Disk overload when switching on Sync

[Kay Hellmich]

I did investigate further and found something very interesting and probably the root cause. It can be verified easily with the shipped stock templates of SP8 (i.e. the one for Looping - it creates 14 tracks)
To create a little bit of load, just create a scene with all the 14 clips - like shown here:

Play the scene.
Without doing anything on sync, just change the tempo slightly but consistently.
On my machines this alone heavily triggers disk utilization.

Now: It looks like Ableton Link does not provide a super stable tempo - I believe that's a "feature" of Link, it re-adjusts all the time (microadjustments).
For whatever reason these readjustments are slightly "heavier" on my machines than yours. However that is how Link works as it is a decentralized protocol - there's not even a master. Furthermore these tempochanges can always happen "intentionally" when tempo is adjusted on stage during songs dynamically

I concluded 4 things that can easily be reproduced on my machines:
1) Changing tempo in SP heavily affects disk usage (does not trigger anything like that in Live or Bitwig). Hard to say if it is a bug, but is definitely everything but a good implementation.
2) The SP8 implementation of Ableton Link works in the exact same way and does microadjustments in tempo - triggering the same disk-utilization
3) Ableton Link implementation has a bug with the song position: It moves the songposition some 4-8 bars back and fourth when you enable / disable it.
4) Ableton Link has another bug with the default tempo in SP8. It is always set to 120bpm regardless of the loaded song's tempo. The first Link device should take the tempo from the actual track (obviously...), additional ones should adjust to the tempo from the existing Link timebase (also obviously).

But I think the most important thing for me is #1) - tempo changes should not affect disk usage in the way how it is done currently. And that is not even sync related.

cheers
Kay

 

[Number6]

I did investigate further and found something very interesting and probably the root cause. It can be verified easily with the shipped stock templates of SP8 (i.e. the one for Looping - it creates 14 tracks)
To create a little bit of load, just create a scene with all the 14 clips - like shown here:
View attachment 3287

Play the scene.
Without doing anything on sync, just change the tempo slightly but consistently.
On my machines this alone heavily triggers disk utilization.

Now: It looks like Ableton Link does not provide a super stable tempo - I believe that's a "feature" of Link, it re-adjusts all the time (microadjustments).
For whatever reason these readjustments are slightly "heavier" on my machines than yours. However that is how Link works as it is a decentralized protocol - there's not even a master. Furthermore these tempochanges can always happen "intentionally" when tempo is adjusted on stage during songs dynamically

I concluded 4 things that can easily be reproduced on my machines:
1) Changing tempo in SP heavily affects disk usage (does not trigger anything like that in Live or Bitwig). Hard to say if it is a bug, but is definitely everything but a good implementation.
2) The SP8 implementation of Ableton Link works in the exact same way and does microadjustments in tempo - triggering the same disk-utilization
3) Ableton Link implementation has a bug with the song position: It moves the songposition some 4-8 bars back and fourth when you enable / disable it.
4) Ableton Link has another bug with the default tempo in SP8. It is always set to 120bpm regardless of the loaded song's tempo. The first Link device should take the tempo from the actual track (obviously...), additional ones should adjust to the tempo from the existing Link timebase (also obviously).

But I think the most important thing for me is #1) - tempo changes should not affect disk usage in the way how it is done currently. And that is not even sync related.

cheers
Kay

I agree with all that except I don't have the same issue and I'm running Windows 11 with 8.0.3. Nobody here has commented either but I notice in this forum that not many people are doing what we are doing.

I don't anything I've written can be ruled out (except reboot?) because you've tested on multiple machines.

Now you mention timestetching, that could be the smoking gun, sadly I'm on no position to test. I would write full steps to reproduce like I did here for something else (see first post).

Confirmed Bug: Controllers don't arm correct tracks when using folders

This is an issue since the beginning of time it seems, and I can reproduce this issue in 8.0.2 Windows (unfortunately!). If somebody could try to repro this with any Faderport or Mackie or Atom SQ (Song Button -> Page 2 - Rec) that would be great - thx! Here are the steps to repro: Create say...

studiooneforum.com

So support can follow the steps, paste here and if I get a chance over the next few weeks I'll have a go (or somebody else may).

Good luck with the ticket.

 

[Kay Hellmich]

Unfortunately I found another thread here in this forum, that confirmes the issue:

Automated tempo track causing pops/crackles and CPU spikes

Hello everyone. I'm new here. Just registered to hopefully get some help since Presonus has not been very responsive. The title of this post pretty much sums up my problem. Has anyone with S1 7 had similar problems with automated tempo tracks? The weird thing is, I can play the audio tracks...

studiooneforum.com

that's very bad news for me
It also means that the clip launcher in SP will definitely cause issues on stage when there's a sync base on Ableton Link when you have musicians on stage that do tempo changes. Especially because Link is a protocol which does not allow to "lock" a certain bpm in, but every Musician is in control of the tempo. An accidental touch of a tempo encoder may in the worst case crash SP Audio Playback or at least cause issues like drop outs.

I don't have illusions that this will get fixed any time soon - but that looks like SP is not the right record/playback tool for me.

And I can only warn musicians of using SP with audio playback (i.e. the clip launcher) on stage while controlling S1 tempo with an external clock source - especially if the clock source can provide dynamic tempo.

 

[Number6]

Can you not bounce down the time stretch as a workaround? Then again if you are time stretching on the fly in a live scenario that won't work (never come across that scenario myself).

 

[Kay Hellmich]

The problem is that my recording must be in sync with the DJ playing live. The performer is using analog gear which is synced through Ableton Link (typically). It is an immersive installation - but certain elements of it are live. I know already certain songs, that have constant tempo changes in it, that need to in sync on stage - how could that be synced with the recording in SP if we need a real beat source link Ableton Link? Timecode does not help here, it would be more of an issue to work with that. I will wait for the replay from Fender but I believe that Studio Pro cannot be used in my scenario.
I would have used Bitwig or Live for the recording, but the venue is immersive and I need to record Dolby Atmos in 7.1.4 at least (on 16 Channels) - that is a nightmare in Bitwig and Live.
I thought that StudioPro would perfectly fit into that - being the only immersive DAW I know that supports Ableton Link.
But the limitations of Ableton Link in SP seem to be a showstopper.

I was not even aware that changing tempo could be an issue within a DAW nowadays

Let's wait what Fender says.

 

[Number6]

Well I'm glad a few more people are drawing attention to Ableton link and Studio Pro.

 

[Kay Hellmich]

The problem is even more that the song position also changes when your tempo changes.
That is confusing me completely - makes no sense at all - because it will not be beat-synced afterwards and definitely break any audio-playback and cause clicks. You loose your timeline and jump around.

If the tempo on stage is changed, the song position is moved.
Was this never tested?
Is everybody assuming that tempo is always constant?

A typical scenario of a clip launcher is that you have the clips in sync with i.e. Traktor. (And of cause Traktor or its "operator" will change bpm consistently)
This can never work with S1/FSP.
I understand that for a linear DAW in the studio this may not be a typical scenario.
But as soon as the Clip launcher was released, playing along with a DJ (being it Traktor, Maschine, Live/Bitwig or anything else) is a totally normal use-case.
?

 

[Number6]

I appreciate you say nothing to do with timecode, but that's the kinds of thing I was talking about here, of course I just assumed timecode but what you say would make sense here as well:

Studio One Sync Ableton Live via MIDI Timecode

Hi I'm sync'ing Studio One 7.1.1 (master) with Ableton Live 10 via MIDI Timecode (note I'm NOT using Ableton Link for the purposes of this exercise) using Windows 11 and LoopBe. I don't have to use LoopBe I guess (maybe there are better methods? And yes I know.... Ableton Link probably is...

studiooneforum.com

This may be off topic so I'll just post the link here and leave it at that.

Regardless Studio One really needs to improve it's Sync'ing with other apps in a number of ways.