That means 85% of those 32-bit users are actually unable to take advantage of hardware they already own. Ableton tells us that 85% of current 32-bit Live users have more than 4GB of RAM. And not everyone seems to be aware of that. Nearly everyone has more than 4GB of RAM, meaning they’re going to benefit from the 64-bit version of the software. Years later, the picture looks different. Back in 2012, a non-trivial population of Live users fit that description.
32 lives on pc update#
Okay, so you need a 64-bit OS, you need to update your plug-ins, and you need to have more than 4GB of RAM for this to be useful. (There are wrappers you can use, and these were more popular when DAWs first started to go 64-bit, but let’s not go there – especially since part of the idea here is to improve stability!) Most plug-in developers have already updated their plug-ins for 64-bit, but some haven’t. (Microsoft has their own FAQ to help you figure out if you’ve got the right OS for 64-bit.)Ħ4-bit DAWs also need 64-bit versions of plug-ins.
32 lives on pc mac os x#
Running a 64-bit DAW requires a 64-bit operating system – for Live, that’s a 64-bit version of Windows Vista or later, or Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
32 lives on pc software#
So if 64-bit is better than 32-bit, why did Ableton keep making new 32-bit versions of its software for over five years? Live added 64-bit support way back at Live 8.4 – that’s the summer of 2012. You might not even know that was the cause of a crash: Live crashes, you curse, and you might not realize that the choice you made on that dropdown when you downloaded could be a factor. Oh, yeah, and one other thing – running out of RAM can cause a DAW to crash. As you load big sample libraries, and add plug-ins or ReWire clients, and as your Live set grows, all of that uses up memory. If you have a computer with 8GB or 16GB or more of RAM, there’s some reason to want to use all of that memory. (The theoretical limit is so high, you can’t even buy a computer that comes close to hitting the ceiling, at least for the foreseeable future.) What does more memory mean when you’re making music? But 64-bit software can address all of your RAM, on any computer sold today. With 32-bit software, Ableton Live and all of its plug-ins can use only up to 4 GB of available RAM (or even less on some versions of Windows). But add some additional digits, and you have more available numbers – and you can call a greater number of individual people.
32 lives on pc code#
Leave out the area code and country code, and you eventually run out of available phone numbers. If you have a higher word length, you have more precision, and the software can address more memory. So when we refer to “64-bit” or “32-bit” software, we’re talking about the word length, or precision, of the numbers the software uses to reference memory. Okay, let’s be honest, even lots of fairly tech-savvy don’t really know what these terms mean, let alone what impact they have in real-world use.
What are 64-bit and 32-bit, anyway?įirst, you know, 64-bit is twice as much as 32-bit, which means it’s twice as … well, 32 more … double the … That has given us a chance to understand the thinking behind the decision and to help figure out what users might want to know.īut first, it’s actually worth understanding what 64-bit music software actually does. This is a development that has some implications for Ableton Live’s compatibility, stability, the pace of features and improvements, and that question of “wait, which version am I supposed to choose on the Ableton download page?” Ableton invited CDM to their offices across town here in Berlin, to discuss the change. Later this year, Ableton Live will only be available in a 64-bit version.
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