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Okay, I'm not exactly the most computer smart guy especially when it comes to sound stuff but I know a little. I'm using ableton 8.2.2 and When I try running more then 3 massive instances at once I get lag and audio drop outs.

I have 2.5gigs of ram 2.2ghz duel core processor. I have a vestax vci-300 DJ controller and I'm running all the audio from that, from what I understand it's supposed to have a pretty decent sound card built in.

When I try to play my songs my CPU gos to 100%. I'm using a laptop and it has a defect it runs a little hot, I have a cooling pad hooked up though.. Could that have something to do with it??

Any help / advice much appreciated!

Thank you.

don't use massive yo

Wow that was really helpful, thanks.

you need either a better cpu or more ram to handle it which you won't be able to upgrade on your laptop as massive is a resource hog
also make sure you're using asio drivers if that vestax has em otherwise asio4all

It running hot can definitely play a role; I had a computer that had heating problems and even Reason would drag it down when it got really hot or converted power to the fan.

You also might have settings enabled in Massive that you don't need, e.g. high-quality mode, extra voices, effects enabled that aren't getting routed, etc.

This is one of the reasons people use audio, bounce each sound audio, then layer the audio, same effect, alot less cpu uses running massive

I NEED HQ on, it makes a big difference on most of the noises im using. Also I'm trying not to use a lot of voices.

Dublicious wrote:This is one of the reasons people use audio, bounce each sound audio, then layer the audio, same effect, alot less cpu uses running massive

Im not quite following you, can you explain this to be in more detail please?

you saying I should layer the audio after the song is written? I was thinking that. I would like to be able to just do whatever and not have lag.. Just wondering if what I need is more RAM or a soundcard.

if its running hot it could be throttling. download cpu-z and see what speed your cpu's running at. what cpu is it? a 2.2 core 2 duo should be able to run 3 instances of massive, unless you're using tons of voices. how many voices are you using, and at what sample rate?

im trying to run 7 instances of massive 3 or two layered on top of each other at a time. I'll download that program, thanks. Most of the noises are 1 voice 3 of them have 3

Okay its running at 801.7 MHZ some times it jumps up to 2.2 or 1.6 but it's mostley right there. the computer is a little hot but not to bad with this cooling pad.. Without the cooling pad the whole thing shuts off sometimes... Is there anything I can do to fix this shit??

Edit- im not sure if im understanding this thing right, it jumps up to 2.2 whenever I do something on the computer like load a page or open a program.

Okay, When im playing the song it jumps between 1600 mhz and 2200 is that okay?

yeah thats speedstep, it slows down when you don't need any cpu. seems to be working ok, as long as it jumps up to full speed when required.

what sample rate is massive running at? if you're running at 88 or 96 then this can also tax your system, might be worth stepping down to 44.1. also use the freeze track option in ableton, this'll deactivate massive and render it to audio.

is massive a cracked copy? there are known issues with some of these versions.

Dublicious wrote:This is one of the reasons people use audio, bounce each sound audio, then layer the audio, same effect, alot less cpu uses running massive

This! I dont know what audio recorder you have in ableton (Edison is FL) but record your track into this and bounce it back into the playlist then you can use the same instance of massive to work on your next one etc. Doing this is also the way you resample to make those mental sounds. It's a good habbit to get into because Midi uses alot more cpu than audio. Takes a bit of getting used to but it will ultimately result in less cpu usage and more control over the finished sounds as opposed to keeping it as midi

As people have said try and get into the habit of bouncing your audio once you've got a synth patch and riff how you want it sitting in the tune.

1. Save the preset
2. Take a note of the riff/melody in midi form (how it is on the piano roll).
3. bounce the midi to an audio sample, do this by either soloing out the track section of that synth and rendering the project so its 'just' that audio, or daws like reaper allow you to bounce a midi track to audio by right clicking and selecting 'render track to audio and explode to new track'. There are other ways of doing this too, find the best one that suits you.
4.remove the instance of the VSTi.

Now you can either continue to process the audio from the synth by dropping it into a sampler and applying more processing to it, or add an FX chain to the track with the sample on it.

If you really need to go back to change something fundamental like the melody or tone quality in a way more processing won't solve bring back the instance of massive, call up the patch and refer to your noted melody/riff.

Get used to this process. Bigger more complex songs will require this to be done to save on CPU, MIDI is more resource heavy than having a simple WAV file on a track, or using a sampler. Its 'rendered' out into a basic WAV format rather than being a virtual ADC oscillating and going through a crap ton of processes, its obviously more process heavy, running to many commonly causes CPU issues.

peace.

VirtualMark wrote: also use the freeze track option in ableton, this'll deactivate massive and render it to audio.

This, don't bother bouncing it to a wave unless you have your sounds exactly as you want them.
Its much easier to unfreeze a track to make changes than it is to reopen the patch and bounce it to audio again

deadly habit wrote:you need either a better cpu or more ram to handle it which you won't be able to upgrade on your laptop as massive is a resource hog
also make sure you're using asio drivers if that vestax has em otherwise asio4all

OMG, somehow I over looked the part where you said use AISO drivers! I got asia4all and I can run all the layers of massive and it runs great!! Thank you!!!

Freeze your tracks down! Massive eats CPU like a fat kid shovels down twinkies. I can rarely get more than 2 instances of it going at a time and even that will give me clicks and pops.

even though i use a 2.5ghz quad core (which isnt too too powerful) im able to run about 70-80 massives max (i freeze all my fx when working on the song)
first i make a full intro and have that bounced as i literally like using all the cpu on the basses.
after creating the whole bass section i make a separate project with everything bounced to audio and then add all the sweeps and fx (as well as mixing down in this project).

Yeah turn off all effects on the massive track and solo it and bounce that out to wav. Bring it back in and replace the massive instance with the audio clip and turn effects back on. In doing that you also gain the ability to chop up the sound.

But yeah, another reason I dislike massive. I can run as many sytrus instances I want and I have never seen the CPU reach 40