Ableton Dropbox Project Sync: Success! (between two Macs)

[alexjholland]

Hey, I thought I'd share my recent success in creating a Dropbox-based synchronisation for all my Projects between two Macs, with the help of forum members.
I struggled to find much information on such a concept online and would have enjoyed a simple guide, so thought it's likely this may help someone else.

I seek constant perfection in my setup, which means simplicity. Owning purely Apple devices with iCloud and Dropbox is satisfying in that regard.

I work mainly on an iMac, mixing breaks, Live instruments and recorded guitars + vocals.
Having to load Projects onto a Macbook for band practise, then potentially back onto my iMac following edits was not satisfactory.

My goal was simply for my Projects to be perfectly replicated across both my Macs. Perfectly reasonable with today's technology.

I upgraded my Macbook to a 750Gb hybrid drive in preparation and made sure both Macs were clean, organised and had identical libraries to start.
I simply dropped my entire Projects folder into Dropbox - then promptly discovered a whole bunch of 'missing media' files warnings@

With assistance from forum members, we ascertained that I knew little about Ableton's Project/Set theory, as - somehow - all my Projects were .als files, with samples referenced in various temp folders.

So, I went into every .als (perhaps a couple of hundred) and saved it to the Desktop (forcing it to create a Project folder) then opened the .als inside that Project folder, clicked on Manage Set in the File Manager and saved all the files except factory samples - firstly these aren't necessary if you keep both libraries identical; secondly those samples are massive (many Gb in most cases).

After converting every .als to a Project folder with all non-factory samples, I moved them all into Dropbox and deleted all the old .als and temporary files - neat!
My 100-200 Projects total around 3.5 Gb, which is great for my 9.8Gb and rising Dropbox folder.

Result: It works. I can open a Project on either Mac anywhere I am. If internet is available, the other Mac is updated within seconds of saving; if not then it's updated as soon as I find internet.

The first time I opened up a Project and heard everything - including all my guitars - working perfectly I was delighted!

Going forwards, I simply have to make sure each new Project is saved as a Project folder with all necessary samples included. I also keep my Ableton libraries identical.
For now my sample folders are kept the same manually, as at 20Gb+ each they won't fit in Dropbox without me paying more. It's no biggie, as all samples used in each project are saved in each folder.

As a contingency I currently have a small hard-drive that I manually back my Dropbox onto intermittently, which I will upgrade to a 1.5Tb external drive with Time Machine very soon.
I also copy my Dropbox onto my 16Gb USB drive once a week as a double precaution!

Massive thanks to the guys who helped me achieve this.

Does anyone else do this already? I'm surprised it doesn't seem to be more popular!

[starving student]

bump

[alexjholland]

Ok, actual bump!

[snakedogman]

Great that you've got it working!

[misa]

Thanks for posting your solution. I'm only working on 1 laptop at the moment, but its nice to know it can be done successfully.

[ollyb303]

I use Dropbox all the time to sync between my pc and my mbp. Just using collect all and save does the job, no need to sync any other folders, just make sure I have the same vsts on both machines and avoid au on the Mac.

I work on collab projects with several other people using Dropbox in the same way as well.

[ttilberg]

Glad to hear you got it rockin'!

Me and a friend use this + www.join.me + skype audio for remote music making. Skype's video sharing is way too taxing on the system, but the audio feed is usually pretty acceptable.

[alexjholland]

Cool, thanks for the tip!

And good to hear back from all you guys, I really hope this is of use to someone somewhere - and MASSIVE thanks for all of you who helped me out and were so patient!

[alexjholland]

This really is a dream: Just perfected my drum kit I was having great fun bashing away with on my Akai LPD8 with my iMac..

Flipped open my Macbook and within seconds my Instrument folder was updated and I was bashing away on that with my MPK Mini too!

Fantastic!

[javierf55]

Dropbox is just great.

The second phase of your findings is to share some of your projects with other people you currently work and team-up. I do that, so I move the project to the "public" dropbox folder and send the link to my partner.

That way we work together with only one file, no risks of having different versions...

Enjoy.

[alexjholland]

Heh my vocalist insists on using Fruityloops! At least that leaves me in charge of production ; )

But it's great to know that as I meet other people I want to work with, I can share music so easily with them!