File Management Issues That SHouldn't Be Happening

[Grna_Grna]

Let me first preface this post with a clear declaration that I absolutely already understand and practice collect all and save, avoiding nested projects, and ALWAYS making sure that I do not have external files in a project or session that have not been gathered.

Recently I have been collaborating on a mix with someone where he bounces down guitar and vocal parts from pro tools that I load into my ableton session. We have been having a nightmare of a time avoiding the sample offline problem with all these files that have been transferred over. They begin as .wav files, but at some point they are altered to be ".wav.asd" and the wav file goes completely missing.

I am doing some standard internet searches on the ".wav.asd" extension and have had no luck finding any useful explanation. Would be very grateful; if someone who has solved this problem can offer any direction or peace of mind. Also if anyone else is dealing with the issue maybe we can bounce some ideas off each other. THIS STUFF IS FRUSTRATING!!!!

[Division Monarchy]

I have no solution, but I have to say the Abletons's file management is the worst I've ever seen in a DAW. It's absolute shit.

[mmorgan]

My understanding of the .wav.asd is that the .asd portion is simply where Ableton stores meta info about the original .wav such as BPM and Warp info...I think of it as Live analysis of the .wav. In the .asd file there is no .wav information so if you are deleting the original .wav it is gone, you need both.

[chrk]

.asd = ableton warp analysis file (contains specific information about analyzed audio data such as e.g. Warp marker positions, Pitch etc.)

Source: Ableton specific file types | Ableton

[Tarekith]

The wav isn't converted to an ASD file, Live makes an ASD file to contain warping and clip info in addition to your wav. If you're sending each other asd files, you're not sending any actual audio files.

[Grna_Grna]

Hey thanks for your guys input. I have been having the trouble here with this session for a while. I did fix it today by manually searching for the files, however something screwy is going on with my situation.

My wav files in the project disappeared after I zipped the file. They became as such:

filname.wav.asd

And ableton could not locate them within my session. I did however manually search for the files and was able to locate them and manually get them in. I recommend for anyone having this issue to search in their OS and not with the ableton file manager. I love ableton but concur that this area is not so user friendly. However its not issues that are hard to fix if you go outside the daw.

Thanks Again!

[mrgrim3]

maybe you didnt have the folder where it was saved added into the browser

it might be easy to miss but there is an option at the bottom of browser that says +add folder

it will say sample offline if the folder is not included in browser

[snakedogman]

Hey thanks for your guys input. I have been having the trouble here with this session for a while. I did fix it today by manually searching for the files, however something screwy is going on with my situation.

My wav files in the project disappeared after I zipped the file. They became as such:

filname.wav.asd

And ableton could not locate them within my session. I did however manually search for the files and was able to locate them and manually get them in. I recommend for anyone having this issue to search in their OS and not with the ableton file manager. I love ableton but concur that this area is not so user friendly. However its not issues that are hard to fix if you go outside the daw.

Thanks Again!

Did you read the chapter in the Live manual on file management? .asd files are just extra files that Ableton creates when you load (or record) audio files into a project and contain metadata only.
You are saying the wav files "dissapeared" when you zipped the file (which file?), that they "became .asd files" and then later you managed to locate them manually anyway! So...they did not dissapear or change into .asd files at all.

Make sure to keep the wav files and asd files together (though if they asd files go missing, Live will recreate them when the audio files are loaded into a project).
Where are you storing the audio files? In the project folder? Or seperately?

Sorry but the whole thing sounds more like user-error to me than anything Live is doing wrong.

[Grna_Grna]

Yes I am aware of the chapter.

As I said in the original post I absolutely have been making sure to use the file manager to collect any external files into my project folder at the end of each session. When I say they disappeared its because they were no longer in the project folder after I zipped it.

Also to be clear as I said in my last post the file extensions that they become are not .asd

They become "filename.wav.asd"

Typically I have both in the folder as follows:

filename.wav
filename.asd

The weird thing happening is in some cases these get combined into one file that is apparently completely useless to live or any other application, filename.wav.asd

The wav's were then gone in the project folder (once unzipped), and the session which had previously found everything easily was once again confused. This has happened a few times despite my diligent following of the recommendations of the chapter in the live manual for collecting external files into the project folder. Very strange happening I know. Luckily I had the original copies somewhere else.

Anyway thanks for your input

[snakedogman]

Allright I see... is this on Mac or Windows? Might it have something to do with showing/hiding file extensions that is causing Live to get confused?
The double extension .wav.asd is strange. I can't be sure but I seem to remember sometimes seeing double extensions when files were being moved back and forth between Mac and Windows systems.
Do these ".wav.asd"-files have the same filesize as the actual audio files? When you remove the .asd does it play back like a normal .wav file?

[chrk]

The double extension .wav.asd is strange.

Not at all.

You can have a filename.aif and a filename.wav in the same folder, and live will add analysis files to both by just adding the asd-extension.

When I say they disappeared its because they were no longer in the project folder after I zipped it.

Are you zipping the folders with Live and the particular Set still open? The sample files may be locked and inaccessible to the zip process.

[fishmonkey]

The weird thing happening is in some cases these get combined into one file that is apparently completely useless to live or any other application, filename.wav.asd

nope, this does not indicate that the files have been 'combined'. it is not uncommon to create a new version of a file that has a new filename that includes the previous file type.

the file type extension is only the very last part after the final '.' character. in the case of 'filename.wav.asd' the filename itself is 'filename.wav', so what you have there is simply one of Live's 'asd' files.

exactly what steps are you doing to prepare the project for sending?