Collect & Save - WTF

STRATEGY_510 · Post by **STRATEGY_510** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:57 am

So I upgraded to Live 6 and I don't get how collect and save works

1) I opened a new Live set.

2) dropped an audio file in and warped it

3) I named & saved the set

4) I click on 'collect & save'

5) a warning appears that says "The Live set you are about to save is located inside of a nested Project (??), which can lead to file management problems. Please save the set in a different location"

Say huh?

Him don't get it.

Then i save it anyway, but the corresponding .als file is too small to actually contain the audio, so I know it's not really there. Also, there is no corresponding project folder for it like there was in Live 5

What gives Abletonians?

Thanks,

STRATEGY

iamnotcool · Post by **iamnotcool** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:02 am

I've always found Live's file management to be pretty assy. Live has somehow tagged my main music production folder as a project folder, so now I have to have all of my live sets in a separate folder elsewhere. I liked the file system much more in Live 5.

"If it aint broke, dont fix it."

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:10 am

The Live Library is essentially on big Live set, a lot of people logically use the library to save their sets but that leads to this 'nested .als' problem.

I don't get why it's like this, I don't dig it, overall it puts a big shitcloud between the artist and his palette but I ain't switching to no Cubase!

I save my shit under D:\My Documents\My Ableton FWIW.

STRATEGY_510 · Post by **STRATEGY_510** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:16 am

Tone Deft wrote:The Live Library is essentially on big Live set, a lot of people logically use the library to save their sets but that leads to this 'nested .als' problem.

I don't get why it's like this, I don't dig it, overall it puts a big shitcloud between the artist and his palette but I ain't switching to no Cubase!

I save my shit under D:\My Documents\My Ableton FWIW.

Thanks guys, so I moved to saving them right outside the library folder, I created a "Sets" folder at the root of my Ableton folder and...what's up with it being called "LA 94 BPM (Project Ableton)". Where the hell is the subtitle in parenthesis coming from??

Make it stop, godammit!

This is all really harshing my gig right now, I'm trying to explore the new features of Live 6 and I'm getting pissed off.

Oh well, at least it didn't hose my sound libray, my Livefills from CM and Covert Operators stuff I bought seems to be intact.

STRATEGY

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Fri May 18, 2007 3:02 pm

It means your folder called "Ableton" is a project folder.

You do not want that.

Make some folder somewhere which you will use to put your sets. Save a set there, and it will create a project folder with your .als and sounds inside.

STRATEGY_510 · Post by **STRATEGY_510** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:49 pm

longjohns wrote:It means your folder called "Ableton" is a project folder.

You do not want that.

Make some folder somewhere which you will use to put your sets. Save a set there, and it will create a project folder with your .als and sounds inside.

Thanks, I'll try movning them even further away, into a folder that is not Ableton-related.

That's a weird bug..

What was wrong with "save as self-contained"? I wonder why they felt the need to "enhance" it..

STRATEGY

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri May 18, 2007 8:51 pm

You cant save a project inside a project.
Live's library is a big project.

You can not directly save a project into the library. However, you are abe to import projects into the library. (or as Ableton calls it... Export..)

STRATEGY_510 · Post by **STRATEGY_510** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:13 pm

hoffman2k wrote:You cant save a project inside a project.
Live's library is a big project.

You can not directly save a project into the library. However, you are abe to import projects into the library. (or as Ableton calls it... Export..)

I get that, but it didn't like when i had it in the same directory as the Library folder was in either, it seems. Not a big problem at all, just kinda weird. So apparently my entire Ableton folder is being interpreted as the 'Library' (and thus a 'project').

STRATEGY

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Sat May 19, 2007 12:27 am

Ahhhhhh.... so this is why when I collect all and save I don't see subfolders with samples in them.... because they're already in the library project......

O K

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Sun May 20, 2007 5:57 pm

The project manager can tell you if samples are located in the library or not.
It also gives you the option to copy them into your project and "fix" the liveset so it references the samples in the project.

LOFA · Post by **LOFA** » Sun May 20, 2007 7:50 pm

I would like to share that my productivity in live has shifted down about 90% since acquiring version 6 because of the headaches of file management. It actually encouraged me spend more time thinking in MAX/MSP because things that made no sense would at least be easilly solvable through the help cycling74's menus, whereas I don't seem to work well with unique new flow in Live.

The one set that I did just spend a full month working on lost some sounds (that are easilly recreatable, but that is not the point) because when I deleted my backup sets I lost the sounds universally, despite having done wha I thought was safely saving the master version as a self contained set. Fortunately I kept several of these backed-up until after the performance, because I knew how much I distrusted this new setup.

There needs to be a clearer way of doing things. More and more I hear the least likely candidates saying to me that Ableton is too hard to use, and since I have been using Live so long it has only been until recently that I can see why they feel this way:
*Until version 4, the only challenge in Live for me as a newbie in digital medium was learning how to warp, and perhaps getting through some of the transport controls and how sometimes the arrangement takes precedence. This was really easy to get through.
*Version 5 came along and only my own self imposed challenges remained. If a newbie came to town I feel that only operator would have been a real challenge at this point- and even then it would be a great introductory to FM-synthesis.
*Version six came out the learning curve went up a bit. Not so much for myself as racks were something I needed (a workaround for limitations that were substantial), but obviously these are a little trickier for a newbie. I'm not complaining! However, this new file management came along and it's driving me nuts!

Thanks. Maybe I just need to accept that like the orange dot there are things that I have to unfortunately live with. It sucks when someone is trying to get into Live and I have to say, "Oh yes, live is the most intuitive software out there- been using it for years- just don't ask me what the orange dot does, how to get rid of it, or how to safely manage your files without eating up your hardrive with countless backups".