Transferring projects to a new computer (that isn't mine)

[Jsteele1]

Hey guys,

I'm Johnny, this is my first post here - Hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to getting involved in these forums!

I apologies if this is the wrong space to post this question, please redirect me if that's the case.

This may have been asked/ answered elsewhere but I'm not very tech savvy or quick when it comes to what I need to know so thought I'd ask and see how it goes!

So I'm looking to start taking production a bit more seriously by renting a shared studio space in my hometown of Edinburgh and mixing up my workflow between this new studio and my space at home. As the studio space is shared, multiple people book it out and share the same Mac...I have a (non portable) IMAC at home, and use multiple 3rd party VST's on my own projects.

So basically I'm wondering how I'd go about transferring my projects from my own mac across to this new studio. I understand there is a collect all and save function which looks as though it'd transfer all of the functions native to ableton (samples/built in fx's racks etc). Am I roughly correct with that?

However when it comes to the third party side of things, I wouldn't be able to re-download them onto the Mac in the studio.

I do have an external hard drive - do you think it'd be possible to re-download the VSTS a second time to the hard drive, and just bring that with me; along with the saved projects also on stored on there? Would I have to change how ableton looks for the VSTS and would this then mess up the way I have it configured at home?

The other alternative is to invest in as cheap a MacBook as possible and take this to the new studio, but I'd rather avoid that haha!

I may have overthought this, and sorry for the potentially dumb questions, but I hope someone can help!

Cheers, Johnny

[Yaman29]

In Ableton Live, you can specify your own VST folder in addition to the system folder. If this folder is on your external hard drive and you take this drive into the studio, it should work.

[jestermgee]

In Ableton Live, you can specify your own VST folder in addition to the system folder. If this folder is on your external hard drive and you take this drive into the studio, it should work.

No, it wont.

So this is something you need to be aware of, VSTs are just like any other application in that they need to be installed and registered to a system. Different plugins have different registration methods and also different EULA that set what you can and cannot legally do with them. Also on Mac, you have the extra complexity of the fact you have VST2, VST3 and AU versions of plugins and these are NOT interchangeable so if you use the AU version of a plugin, the target computer also needs the AU version installed.

The short of it is if you have 3rd party plugins at home you use and you want to take the project to another computer to work on it (without rendering stems) then you need to have the same version of Live installed as you have and also the same plugins need to be installed and available to Live already so basically the studio needs to own a copy, have a license and have it installed for you to use. Unlikely you can just install your copies and trying to use them from an ext HDD you bought from home without installing and registering to the computer (unless they are some kind of free plugin, don't even think of bringing in and using cracked plugins on any studio rig).

Collect all and save is for sample content and only gathers samples used within live. It does not gather plugins or any content used within any plugins so as part of your project leger you would keep a record of what plugins and what format these are so you can ask the studio if they have these installed for you or if you will have to render those tracks out to audio first.

[Pitch Black]

You can use the track Freeze function to “render in place” any tracks with 3rd party plugins. Then you can still automate/cut/route/trigger these tracks. Live’s Freeze function allows for a surprising amount of flexibility. You can always unfreeze and continue tweaking when you get back on your machine.