Recommendations for version control / remote collaboration

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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ianmgull
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:25 am

Recommendations for version control / remote collaboration

Post by ianmgull » Tue Oct 12, 2021 12:48 am

I'm looking for recommendations into services/workflows that for sharing a project with a remote collaborator.

I've been away from production in Ableton for a few years, and the old way of sending a zip file back and forth via dropbox leaves a lot to be desired. Coming from a programming background, I'm wondering if something like GitHub exits for Audio?

Ideally, it would be great to start a session by pulling the most recent changes, making edits/recordings, and then pushing this to the cloud. The ability to merge any conflicts GitHub style would be amazing.

I imagine I'd have heard about something like this if it existed, but if anyone has any recommendations for collaborating in different cities, I'd appreciate it.

jestermgee
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Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:38 am

Re: Recommendations for version control / remote collaboration

Post by jestermgee » Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:14 pm

Unlike code, having the same thing for a music project has a number of additional complications to manage.

First issue is the internal code in the project file is probably somewhat proprietary so would be hard to sync specific changes.
Second is the fact there are far too many variables to take into consideration to make it work reliably:

Example: you are working on the project which has 5 tracks already and you now add 5 new tracks and start recording audio to them and you increase the timeline from 2 minutes out to 3 minutes. Meanwhile your collaborator is also working on the same project and has a completely different idea instead deleting 3 of the existing tracks and also scrubbing 30 seconds of your existing project before recording a 15 minute guitar solo piece instead.

When you try and merge these together who's ideas take priority? What if you then have it open to 3 or 4 people? What if one is working on Mac with AU plugins and the other on PC with VST3 plugins? What is one has an instrument or effect the other does not? How would all the extra content such as recorded samples, VST presets/expansions and custom content all be handled? How would any of this also be affected by copyright if some of the material is not technically legal to share (is the service provider responsible)? This is why similar attempts in the past have all failed and the easiest way these days is just to use a GDrive/Dropbox setup and communication between collaborators.

I recall Bitwig proposing a live collaboration feature way back in the initial days but I have a feeling that has been dropped because of many of the above problems, it's rather complicated when there are so many different things to consider between one environment and the next. Far too many dependencies to be able to sync easily especially when 3rd party plugins come in.

Pitch Black
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Re: Recommendations for version control / remote collaboration

Post by Pitch Black » Wed Oct 13, 2021 6:03 am

The method my producing partner and I have been using for the last 10 years:

1. Save the project with a new name to the desktop.
2. Collect All and Save.
3. Manage Files > Manage Project > Create Pack.

This makes sure all the dependent files are in the new Project folder, and making the Live Pack (.alp file) creates a monolithic file that’s easy to upload and uses lossless data compression on all the audio files.

I use a paid MediaFire account for my uploads and my partner uses Dropbox.
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