CPU, thanks for your explanation.

@flaviorocha9458 4 жыл бұрын

Very helpful and informative. Thank you

@c.amoroso 5 жыл бұрын

this is the exact video i needed. thanks

@hunter74able 3 жыл бұрын

Great tutorial!! Thanks Bud.

@marcelvansauce2667 4 жыл бұрын

Best explanation. Thank you.

@brycer2203 5 жыл бұрын

great tutorial thank you!

@bruno3000 3 жыл бұрын

THANK YOU MAN!! YOU ARE MY HERO IM GONING TO TEST THIS LATER

@marvin469 Жыл бұрын

Buddy this was a very good explanation, thank u

@HugoBoufflers 5 ай бұрын

thank you so much, explanations are crystal clear!

@jonadamsdrums6649 Жыл бұрын

well done. I never knew about using the tone for the test. going to try this tonight

@peternobis 2 жыл бұрын

very usefull and informative. Thank you for sharing!

@sleepershill 2 жыл бұрын

This is such a useful video :). Thank you 🙏😎

@Trishomusic 11 ай бұрын

Very Good Explanation 👏👏👏

@Tony_Yno. 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the good explanation.

@futurewillow3269 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks brother, I'll give this a try

@chrisstorrer 6 жыл бұрын

Excellent video! This helped me set up my little UR12 Steinberg interface. I wasn't sure if having a higher buffer size was a good thing or not because there was a really nice reverb/delay effect added to my audio when the buffer size was large ~2000 samples. I guess that is just how Ableton deals with large buffers?

@gadielespinoza199 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much, this help me a lot.

@levanmelikishvili4373 3 жыл бұрын

Great tutorial. Thanks

@olf777f 5 жыл бұрын

Excellent that did it thanks, subscribed 😀

@muwrte 5 жыл бұрын

muchisimas gracias, enseñas excelente!

@CosmooreMusic 2 жыл бұрын

thanks for this!

@piperious 13 күн бұрын

fantastic video! Thx so, so much...

@Chordsen 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much 🙏

@joemo4104 4 жыл бұрын

Great Video thank you so much!!!😊

@farber2 4 жыл бұрын

Excellent, just the thing.

@yadinmichaeli12 6 жыл бұрын

Very good explain thank you very much :)

@ctrlartdel 5 ай бұрын

Great Video!

@thirdworldperspective2409 5 жыл бұрын

i was looking for this for sometime now

@thirdworldperspective2409 3 жыл бұрын

Yeah no one gives a damn. Your first statement was enough.

@philippmindrin3202 2 жыл бұрын

great tutorial

@boblenndotart 6 жыл бұрын

Hey thanks for doing this my friend. :)

@kinddmusic 4 жыл бұрын

man, you're dope! thank you!

@Ardila21 7 жыл бұрын

Yes thank you so much.

@Firstinversion899 3 жыл бұрын

Brilliant! Thx

@ThijmenCodes 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@dulmin_ 4 жыл бұрын

700th like from me! You made my life easier...

@thirdworldperspective2409 5 жыл бұрын

thank u very much!!!

@ClayJarvisGuitar 2 жыл бұрын

This is a excellent video and great explanation of latency issues. I’ve only tried using Ableton Live a couple of times and had latency issues so now I can go back and make sure I have the correct settings to start using it again!

@parabel_ 7 жыл бұрын

thank you!! :)

@GraybeardGiffTech 3 жыл бұрын

I know you posted this video ages ago, but I wanted to say thanks and your explanation was great. However, I didn't have the issue of not having a large enough buffer, but I thought I did. I kept making my buffer bigger and bigger and I just kept getting more clicking when I tried to do voice overs. I was all the way up to 2048 and the clicking and quality was horrendous. Then I saw this video and how your discussed CPU speed and I wondered if I was going too high, because I have a pretty nice computer. Perhaps I was creating too large of a buffer (is that a things LOL)? As I lowered the buffer, the recording quality just kept getting better! With a sample rate of 48k and buffer of 48 the quality is almost perfect. I just wanted to say thanks and you gave a superb explanation!

@BRANDONMUNROMUSIC 4 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

@AlexandreSoma 3 жыл бұрын

GREAT VIDEO MAN! But what does the latency compensation is used for and how? Thanks!!!

@plazmatest Жыл бұрын

excellent

@mixchief 6 жыл бұрын

A tip is to set the Tone Frequency to 5.00 Hz for the test tone. That way, you'll only hear what's important to hear, that is, the drop-outs only (while saving your ears and brain a little bit).

@scott_pinzon 4 жыл бұрын

This comment confuses me. Everything below 20 Hz is considered sub-sonic (below the range of human hearing). Did you really mean, 5 Hz? If so, when testing at this frequency, do you hear nothing except you hear clicks when the stream drops?

@sebastianalarcon1204 3 жыл бұрын

@@scott_pinzon he might have meant 5.00khz

@sebastianalarcon1204 3 жыл бұрын

@@sukelully ohh got it! Great idea

@lasolasolaso Жыл бұрын

thanks for ur content! could u tell which model of macbook are u using? and is ur 2i4 the 1st gen? thanks

@creations4theworld 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! I had pieced together some epic vocals and then suddenly there's all this clicking going on. increasing the bufferring speed did the trick!

@Dadaadad268 2 жыл бұрын

Buffer speed?

@vakeevful 6 жыл бұрын

Hi! Which version of macbook do you use?

@avnojista Жыл бұрын

thx

@philosopherserfs2411 Жыл бұрын

great explanation thanks so much, makes much more sense now, I've had it set the same way for years 😅 ooops

@voodoochili12 2 жыл бұрын

This was helpful, but it would have been helpful to explain a bit more about the concept of buffers, what they are in digital audio, and how the example of internet bandwidth informs that. Thanks

@davidjonathandiazrivera4808 11 ай бұрын

Hi,👍which level is the best recommended for the Tone volume to leave it at even if the Test is turned off for the Test? Thanks

@heytheremogwai 5 жыл бұрын

Hey man, so I've worked on setting up my buffer size and dealing with latency....I've done the test, and I have no issues. The input is just lagging a good deal, and no matter how I set it I can't get it right? am I missing something else? (my machine has plenty of power).

@videlladelveen5048 4 жыл бұрын

how do you change the last 3 things on the list and what does it mean if mine is blue instead of orange? Help Please

@ppucds 4 жыл бұрын

I'll echo the others. Great vid man! #subcribed

@starsonmars9429 3 жыл бұрын

I have come across a latency issue with my new laptop and abbleton. It uses the microphone array realtek input and output with the MME when connecting my keyboard. The laptop does have built in Intel SST which means the Asio4ll sample rate has to be increased when recording audio. Might need manual alteration between buffering and driver compensation.

@chrislockwood770 3 жыл бұрын

Is using the driver error compensation another way to solve the same thing?

@harrisfrankou2368 4 жыл бұрын

Sweet. If you were to do a fast midi violin run?... You do this?....then change for recording vox and guitars etc?

@miguellucerooo Жыл бұрын

Does any of those changes you made affect the quality of the sound after export? pls help me its my first time

@leorosendow9728 4 жыл бұрын

If I open kontakt out of qqr daw and use 128 Buffer and Open Albeont live for ex and put 1024, do you know if it will work both or will it tend to any?

@kevinhdirect4582 3 жыл бұрын

Can you share your CPU specs here? Is Multi-core or single core the most important factor to pay attention to when accounting for using low buffer sizes? Great video!

@KjKase Жыл бұрын

Did you find any answer to your question? I have a 12700k I7 CPU and it performs absolutely terribly compared to all the videos I see about this online. I can't get my input latency below 12ms, I don't understand why because my CPU is no slouch.

@chikifree 6 жыл бұрын

in Ableton live 10, you have 2 latency parameters. Input buffer size and output buffer size. For some reason, I can get input buffer size to 256 just fine but the output buffer size starts to pop and click once I hit anything less than 3500 ish. Any thoughts why? My cpu is an i7 6700K 4.0GHZ

@producer1762 Жыл бұрын

saved this to my ableton help bookmark folder

@campbellwaldron2424 4 жыл бұрын

My recordings are still lagging... I have to warp the audio and drag the first transient to the 1 any tips here? I want to be able to just straight up record a loop and not have to play with it afterwards for live style looping stuff

@root729 4 жыл бұрын

Same, need to check these settings closer but i find the first transient is always late!

@Bebopopotamus 4 жыл бұрын

Can you think of any reason why, even though I have a very capable computer with a powerful processor (8th gen i7), that latency still might be an issue? 44.1 at 128 gives me about 18ms of latency and that's not completely safe from artifacts.

@oliberrhy2391 5 жыл бұрын

even with these settings there's still annoying latency. is there anything else i can do?

@stanleyrichardslanka2750 4 жыл бұрын

Bro i dont have an audio interface but i have an asio 4 driver.. How to correct the latency now?

@azile.2335 5 жыл бұрын

so to sum all things up, for recording use lower buffer size , then for mixing songs, use higher buffer size, right? pls correct me if I'm wrong (sorry for my english )

@MusicToHelpYou 4 жыл бұрын

That's exactly right.

@wichomusica 7 ай бұрын

oh i have trying to did what you showed, but my Buffer size botton is not available, i can change it :(

@AudioReplica2023 5 жыл бұрын

So , what about the overall latency?

@kpk1958 Жыл бұрын

Good video. The volume level of your narration could be better matched to the test tone and MIDI controller sound though; it was pretty low relative to those two.

@BookooZenny 6 жыл бұрын

So things appear to be different in Ableton 10. For example, 256 appears to be the lowest you can go, and there are now options to adjust both output and input buffer size. I've reduced the output buffer size as much as possible and I'm still experiencing a bit of latency. Any pointers?

@daveacosta4166 6 жыл бұрын

nothing different, you just have a shitty audio card

@16PsychOfficial 5 жыл бұрын

If you're in 2019 and still struggling with the issue in this comment, look into using your asio audio driver.

@masehnchang6698 5 жыл бұрын

@@16PsychOfficial damn... I put it on asio audio driver and it basically made this video useless. thank you Alec

@fergushill5673 3 жыл бұрын

@@masehnchang6698 omg omg omg omg you cracked it

@wrigna1 6 жыл бұрын

Awesome video! My Ableton's Buffer Size dropdown menu only has 7 options (32 samples-2048 samples) and after trying all 7 of these buffer sizes, the latency is still absolutely terrible on my M-Audio Keystation 88 II. I have 64 GB of RAM and a 3 GHz 8-Core Intel processor. Does anyone know of anything else I can do to get my latency within an acceptable range??? Please help, thanks!

@frodev728 6 жыл бұрын

wrigna1 What audio interface and midi interface are you using?

@biggdrake 3 жыл бұрын

What do I do if the lowest I can drop the input buffer size is to 256 and not the 128? 128 feels like it would work as the 256 is the closest it is to being normal

@jdssurf 4 жыл бұрын

hey dude.............what if im getting latency crap just using my computer keyboard to drum in ableton 10 lite

@enrinycastro Жыл бұрын

Hello, I can't change the buffer size

@osborndane 5 жыл бұрын

Am I supposed to be able to select my launchkey from the audio In drop down? Without that filled in my audio in latency is always 0, but I can't choose anything besides my internal mic from audio in?

@scott_pinzon 4 жыл бұрын

Your Launchkey is a MIDI controller, which means all it sends is data such as key down/key up (on/off for each key), what note, at what velocity you hit it. The Launchkey has no sound on its own; the computer decides what the sound is (kinda like when you're typing words, the computer decides what the font is). So in Ableton terms, this is not considered audio; it's MIDI. Your microphone IS audio. That's why it's the only choice when you're looking at audio in. If you plugged an electric guitar into your interface, you would have that as an audio choice. I'm taking too many words to say, MIDI is not audio; audio comes from instruments, voices, and actual acoustic recordings with sound waves.

@rele2207 Жыл бұрын

Great video. I've a question about the buffering size when I export a song. Do I need to increase it or can it stay at 128 which I use when I record vocals?

@SeedtoStage Жыл бұрын

Buffer size only pertains to the live audio stream it doesn’t matter the settings when exporting.

@rele2207 Жыл бұрын

@@SeedtoStage So it can stay at 128 buffer size when I export? The number doesn't matter anyway?

@rele2207 Жыл бұрын

@@SeedtoStage Thank you!

@aggoldstein 4 жыл бұрын

Does anyone know why I have no drop down option for the buffer size?

@AJForShort 4 жыл бұрын

I don't either, I think it depends on the "Driver Type" that you're using. Can you not change it at all?

@hardcandyjewelry 2 жыл бұрын

What laptop are you using?

@AintSoEZbeingSteezy 2 жыл бұрын

Ive worked on this project 3 seperate times & now all of the sudden i get these crazy clicks & pops. The buffer is grey in my preferences & i have no idea how to change it

@AWALLOFFICAL 4 жыл бұрын

Cpu cranks when I use one preset sound and I have a decent computer I have no clue why it’s doing this

@stevysound 6 жыл бұрын

What about that driver error compensation? What’s that all about? I noticed you have yours at 0.

@SeedtoStage 6 жыл бұрын

stevysound so long as the "monitor" is set to "off" no latency is recorded into the system. DEC is only relevant if you are using live to "software monitor" your audio ins

@djbrambo 3 жыл бұрын

@@SeedtoStage thanks for this video, but I also thought I needed DEC to finalize the latency until being zero. I have no direct monitoring, is that then the excuse to use DEC?