Buffer size probably makes the biggest difference and it's basically immediate. Also, on projects with many tracks, using buses to group similar tracks and apply effects like reverbs to the groups instead of the individual track reduces the stress on the CPU by a lot. I know it's probably a rookie mistake to do individual reverbs, but hey, you gotta start somewhere, and I learned that lesson the hard way.
@@caroyjano there is definitely uses for having reverb on individual tracks but yeah good point on using buses for adding same amount of reverb on multiple tracks
FINALLY!!! An Ableton tutorial that actually SHOWS you how to fix a problem instead of listening to some hack who is more interested in hearing themselves ramble on forever without EVER getting to the point.
@@AdilConstantineMusic hey Adil, thanks and great video. Direct monitoring is also my go to and completely eliminates latency. However, then I just hear my guitar clean when recording and I'd like to hear all the effects that I'm adding later so that option isn't applicable and with all the other tricks, I never get rid of latency in order that I don't hear it anymore. What's your take on this?
Great tips. I found your vid doing some additional research because I just started using my ipad running Drambo and AUM to sequence MIDI and send audio to my laptop running Ableton thru USBc. I've notice latency in the printed audio and MIDI when examining the timeline. Drambo's buffer only goes as low as 128 while AUM goes all the way to 32. BTW, I'm an old school vet, in it since the mid 80s. Appreciate your insights, there's always new things to learn.
OMG! Thank you so much! Ive never had latency issues until I started buying some heavy plugins that were taxing my system. All of a sudden this happened and I was like.... what the **** is going on. Was such a simple fix. I tried changing buffer and pulling my hair out until you showed me the simple menu item in Ableton....lol. Im a fairly new Ableton user so it passed me by. Thanks again bro! You made my day !!🤪😎💯
holy f***ing dog balls! I have been producing in Ableton for 10 years now and I never knew about that 'reduce latency while monitoring' option. That literally fixed all of my problems at the click of a button! I was trying to bash out some live drumming on my push and it was just a little too laggy to be playable. Dude, you saved me so much pain and frustration. I can't believe it was that simple. You litterally made my day. I can't thank you enough for this video! Keep up the great work dude.
If you want to monitor, but don’t want the latency issue… here’s the workaround: 1. Duplicate your vocal track. 2. Turn on monitoring on one channel, and leave it unmuted. 3. Turn monitoring off for the other track, and mute it. 4. Arm both tracks and record. 5. When complete, simply delete the track with monitoring on. And unmute the other track. BOOM! Your track will be perfectly in sync, and you can monitor while recording.
You are one of those few who knows what you're doing. Your solution gave me an idea to fix my problem. My audio output device was also adding a lag somehow in my input mic. I fixed it by switching my output device while recording and did all the other things you mentioned, issue is fixed. thanks so much!
Really helpful thank you! Few qu's : 1) does a lower sample size reduce quality in anyway? 2) my default SR and pitch C option was set to normal, rather than high quality - would that make a difference? 3) would you advise freezing tracks before recording anything live and then unfreezing upon export? 4) Which of the above do you think works better for midi vs recording audio live? I'm recording guitar, vox and midi, have noticed latency of all of the output recordings, but I can't go below a 750 sample rate without getting distortion
for live guitar playing start with 96 khz frequency and 32 bit sampling. If 32 bit sampling causes cracking, then increase it to 64 bit (which work for most audio interfaces of Focusrite 3rd gen level and above). Motu M2 has better latency and is chosen by electric guitar players.
I have issues with transitioning from verses/chorus etc in Ableton. I have to pretty much perform a song from start to finish to make it sound right, because if I don't, each sections sounds disjointed. I've tried a million things to make this go away but nothing has worked. I'm surprised there isn't a YT video on this issue.
If you use an externals effect device, on your audio channel, you can choose the input and direct monitor out( to sound card) but have a monitor on the audio track turned off.
Hi. I know nothing about producing, but I really enjoy singing. I've always recorded all my project by myself up until now with Ableton Live 11 and it always gave a pretty decent result for having my files just sit on my hard drive. But tonight (hence how I found this video) it seemed to be recording normally but then when I listen back there was a delay of my voice relative to the track that I couldn't hear when I was recording, only when listen back. I gathered the track was playing delayed and me singing over the delayed track gave the delay to my voice. I tried your methods but they didn't work. And I really didn't change nothing in the setup from back when it worked. I was wondering if you could help me more closely as I know no one that has this kind of knowledge personally. 😢
Hmm ... I wonder what changed. Good thing is 1) we can fix your current recording 2) we can take a look at your setting. Best way to do so if you join the community discord and we can chat on there discord.adilconstantine.com
@@jane_huh despite Adil being super available to help I didn't have enough time to resolve it.. and also while I was trying, a new problem arose so 😂 lucky me ahah
None of this worked for me. What I did to help was deselect "Delay Compensation" (the option above "Reduce Latency When Monitoring") Strangely that reduced lag a lot back to what I was used to, just a little.
I have started using Ableton live about a week ago and so far I can't how it can be better than studio 😅... Logic Pro also has latency issues while in Studio One you can use a buffer size of 2048 and it will compensate the latency for you when recording and it just works.
i just don't understand how it can be this difficult, ive literally bought a new computer from 2019, last year, and I still have latency. I've never not had it, i dont understand how after so much money spent in the 2020's how this is still an issue. Why can't i just record my vocals without this horrible latency?
bro i have no cpu loading ( it hits around 18 only) and i set the buffer size to 128 and still have latency issue when i recored midi !! whats wrong with ableton ?? i use hp laptop win 10 everything is up to date ?? plz any help
Yeah I know, when you use guitar effects in the daw like Guitar Rig you have to just monitor your clean signal. In these cases if I wanna hear my guitar rig signal then I do monitoring from DAW and when done I'll zoom in on my track, and drag it back until it lines up with the rest to fix that latency.
Unfortunately none of this worked for me. In any combination. It absolutely got better, but I still get lag with Ableton 11. I do just want to reiterate that I appreciate the video though! I love how you got right to it and didn't spend half an hour explaining nuances. Thumbs up and a subscribe here for you being a solid fella.
Gig performer (vst host with very low latency) to Rogue Loopack. Monitor off in Ableton and of course a good driver error compensation in ms (du to routing of the audio via loopback, etc.) for input (Loopback) in Ableton that you can calculate sending a clap via the audio input of the sound card. Perfect !
Hey man, have you ever had issues where you go to hit “undo” and instead of undo-ing what you did, the undo bar just says “change threshold 1” or something completely different? And then you’re stuck because now you can’t undo whatever you did? Most annoying Ableton glitch ever… also sometimes UAD plugins disable themselves for no reason as soon as I add one onto a track. Let me know if you ever experienced this
1. Are you using a stereo-to-stereo cable? Make sure both ends have 2 black rings. If there are 3, or 1 is missing, switch the cable. 2. Make sure you’re input is line level. 3. Plug just the cable in and see if it still causes noise. If it does, bad cable. If it doesn’t, your computer may have a bad ground.
Direct monitoring is only useful if you don't want to hear the effects as you record. For a singer hearing the compression/reverb/etc can be very useful as they're recording.
@@ThatKidMarcus95Yes. 1. Duplicate your vocal track. 2. Turn on monitoring on one channel, and leave it unmuted. 3. Turn monitoring off for the other track, and mute it. 4. Arm both tracks and record. 5. When complete, simply delete the track with monitoring on. And unmute the other track. BOOM! Your track will be perfectly in sync, and you can monitor while recording.
Yes you can unfreeze a track. Although once you flatten it then you can't unflatten it so I recommend you duplicate the track and deactivate the original so you can always have the original untouched.
Thanks for the Video. The direct Monitoring, for example on my UAD Volt 276 is amazing, the disadvantage is, you can't use plugins like autotune for live monitoring for your artist. Sometimes it's better zu monitor the vocal chain or plugins like autotune, that the artist can work with them, wirh his voice. I guess there isn't a perfect Solution.
Why is Ableton's "reduce latency while monitoring" option an option at all? I presume the reason it's switchable is because there's a downside to enabling it, so does anyone know what the tradeoff is?
Reduced Latency in Ableton does not always work for two possible reasons. 1. Live still needs to calculate everything you have on Master channel so do not have anything on Master channel that creates latency. Same for group channels if your recording channel is nested in it. 2. Disabling a plugin does not remove its latency. It still calculates the latency to have fluid playback when you disable and enable the plugin. You have to remove the plugin to remove its latency.
@@bukowskimohoAll DAWs have latency. And it really depends on how many/ what plugins are being used and computer specs. I run Ableton on an IMac with 24GB ram, and 2 TB SSD. I can run 20 tracks, at least 5 plugins each, a master bus chain, and monitoring on, with zero issues.
I solved this problem only by installing ASIO driver for my win 10 and choosing it in Driver Type in preferences and ASIO4ALL in audio device setting. Good luck.
If you’re referring to my computer keyboard that’s the Keychron K2 V2 amzn.to/3oyuT3D If you’re referring to my midi keyboard then it’s the Komplete Kontrol s49 mk2 amzn.to/3N7RdaY
Hey guys, I've got a problem, which seems to be more complicated. My lowest option for buffersize in Ableton Live Lite 11 is 256, why is that? Having it set at 256, it makes everthing distorted. If I increase the samples the lantency is coming back. CPU seems to be fine. I really don't get it and I'm running out of options here :D Would be happy if someone could help :)
The buffer size options is based on your CPU capabilities. The lowest buffer wise will be the hardest on your CPU. My guess is you have an older CPU or just not powerful enough
There is something wrong with ableton live and Windows. I have had a macbook pro 13inch with a 2.9 i7 and never had any latency issues. Now I have a ryzen 9 7900x and struggle with latency on Windows 11.
Which trick did you find most helpful?
Buffer size probably makes the biggest difference and it's basically immediate. Also, on projects with many tracks, using buses to group similar tracks and apply effects like reverbs to the groups instead of the individual track reduces the stress on the CPU by a lot. I know it's probably a rookie mistake to do individual reverbs, but hey, you gotta start somewhere, and I learned that lesson the hard way.
@@caroyjano there is definitely uses for having reverb on individual tracks but yeah good point on using buses for adding same amount of reverb on multiple tracks
I didn’t even know about the “reduced latency when monitoring” setting. That did the trick for me. Thanks!
TBH they're all prety useful
I think buffer size did it for me. It was set to 256, I changed it to 128. I think that was the issue for me.
FINALLY!!! An Ableton tutorial that actually SHOWS you how to fix a problem instead of listening to some hack who is more interested in hearing themselves ramble on forever without EVER getting to the point.
@@BedlamAndBones thank you 🙏🏼😊
you are a LEGEND thanks so much
I need some help with Ableton Live Lite. The options aren’t the same as in this video. Thankful for any advice
what u need ?
Legend! The 'reduced latency when monitoring' option worked for me. Cheers man.
@@Eden_Okay ayyy happy to hear that man
@@AdilConstantineMusic hey Adil, thanks and great video. Direct monitoring is also my go to and completely eliminates latency. However, then I just hear my guitar clean when recording and I'd like to hear all the effects that I'm adding later so that option isn't applicable and with all the other tricks, I never get rid of latency in order that I don't hear it anymore. What's your take on this?
Great tips. I found your vid doing some additional research because I just started using my ipad running Drambo and AUM to sequence MIDI and send audio to my laptop running Ableton thru USBc. I've notice latency in the printed audio and MIDI when examining the timeline. Drambo's buffer only goes as low as 128 while AUM goes all the way to 32. BTW, I'm an old school vet, in it since the mid 80s. Appreciate your insights, there's always new things to learn.
thanks, been having latency issues and this sorted it out :)
@@matthewhunt5057 Awesome! Glad to hear it :)
OMG! Thank you so much! Ive never had latency issues until I started buying some heavy plugins that were taxing my system. All of a sudden this happened and I was like.... what the **** is going on. Was such a simple fix. I tried changing buffer and pulling my hair out until you showed me the simple menu item in Ableton....lol. Im a fairly new Ableton user so it passed me by. Thanks again bro! You made my day !!🤪😎💯
holy f***ing dog balls! I have been producing in Ableton for 10 years now and I never knew about that 'reduce latency while monitoring' option. That literally fixed all of my problems at the click of a button! I was trying to bash out some live drumming on my push and it was just a little too laggy to be playable. Dude, you saved me so much pain and frustration. I can't believe it was that simple. You litterally made my day. I can't thank you enough for this video! Keep up the great work dude.
Glad to hear it fam! 🙏🏼🧡
If you want to monitor, but don’t want the latency issue… here’s the workaround:
1. Duplicate your vocal track.
2. Turn on monitoring on one channel, and leave it unmuted.
3. Turn monitoring off for the other track, and mute it.
4. Arm both tracks and record.
5. When complete, simply delete the track with monitoring on. And unmute the other track.
BOOM! Your track will be perfectly in sync, and you can monitor while recording.
THANK U!!! REDUCE LATENCY IS THE MY SAVED MY PSYCIC FROB BLOW!
You are one of those few who knows what you're doing. Your solution gave me an idea to fix my problem. My audio output device was also adding a lag somehow in my input mic. I fixed it by switching my output device while recording and did all the other things you mentioned, issue is fixed. thanks so much!
My pleasure, happy to help 🙌🏼
Really helpful thank you! Few qu's : 1) does a lower sample size reduce quality in anyway? 2) my default SR and pitch C option was set to normal, rather than high quality - would that make a difference? 3) would you advise freezing tracks before recording anything live and then unfreezing upon export? 4) Which of the above do you think works better for midi vs recording audio live? I'm recording guitar, vox and midi, have noticed latency of all of the output recordings, but I can't go below a 750 sample rate without getting distortion
Thanks for the tricks, worked very well for me !
Glad to hear it 🙂
for live guitar playing start with 96 khz frequency and 32 bit sampling. If 32 bit sampling causes cracking, then increase it to 64 bit (which work for most audio interfaces of Focusrite 3rd gen level and above). Motu M2 has better latency and is chosen by electric guitar players.
THIS FIXED EVERYTHING YOURE AMAZING!
Happy to hear that 🧡
I have issues with transitioning from verses/chorus etc in Ableton.
I have to pretty much perform a song from start to finish to make it sound right, because if I don't, each sections sounds disjointed. I've tried a million things to make this go away but nothing has worked. I'm surprised there isn't a YT video on this issue.
Using the "Reduced latency when monitoring" option fixed lag when playing virtual instruments. Thank you very much.
Perfect! Happy to help :)
Thank you very much for your video, it's helped me immensely!👍👍👍👍👍
@@stevenc7383 glad to hear it thank you 🙏
If you use an externals effect device, on your audio channel, you can choose the input and direct monitor out( to sound card) but have a monitor on the audio track turned off.
Hi. I know nothing about producing, but I really enjoy singing. I've always recorded all my project by myself up until now with Ableton Live 11 and it always gave a pretty decent result for having my files just sit on my hard drive. But tonight (hence how I found this video) it seemed to be recording normally but then when I listen back there was a delay of my voice relative to the track that I couldn't hear when I was recording, only when listen back. I gathered the track was playing delayed and me singing over the delayed track gave the delay to my voice. I tried your methods but they didn't work. And I really didn't change nothing in the setup from back when it worked.
I was wondering if you could help me more closely as I know no one that has this kind of knowledge personally. 😢
Hmm ... I wonder what changed. Good thing is 1) we can fix your current recording 2) we can take a look at your setting. Best way to do so if you join the community discord and we can chat on there discord.adilconstantine.com
im having the same issue here with Ableton Live 12 Lite. Did you find out what the issue was?
@@jane_huh despite Adil being super available to help I didn't have enough time to resolve it.. and also while I was trying, a new problem arose so 😂 lucky me ahah
THANK YOU!
@@danonthebass my pleasure 🧡
If your on pc make sure to use ASIO over direct 12 and then use focusrite usb asio (if you have a focusrite interface)
@@raulalaris yesss good callout
I can change the buffer and reduces the input latency but how do I change the output latency ?
the direct monitoring switch on my focusrite box "TIP" was the key for me...! thanks!!!
Nice! Glad that worked for ya
Thanks a lot man🎉
@@johnvictor976 my pleasure 👍
I have ableton but it only eats output buffer size not input. Does that make a difference??
None of this worked for me. What I did to help was deselect "Delay Compensation" (the option above "Reduce Latency When Monitoring")
Strangely that reduced lag a lot back to what I was used to, just a little.
anyone know which wireless
keyboard hes using?
Kaychron K2 v2 :) amzn.to/48pVKAl
I have started using Ableton live about a week ago and so far I can't how it can be better than studio 😅... Logic Pro also has latency issues while in Studio One you can use a buffer size of 2048 and it will compensate the latency for you when recording and it just works.
i just don't understand how it can be this difficult, ive literally bought a new computer from 2019, last year, and I still have latency. I've never not had it, i dont understand how after so much money spent in the 2020's how this is still an issue. Why can't i just record my vocals without this horrible latency?
bro i have no cpu loading ( it hits around 18 only) and i set the buffer size to 128 and still have latency issue when i recored midi !! whats wrong with ableton ?? i use hp laptop win 10 everything is up to date ?? plz any help
Dude, thanks so much
My pleasure 🧡
I am new to Abelton and I am on the menu to change the buffering size but it wont let me change it at all. It always stays at 256
It could be that you need to change the setting in your sound settings. I am assuming you are running Windows?
so if you monitor guitar through direct monitoring how do u have stuff like guitar rig in your ear and not just a clean guitar sound.
Yeah I know, when you use guitar effects in the daw like Guitar Rig you have to just monitor your clean signal. In these cases if I wanna hear my guitar rig signal then I do monitoring from DAW and when done I'll zoom in on my track, and drag it back until it lines up with the rest to fix that latency.
Unfortunately none of this worked for me. In any combination. It absolutely got better, but I still get lag with Ableton 11.
I do just want to reiterate that I appreciate the video though! I love how you got right to it and didn't spend half an hour explaining nuances. Thumbs up and a subscribe here for you being a solid fella.
Gig performer (vst host with very low latency) to Rogue Loopack. Monitor off in Ableton and of course a good driver error compensation in ms (du to routing of the audio via loopback, etc.) for input (Loopback) in Ableton that you can calculate sending a clap via the audio input of the sound card. Perfect !
Hey man, have you ever had issues where you go to hit “undo” and instead of undo-ing what you did, the undo bar just says “change threshold 1” or something completely different? And then you’re stuck because now you can’t undo whatever you did? Most annoying Ableton glitch ever… also sometimes UAD plugins disable themselves for no reason as soon as I add one onto a track. Let me know if you ever experienced this
thank you so much!!
I did the same procedure but output from the laptop tones sound very distorted. What should i do?
1. Are you using a stereo-to-stereo cable? Make sure both ends have 2 black rings. If there are 3, or 1 is missing, switch the cable.
2. Make sure you’re input is line level.
3. Plug just the cable in and see if it still causes noise. If it does, bad cable. If it doesn’t, your computer may have a bad ground.
Thank you this helped very much :)
Happy to help :)
Direct monitoring is only useful if you don't want to hear the effects as you record. For a singer hearing the compression/reverb/etc can be very useful as they're recording.
Useful? Hearing reverb for singers is incredibly important for many.
Do you know how to get it to work so I can get hear the reverb/autotune with no latency?
@@ThatKidMarcus95Yes.
1. Duplicate your vocal track.
2. Turn on monitoring on one channel, and leave it unmuted.
3. Turn monitoring off for the other track, and mute it.
4. Arm both tracks and record.
5. When complete, simply delete the track with monitoring on. And unmute the other track.
BOOM! Your track will be perfectly in sync, and you can monitor while recording.
can you unfreeze a track and edit it again? I guess I'll give it a shot and see!
Yes you can unfreeze a track. Although once you flatten it then you can't unflatten it so I recommend you duplicate the track and deactivate the original so you can always have the original untouched.
Thanks for the Video. The direct Monitoring, for example on my UAD Volt 276 is amazing, the disadvantage is, you can't use plugins like autotune for live monitoring for your artist.
Sometimes it's better zu monitor the vocal chain or plugins like autotune, that the artist can work with them, wirh his voice. I guess there isn't a perfect Solution.
Why is Ableton's "reduce latency while monitoring" option an option at all? I presume the reason it's switchable is because there's a downside to enabling it, so does anyone know what the tradeoff is?
CPU usage as he stated. If you’re just editing you can turn it off to save processing and use it when you’re recording to keep good time and tempo.
Reduced Latency in Ableton does not always work for two possible reasons.
1. Live still needs to calculate everything you have on Master channel so do not have anything on Master channel that creates latency. Same for group channels if your recording channel is nested in it.
2. Disabling a plugin does not remove its latency. It still calculates the latency to have fluid playback when you disable and enable the plugin. You have to remove the plugin to remove its latency.
Thanks for your input
it's actual fact. @@AdilConstantineMusic
So Ableton is crap at recording, the only daw that can handle latency professionally
@@bukowskimohoAll DAWs have latency. And it really depends on how many/ what plugins are being used and computer specs.
I run Ableton on an IMac with 24GB ram, and 2 TB SSD. I can run 20 tracks, at least 5 plugins each, a master bus chain, and monitoring on, with zero issues.
I solved this problem only by installing ASIO driver for my win 10 and choosing it in Driver Type in preferences and ASIO4ALL in audio device setting. Good luck.
Thanks bro beans your the man
You bet 👊🏼
You've forgot about ASIO4ALL, with my audio-interface and your tips I could get as low as 25ms latency, with ASIO4ALL I have 0
hi what keyboard is that ?
If you’re referring to my computer keyboard that’s the Keychron K2 V2 amzn.to/3oyuT3D
If you’re referring to my midi keyboard then it’s the Komplete Kontrol s49 mk2 amzn.to/3N7RdaY
Hey guys, I've got a problem, which seems to be more complicated. My lowest option for buffersize in Ableton Live Lite 11 is 256, why is that?
Having it set at 256, it makes everthing distorted. If I increase the samples the lantency is coming back. CPU seems to be fine.
I really don't get it and I'm running out of options here :D
Would be happy if someone could help :)
The buffer size options is based on your CPU capabilities. The lowest buffer wise will be the hardest on your CPU. My guess is you have an older CPU or just not powerful enough
@@AdilConstantineMusic
Thank you for your answer :)
Which kinda means I need to get a new laptop?!
@@t1gert0dont think thats the case, i got a brand new computer with the same issue, rayzon amd processor is powerful
I'm having the same issue, did you ever solve it?
@@iridescent6397 I'm not really mking any progress. :(
Have you found a solution?
I don't have an option to reduce latency in Ableton Live 11 in Windows under Audio in Preferences. What do I do?
Thanks.
I can't change buffer size. It doesn't give me the option.
None of these videos ever help
ty brotha
I got you fam 🧡
There is something wrong with ableton live and Windows. I have had a macbook pro 13inch with a 2.9 i7 and never had any latency issues.
Now I have a ryzen 9 7900x and struggle with latency on Windows 11.
Facts! I have a laptop with similar build.. And my 2013 Mac has had better results
Ryzen 9 has known latency issues. Random stuttering, drop outs, crackling and popping sounds.
Direct monitoring solved it for me, thank you so much man! I really seriously appreciate it
Glad I could help :)
Get an RME audio interface. Very low latency! Thanks for the tips.
legend
Appreciate it man
🐐
@@Polaco.ls.303 🙏🏼🧡
Yes mate! 256!!👌👌👌
buy a new cutting edge sysdem