I’ll look into that. It isn’t blasting 100% constantly but you can tell it’s on if you get me.
But having said that, I could probably do with clearing it out a bit systems wise and making sure all is ok.
Still have nothing but good things to say about it. It’s an amazing piece of kit.
But after a year of updates, most of them brilliant, it’s still missing the one thing that kept bugging me from day one, the lack of options to create longer sessions and more coherent pieces that simply requires more than access to sixteen samples, patterns and song sections at once. Eventually, I just ran into that one wall too many times.
It’s a need I’ve always had, one that I identified early on and kind of hoped would be adressed. But one can’t expect gear to do things in the future it doesn’t do today, so it’s not the BBox, it’s me, and I need to switch to gear that allow me to work with longer sets and more samples without loading new projects.
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thoughts on a potential replacement?
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A laptop 
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yeah honestly mate, like im saying, I use a 2013 MacBook Air, to be fair its the top of the range i7 but still won’t be anywhere near your 2018 MacBook pro
I was getting the fan coming on and just cleaned up all my ableton libraries etc so it wasn’t constantly looking for things in the background, runs beautifully. I also keep my laptop for pretty much only Ableton so i have plenty of free hard drive space and not many other programs running in the background.
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thanks, i’ve tried resetting the SMC but i didn’t notice any difference. using a can of compressed air and giving the fan and everything else inside a good clean definitely helped. i hadn’t thought about organising the ableton library, file organisation is my weak point and the ableton file structure has always been a mystery to me. any tips?
the other thing i’ve been meaning to try is this thermal paste mod.
Not for the moment. I’m borrowing an Octatrack, just to have something to work with for a few sets I’m doing in the summer. Feels good to be back on an instrument which I’ve known for so long.
But in the long run, don’t know just yet. I feel pretty comfortable not knowing, though.
It does come down to the fact that I’ve had a few musical excursions this year from which I feel I’m done now, so there’s that, too.
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The whole ITB / OTB debate is really interesting and I’ve definitely gone back and forth with this… went from messing around with software like Rebirth to getting a Roland synth, which was where I taught myself some of the basics but the whole experience felt so clunky to my young brain that I never made or learned that much. Then got heavily into guitar and pedals for 10 years or more, which it sounds like other people have too - the physicality you get with that (plus guitar itself), and building a board that you can gig with, is something very hard to give up.
On the synth / electronic side of things, I had owned Ableton and a series of decent plugins for a number of years, which I had been slowly working with but only sketching ideas - I think I was too tentative with so many options to really get stuck in to anything. It was only on getting the DT that things properly ‘clicked’ for me and I ended up creating almost straight away. Something about limitations I guess, it having a clear function, and a more hands-on approach definitely kicked off some creativity. So I was very OTB-minded for a while and this reinforced that idea.
So after convincing myself that a ‘compact hardware’ setup with the DT, a couple of desktop synths, mixer, and even guitar and pedals was THE way forward, and DAWless was absolutely the best (would still be my preference live, do not trust any laptop I’ve owned), I am now veering towards ITB again. I think trying to create a finished piece of music is so much easier and quicker ITB, when you have a handle of what you’re doing with plugins, mixing etc. The DT gets me going, for creating a polished and structured song I don’t personally think it’s worth limiting yourself to that approach. Also the style of music I make now basically requires plugins and greater flexibility, hardware alone wouldn’t cut it here.
For me, a hybrid OTB/ITB setup making use of Overbridge is the best - I can arrange things so much more quickly in a DAW, test ideas etc, and then go back to the DT and play / mangle stuff. The 2 complement each other well. But this is all a very recent realisation (maybe assisted by being literally stuck in a box during lockdown??) and I think I was quite stubbornly anti-laptop for a while due to some notion that all music had to be performed on ‘instruments’ (even if they’re all mostly programmed and automated anyway).
It’s worth trying different approaches and seeing what works for you basically. I could have said that before this rant but where’s the fun in that 
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Just have a big clear out, use the Ableton browser to point towards your sample folders and keep all your songs saved as separate projects. Also, use the “collect all and save” function when saving a project, that way it will be reading all your samples etc from the same folder and not searching several folders etc.
Check the activity monitor in utilities, it might not even be Ableton that is stressing your CPU!
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Ditto all of the above lol
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I have one folder where I save all my. ALS projects individually. I don’t use samples, just record audio which are saved within these individual ALS folders. Looks organised to me. I could move all my finished ALS project files to another folder and keep the ones I’m currently working on, but I wouldn’t have thought that would make any difference seeing as they’re all separate project files? Perhaps I’m misunderstanding something
I very much relate to your post!
I was always toying with the idea of hardware but felt that its value-for-money compared to the world of software plugins was a poor deal…that‘s until I got a Digitakt and realised that for instruments too, the whole is more (or sometimes less!) than the sum of its parts!
I made stuff on the DT at a speed, ease, and joy that I hadn’t felt ITB up to that point.
So from there I was convinced, it’s gotta be hardware for me! Now I own a bunch of gear and am glad I do! But as I added more stuff I realised that the increasing options were making it more difficult to create again…similar feeling to what I had ITB, only now I was realising that hardware’s limitations made it easier for me to act with purpose and immediacy and make choices with intent and confidence.
So over the past few months I’ve been exploring creating ITB again, and with the added maturity and clarity that my work with hardware has given me, I now feel different working ITB. Translating the learnings from hardware to software, I can now muster the discipline and confidence to lead with my intention (ie I want to achieve this - I believe this is the right tool for it) rather than be flustered by all the options available.
So today I have a “hardware station” and a “ITB station” in my studio and enjoy both immensely! (of course they are wired up together also through a patchbay…oh boy the mathematics of that! 
)
I really appreciate everything hardware for the hands-on quality, the immediacy, the consistent interfaces (ie an OT is an OT is an OT :)), the sound quality and the feeling that I am playing instruments.
At the same time I really appreciate everything software for its mad flexibility, the amazing sound quality that can be had with the right tools, the sheer editing and arrangement power, and the refined user experience when it comes to arranging, editing and mixing.
I understand why people get passionate about the respective camps - I did too for a while - but am wisening up to the fact that I am free, able and lucky to use the best tool for the job at hand, rather than the other way around
And just because I called it “a job”: Since I approach my software setup with more clarity and more of a music-focus than a tools/engineering-focus, I’m enjoying playing a nice Kontakt-based piano or Massive X via my Kawai MP11 as much as mangling samples in real-time with my OT. So in a way, my computer + DAW + VSTs is/are starting to feel more like an instrument in my hands as well.
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I think that’s a good point. As someone that has used hardware samplers mostly, my current ITB workflow is very much inspired by or perhaps an extension of how I made music on an MPC or my Digitakt.
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Totally agree. Using an OT for years has shown me what I want from a sampler and how to achieve it in software.
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That’s a really good point about bringing lessons you learn from hardware back to ITB. I think learning the Elektron workflow with a clear sense of purpose there has fed back into my understanding of DAWs and how to make use of things - like automation, P-locks, resampling etc. I’m often thinking about what is possible (or not possible / more difficult) with either approach.
I like that it’s not a linear thing, you don’t just have to stick to one approach and progress in that direction. Basically it’s been a weird and unpredictable process but none of it has been a ‘waste’ really, except I do wish I had focused more on either hardware or software more fully and learned what I know now a little sooner. Musicians’ regrets eh…
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Hmmm, no that all sounds good, like I said, try looking at the activity monitor to see what your mac is actually doing to stress it out?
Could be anything running in the background that just needs reinstalled or removed. Or maybe you’ve just got a faulty MacBook? It definitely should nt be stressing out just running ableton with no samples unless you are using a tonne of CPU heavy synths and plugins.
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my activity looks fine, i’ve looked at this before and it’s always Chrome that taxes the system the most next to Ableton. one thing i’ve yet to try is moving my Ableton folder from my desktop. i hadn’t really thought about it before, but perhaps that’s not a good place for it. it’s not that big a file atm though.
a lot of people with MBPs report the same issue, so I’m not alone here. i still think the crappy thermal paste Apple use does effect the heat sync. i’m a bit scared to do it though.
i think it is the visual aspect … in a DAW i have the full overview what’s going on
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Or even better, just load them all into RAM.