www.metamindmusic.com/workflow ► Grab Your Producer Roadmap - 7 Simple Steps To Take Your Songs From Start To Finish. Download Your FREE Pro Producer Roadmap PDF
This is the first guy on RUclips who clearly explains Ableton File Management processes. Hundreds of Ableton so called "Guru" on RUclips totally neglect this very important topic. You will end up in a mess if you don't understand Ableton File Management processes. Thank you very much Author :-)
This explains it. Unfortunately, when I first started Ableton, I saved my very first project as "test project". Then every actually new song that I started and saved, it all got saved under that first container " test project" . like you said at 4:40 , I learned the hard way that If you try to remove those new projects and save them somewhere else, all my files went missing. The only way I found to fix this is to open your project > save live set as to your new desired destination. Files will be missing as it's still trying to pull from the ORIGINAL samples folder, in my case the one found in "test project". Search for the files there, it will find them. THEN, collect all and save and now you have a new project with all the files/samples stored properly within.
I'm a Reason user and it's got two options 1 save project (load samples, patch, presets from drive, or drives) or 2 Save self contained project (saves all samples, patch, presets in the single project file).
Thanks a lot, yes i lost various music`s the last years as for saving wrong, even i am not native english speaking , this helped me, and now i know i am not alone with this problem... My name is Alex too, so a big friendly Thanks again from Alex to Alex ;)
This was SO helpful, thank you so much. Originally I was saving a bunch of different songs and tracks into just one project folder... Question--I'm still struggling with the samples that I import into Simpler. Whenever I open a project with a Simpler track, it says that media files are missing, or that the sample is "offline". What am I doing wrong here?
This is helping me so much! Thank you. I move a few things and I’m already seeing results. Awesome information I wish I had then I 1st started with ableton. This should be the 1st step you take before even starting to make chunes IMO.
I spent a whole day moving files and deleting things now it’s time to move projects files after I open collect all and save! I am limited with my MacBook Pro so every GB of hard drive space is needed. I’ve learned a lot after I watched this🙏 and I’ll bet I learn more. Hope I can ask you some questions from time to time if I have them. Hope all is well.
getting ready to watch your video! sounds good and what I am looking for. QUESTION: When I arm the Record button(audio track) in Ableton, I get a DISK FULL warning and that recording will stop in 60 seconds. Is this a Disk folder management issue? Ho would I go about fixing this? is this familiar? THANK YOU!!!
Looking for assistance, on mac but whenever I collect all & save, nothing collects. Wasn’t having this issue a few years back, would love some guidance. Great vid & have wonderful days ahead!
Meta Mind Music - Nice video. Maybe you can help? I found an old SSD but it's small. I have a larger one I currently use for Ableton + attached storage. I'd like to put my samples folder on the new SSD on the theory it's faster than USB mechanical attached storage. I'll keep the current location for 'safety' for a week or so. If I copy 87 gigs of samples to the SSD drive and eventually delete the original location, my projects will of course freak out when they open - samples missing. I SHOULD be able to just point them to the new location, on the new folder on the small SSD, and away we go right? I've learned long ago such things are not a give with Ableton. Any advice or thoughts? Thanks
Loving your channel, Ive prettifying much managed to to this, but bumbled through it and wasn't sure exactly how it worked. you have just answered so many question for me. Thankyou
Thank you for the help! Have you noticed any problems with saving, say, 10-20 different iterations of one song in the same Project folder? I'm afraid it would slow down Ableton. I'm also afraid of overwriting something in my other set when saving a new iteration in the same Project folder.
Hi! I am not sure what happened but I went to my projects and all the .als files vanished. It seems iCloud stole them! Plus I have an external drive working with Time Machine and I couldn’t find the projects on the external drive either. I see a lot of grayed out files when I go to library/preferences. Hostages! My first thought was something is out of sync 😮I always collect and save. If you wanted everything to line what steps would you take? Thanks. Great video and you may already have a video of how to keep an eye on iCloud did it toss my files. Yikes!😬
I’m having an issue where I pulled up a project from an ext. HD. Now usually this isn’t a problem but I took my computer in and the guy just took it upon himself to update my OS from High Sierra to Catalina. Now projects loaded from the HD’s have almost all the samples but then in arrangement view there’s a bunch of Sample Offline tracks and haven’t figured a way to search for them.
So in the case that someone (a friend) has over 100 sets of different songs, ideas, versions, etc all under 1 project (again not me). What would be the quickest workflow to separate them into projects?
Thanks for video my friend. I have a question that is confusing the tar out of me? I am ordering a new MacbookPro. Apple has option to upgrade internal SSD drive to 4 TB. My question can you use a single internal SSD drive to install everything (operating system, Ableton, Komplete, Plugins, samples, documents and both audio and video projects? I like the idea of having a simple workflow and using a single drive and use a cloud based service or secondary drive to backup samples and projects. Just wondering now that Apple offers these super fast processors and huge SDD drives if using a secondary drive is necessary. Thanks
Hi Bob, yes with a 4GB SSD you could definitely use that drive for everything! The only extra drive /cloud storage I would recommend is for some sort of backup.
so im making beats but would like to come back and finish them a later day,.. how should i save it? I was saving collect all into a project but still after a change computer its missing samples /vst ...
Thank you for making this, this is extremely helpful! I'm wondering if you have any advice on how to solve the problem you describe at 4:08, like after the fact having already done it that way for a long time? I've unfortunately been doing this for years and didn't really understand why it was saving all my clips into one giant samples folder and I would really like to figure out how to clean it up and separate everything into its own individual project folder.
Hi Josh! I recently saw this video and I'm in the massive problem stage. You can check my comment in the most recent. Have you found a tutorial or forum explaining how to salvage this situation? Thanks.
I'm trying to remember exactly what I did to salvage the past projects but I believe I just did some math to make sure I had enough SSD space and then did the "collect all and save" option and just decided not to worry about all the duplicated files.@@2inz
The problem is that you'll probably end up having to spend some time searching for misplaced stuff on your older projects when you reopen them, but almost always there's a way to do a spotlight search (at least if you have a mac) and just find them and fill them in that way as you go.
4:25 Maaaann!-I'm in the MASSIVE PROBLEM situation. Imagine saving upon saving for several years into the initial ableton folder! And I feel like the worst part about this is that I had to restore My MBP from an external HD backup almost 4 years ago. So now all the data(s) dates are the same! How can I undo this!?!? OR-at least get everything where they should be? If anyone reading this can lead Me towards that direction of salvaging all My work ,please let Me know! I would much appreciate it!
hey - great video - i got the macbook pro m1 max - seems like i cant load mp3s on my ableton anymore - and when i try to save files - it doesnt save - something to do with cache and the folder its trying to save to isnt working for ableton - any advice?
Heyo Mike. Sorry to hear that! That's very strange. 1 - What happens when you try to load an Mp3 into Ableton? 2 - What happens when you try to save in Ableton? 3 - Have you tried to save a live set as its own project (on the desktop for example) and use "collect all and save"?
Firstly; you should not be saving Projects on the Desktop long term. Projects should be on a 2nd Drive. So when you Update to Sonoma only your Main Storage disc and OS become corrupt and useless.
Ableton updated and said my original file needed to be saved as a new file. I did that like a good little boy and deleted the old file after I checked that the new one worked. Open up the new project again. Bye, bye all recorded music.
Nooooooo! I'm so sorry to hear that Thomas. Hopefully it wasn't too much lost work. I've learned over the year NEVER DELETE STUFF. Memory storage is cheap.
Ableton is bullcrap. Why the hell they have this problem is beyond me. They introduce 34483338 new irrelevant features when presenting a new version of live, but THIS mega problem they completely avoid. Cubase is ten times better. I wonder how many projects got destroyed because of this mega fail.
Yeah I'm not sure why they decided to organize their file structure the way it is. Pretty easy to workout around if you get into the habit of saving and organizing yourself in a particular way. Ableton has far more pros then this con IMO
www.metamindmusic.com/workflow ► Grab Your Producer Roadmap - 7 Simple Steps To Take Your Songs From Start To Finish. Download Your FREE Pro Producer Roadmap PDF
This is the first guy on RUclips who clearly explains Ableton File Management processes.
Hundreds of Ableton so called "Guru" on RUclips totally neglect this very important topic.
You will end up in a mess if you don't understand Ableton File Management processes.
Thank you very much Author :-)
Thanks for the kind words! So glad I could help :)
This explains it. Unfortunately, when I first started Ableton, I saved my very first project as "test project". Then every actually new song that I started and saved, it all got saved under that first container " test project" . like you said at 4:40 , I learned the hard way that If you try to remove those new projects and save them somewhere else, all my files went missing. The only way I found to fix this is to open your project > save live set as to your new desired destination. Files will be missing as it's still trying to pull from the ORIGINAL samples folder, in my case the one found in "test project". Search for the files there, it will find them. THEN, collect all and save and now you have a new project with all the files/samples stored properly within.
Good looking out! I've got a hundred Live Sets under 'test Project' 😅
Wow!! I needed this video. I hope Abelton puts you on their payroll. Thank you very much!!
Thank you for your video. I’ve lost some ideas for lack of this lesson you just taught us , reason why I’ve watched your video. Great lesson 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻!
You're legit the best Ableton teacher I've found.
At last - finally found someone that can tell me how to store my files. Thank you so much.
Thank you. I was slacking with file management and now its biting me in the ass. Duplicate files. Missing files you name it haha😂
I'm a Reason user and it's got two options 1 save project (load samples, patch, presets from drive, or drives) or 2 Save self contained project (saves all samples, patch, presets in the single project file).
I wish I had seen this video 3 years ago 😭Thanks for the clear & simple explanations and tips! Super super helpful!
Happy to help! :)
Thanks a lot, yes i lost various music`s the last years as for saving wrong, even i am not native english speaking , this helped me, and now i know i am not alone with this problem...
My name is Alex too, so a big friendly Thanks again from Alex to Alex ;)
This was SO helpful, thank you so much. Originally I was saving a bunch of different songs and tracks into just one project folder...
Question--I'm still struggling with the samples that I import into Simpler. Whenever I open a project with a Simpler track, it says that media files are missing, or that the sample is "offline". What am I doing wrong here?
This is helping me so much! Thank you. I move a few things and I’m already seeing results. Awesome information I wish I had then I 1st started with ableton. This should be the 1st step you take before even starting to make chunes IMO.
Happy to help! I also wish I did this right off the bat when I started using Ableton too
I spent a whole day moving files and deleting things now it’s time to move projects files after I open collect all and save! I am limited with my MacBook Pro so every GB of hard drive space is needed. I’ve learned a lot after I watched this🙏 and I’ll bet I learn more. Hope I can ask you some questions from time to time if I have them. Hope all is well.
Very clear, thanks!
been looking for this tutorial for eons ❤🙏🙏
I've been saving over 100 songs under the same project for the past year. So many media files missing, life over lol
Thank for explaining this, I always struggled to understand this 👍🏾
getting ready to watch your video! sounds good and what I am looking for. QUESTION: When I arm the Record button(audio track) in Ableton, I get a DISK FULL warning and that recording will stop in 60 seconds. Is this a Disk folder management issue? Ho would I go about fixing this? is this familiar? THANK YOU!!!
Nice video, thanks!
Awesome info! This problem has happened to me before
So sorry to hear that! Losing your work is the WORST. Glad it was helpful :)
Thanks! Very helpful and informative!
Looking for assistance, on mac but whenever I collect all & save, nothing collects. Wasn’t having this issue a few years back, would love some guidance. Great vid & have wonderful days ahead!
Meta Mind Music - Nice video.
Maybe you can help?
I found an old SSD but it's small. I have a larger one I currently use for Ableton + attached storage. I'd like to put my samples folder on the new SSD on the theory it's faster than USB mechanical attached storage. I'll keep the current location for 'safety' for a week or so.
If I copy 87 gigs of samples to the SSD drive and eventually delete the original location, my projects will of course freak out when they open - samples missing. I SHOULD be able to just point them to the new location, on the new folder on the small SSD, and away we go right? I've learned long ago such things are not a give with Ableton.
Any advice or thoughts?
Thanks
Loving your channel, Ive prettifying much managed to to this, but bumbled through it and wasn't sure exactly how it worked. you have just answered so many question for me. Thankyou
Glad I could help!
I really needed this, thank you 🙏🏽 😊
Thank you for the help! Have you noticed any problems with saving, say, 10-20 different iterations of one song in the same Project folder? I'm afraid it would slow down Ableton. I'm also afraid of overwriting something in my other set when saving a new iteration in the same Project folder.
Hi! I am not sure what happened but I went to my projects and all the .als files vanished. It seems iCloud stole them! Plus I have an external drive working with Time Machine and I couldn’t find the projects on the external drive either. I see a lot of grayed out files when I go to library/preferences. Hostages! My first thought was something is out of sync 😮I always collect and save. If you wanted everything to line what steps would you take? Thanks. Great video and you may already have a video of how to keep an eye on iCloud did it toss my files. Yikes!😬
Excellent stuff, thanks a lot
I’m having an issue where I pulled up a project from an ext. HD. Now usually this isn’t a problem but I took my computer in and the guy just took it upon himself to update my OS from High Sierra to Catalina. Now projects loaded from the HD’s have almost all the samples but then in arrangement view there’s a bunch of Sample Offline tracks and haven’t figured a way to search for them.
So in the case that someone (a friend) has over 100 sets of different songs, ideas, versions, etc all under 1 project (again not me). What would be the quickest workflow to separate them into projects?
What video recording device and software are you using to make your videos?
Thanks for video my friend. I have a question that is confusing the tar out of me? I am ordering a new MacbookPro. Apple has option to upgrade internal SSD drive to 4 TB. My question can you use a single internal SSD drive to install everything (operating system, Ableton, Komplete, Plugins, samples, documents and both audio and video projects? I like the idea of having a simple workflow and using a single drive and use a cloud based service or secondary drive to backup samples and projects. Just wondering now that Apple offers these super fast processors and huge SDD drives if using a secondary drive is necessary. Thanks
Hi Bob, yes with a 4GB SSD you could definitely use that drive for everything! The only extra drive /cloud storage I would recommend is for some sort of backup.
@@metamindmusicofficial Thanks !!
so im making beats but would like to come back and finish them a later day,.. how should i save it? I was saving collect all into a project but still after a change computer its missing samples /vst ...
Thank you for making this, this is extremely helpful! I'm wondering if you have any advice on how to solve the problem you describe at 4:08, like after the fact having already done it that way for a long time? I've unfortunately been doing this for years and didn't really understand why it was saving all my clips into one giant samples folder and I would really like to figure out how to clean it up and separate everything into its own individual project folder.
Hi Josh! I recently saw this video and I'm in the massive problem stage. You can check my comment in the most recent. Have you found a tutorial or forum explaining how to salvage this situation? Thanks.
I'm trying to remember exactly what I did to salvage the past projects but I believe I just did some math to make sure I had enough SSD space and then did the "collect all and save" option and just decided not to worry about all the duplicated files.@@2inz
The problem is that you'll probably end up having to spend some time searching for misplaced stuff on your older projects when you reopen them, but almost always there's a way to do a spotlight search (at least if you have a mac) and just find them and fill them in that way as you go.
Yup-the tedious stuff, but here we are. Thanks for Your input Josh, appreciated.
Ableton 11 doesn't have the option to choose project when saving so I'm really confused about what project is using which files..
4:25 Maaaann!-I'm in the MASSIVE PROBLEM situation.
Imagine saving upon saving for several years into the initial ableton folder! And I feel like the worst part about this is that I had to restore My MBP from an external HD backup almost 4 years ago. So now all the data(s) dates are the same!
How can I undo this!?!? OR-at least get everything where they should be? If anyone reading this can lead Me towards that direction of salvaging all My work ,please let Me know! I would much appreciate it!
This happens to me EVERY time and I dont seem to be able to fix it. Does my computer have a virus?
hey - great video - i got the macbook pro m1 max - seems like i cant load mp3s on my ableton anymore - and when i try to save files - it doesnt save - something to do with cache and the folder its trying to save to isnt working for ableton - any advice?
Heyo Mike. Sorry to hear that! That's very strange.
1 - What happens when you try to load an Mp3 into Ableton?
2 - What happens when you try to save in Ableton?
3 - Have you tried to save a live set as its own project (on the desktop for example) and use "collect all and save"?
Hey thanks. So you have 3 external hard drives plugged in at all times?
Hey Matthew, yes I do! Sometimes 4 ;)
I have 200 different songs inside of the same project….. no wonder I’m having this issue. Is there a way to safely undo this
@@holgerk.4650 Hey, Thanks for this insight.
Good Lord, you just saved my ass! Thank you so so much
My pleasure!!
F3:05
6:19
8:09
9:32
9:48
Bro my dang sets are grey dang there all of them
Show me Ableton is expensive for nothing, without showing me that Ableton is expensive for nothing.
Firstly; you should not be saving Projects on the Desktop long term. Projects should be on a 2nd Drive. So when you Update to Sonoma only your Main Storage disc and OS become corrupt and useless.
Ableton updated and said my original file needed to be saved as a new file. I did that like a good little boy and deleted the old file after I checked that the new one worked. Open up the new project again. Bye, bye all recorded music.
Nooooooo! I'm so sorry to hear that Thomas. Hopefully it wasn't too much lost work. I've learned over the year NEVER DELETE STUFF. Memory storage is cheap.
@@metamindmusicofficial it was a few guitar tracks. I just took it as an opportunity to re-record them better this time around. It worked out.
ohh dayumm. Sorry to hear brodie.
9:20 hard drives have disk space not memory but its all good.
My bad!
Ableton always tryin to kill inspiration
Ableton is bullcrap. Why the hell they have this problem is beyond me. They introduce 34483338 new irrelevant features when presenting a new version of live, but THIS mega problem they completely avoid. Cubase is ten times better. I wonder how many projects got destroyed because of this mega fail.
Yeah I'm not sure why they decided to organize their file structure the way it is. Pretty easy to workout around if you get into the habit of saving and organizing yourself in a particular way. Ableton has far more pros then this con IMO
It's not a fail it's just how they organise there files it's up to you to read the DAWs manual which I bet you didn't do once.