Your DAW is sick. Let's fix it.
OBD diagnostics for your DAW. Catch CPU spikes, latency issues, and audio dropouts before they kill your session.
CPU impact: 0% when idle. Runs only when you ask it to. No background process. No daemon. No scheduler. It wakes up, scans, prints results, and exits. Your session is never touched.
Zone Out. Dial In. Create.
DAW Doctor is a macOS diagnostic tool built for Ableton Live producers. Think of it like a code reader for your car — except for your studio. Run a scan, get a diagnosis, get back to making music.
No more guessing why your session is spiking. No more Googling "Ableton high CPU fix" at 2am mid-session.
| Problem | What DAW Doctor Finds |
|---|---|
| Plugin overload | Which device is spiking, and by how much |
| Sample rate mismatch | Driver vs. project vs. interface conflicts |
| Buffer pressure | Too tight for your track count, too loose for latency-sensitive work |
| Disk bottleneck | Slow read speeds killing sample playback |
| Thermal throttling | CPU pulling back clock speed mid-session |
| Background process spikes | What else is eating your headroom while you produce |
| Audio dropout history | How many, how often, and likely why |
- 🔍 Full System Scan — CPU, RAM, audio buffer, sample rate, dropouts, thermal state
- 🎛 Ableton Project Analyzer — scans your
.alsfile and flags what's eating your CPU - 🚨 Background Monitor — watches your system and sends macOS notifications when things go wrong
- 🛠 Fix Commands — doesn't just tell you what's wrong, gives you the shell command to fix it
- 📊 Session Reports — export a full diagnostic report with timestamp
- 💡 Tips Mode — producer-focused tuning tips for a clean, fast session
git clone https://github.com/papjamzzz/daw-doctor.git
cd daw-doctor
./setup.shThat's it. Setup installs dependencies and creates a clickable DAW Doctor.app in your Applications folder.
Click the app in your Applications folder or Dock.
Or from Terminal:
ablAnalyze an Ableton project:
./run.sh analyzeRun as a background monitor:
./run.sh monitor- macOS 11+
- Python 3.8+
- Ableton Live (any version)
Session is running slow. Plugins stuttering. Buffer maxed out. You're in a creative flow and your machine is the one thing killing it.
DAW Doctor gives you answers in seconds so you can get back to what matters.
Built for producers, by a producer. Free. Open source. No fluff.