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I've been having these problems for weeks now and I haven't been able to find a decent fix for it.

If I make a complex track on Reason, and Reason alone and my DSP is not high, and it's overloading my processor and then take this track and open it rewired into Ableton, my processor usage is usually around 80% and when I hit play my soundcard is simply not able to handle all the information.

I'm currently using a Roland Cakewalk UA 25 EX external USB soundcard.

I though the sound card could be causing problems, so I lowered the resolution 48 and raised my latency to the maximum so the system would stay stable.

It just didn't, it doesn't ever get stable anymore.

If I do manage to get reason's consumption under control as soon as I start making new tracks on Ableton my processing goes beyond 100%.

I have never had this kind of problem in this magnitude. And I used to route all tracks from reason to separated tracks into Ableton, making Ableton my Mixer for Reason.

It worked like a charm, I managed to drop various VSTs on the tracks and re-do all the mixing and mastering via Ableton.

Now it's simply impossible. I noticed this is specially true when I use the True Bass Refill - which seems to grab a lot of RAM.

My main problem is: I'm not using more effects than I used to. Even older track projects are running like a piece of dodo. Even when I made all my production on Reason, after everything was done, I would route it into Ableton to master it (that 'The Glue Compressor' is simply my favorite compressor ever) but now that's impossible!

Anyways, the only solution I can think of is reformatting my PC. But I REALLY didn't want to do that, I currently have no space for a backup and I don't want to spend money on a new hard drive.

EDIT: BTW: I'm running a Athlon 64 X2, with 2GB Ram and Windows 7 64b. I know it's a outdated spec, but then again, why would I start having problems just now?

Ableton+Reason never seem to use more than 800mb, at least the task manager doesn't indicate anything more than that.

EDIT2: After checking something around stackoverflow it seems that computers naturally get slower, specially when various people share it.

I'm gonna try reformatting everything this week and then post the results.

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  • Did you ever reformat? Did you ever find a solution?
    – JoshP
    Oct 10, 2012 at 23:58
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    Yeah, I updated my computer. =3. Got a new Quad Phenom and about 8GB of RAM. Everything runs smoothly.
    – Johnny Bigoode
    Oct 19, 2012 at 14:28

1 Answer 1

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I think that the RAM on your computer is the problem.

Each time you install an update to Windows it will take up a tiny bit more memory just for the OS. I have an old laptop with Windows XP on it. With a clean install it would play DVDs just fine. After installing all the updates it would use more memory for the OS and DVD playback would be jumpy.

For Windows 7, you should be able to upgrade to at least 1GB preferably 2GB. Newegg.com is a good place to go to get the RAM.

EDIT:

Since you have 2GB of RAM already, that doesn't seem to be the issue. It is still possible that one of the Windows updates has caused the problem. Make sure that you check for updated drivers for your external sound card and check for updates to Reason and Ableton Live.

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  • Oh diddly-doppye claps. I'm gonna try this (downloadmoreram.com) and then see if I can get some extra cards. To be honest, I'm not sure how much RAM I have on my PC, I'm guessing it's 512mb =S - Wait, does that mean I should downgrade to Windows XP?
    – Johnny Bigoode
    Mar 23, 2012 at 21:19
  • 512MB seems a bit light on the memory for Windows 7. You might want to check in task manager to see how much you are currently using. Look at the performance tab. It will tell you how much Physical memory you have and the status bar will tell you what percent of the memory you are using. And no, I don't recommend downgrading to XP:)
    – Friend Of George
    Mar 23, 2012 at 21:56
  • as stated, I actually have 2gb of ram, but the applications don't use more than 800mb together. would a dedicated audio card, like a Universal Audio DSP Accelerator, help?
    – Johnny Bigoode
    Mar 26, 2012 at 15:45
  • I wouldn't think that a dedicated audio card would make much of a difference. As far as I know, the audio processing that occurs in a DAW is performed only on the main processor of the machine. (Please someone correct me on this if I am wrong.)
    – Friend Of George
    Mar 26, 2012 at 16:33

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