Dropbox syncing - just my "User Library", or Packs too...?

[c_fol]

Hi,

I'm pretty new to Live - I bought live 8 Suite during the recent offer for 25% off with free upgrade to Live 9 - so beyond about about 5 or 6 small projects I've not done much with it to date.

I've just downloaded Live 9 and will be installing on my desktop and my laptop for when I'm working away. What I want to be able to do, is to use Dropbox as a means of syncing projects across both machines, so I don't lose files, presets etc - and can work fairly seamlessly between both machines. Not tested it loads with Live 8, but as long as I save projects on Dropbox,this works well - for example my sample library is on dropbox and I can see that samples I've used in projects get the ableton data saved along side and is available for both machines.

Anyway, my question is - do I just need to set 'Location of User Library' to the dropbox folder to enable me to work in this way, or do I also need to copy all of my packs into dropbox too? Not sure if the content of the packs change at all as you work...

Any help appreciated.
Ta,

c_fol

[tech44]

Hi,

I'm pretty new to Live - I bought live 8 Suite during the recent offer for 25% off with free upgrade to Live 9 - so beyond about about 5 or 6 small projects I've not done much with it to date.

I've just downloaded Live 9 and will be installing on my desktop and my laptop for when I'm working away. What I want to be able to do, is to use Dropbox as a means of syncing projects across both machines, so I don't lose files, presets etc - and can work fairly seamlessly between both machines. Not tested it loads with Live 8, but as long as I save projects on Dropbox,this works well - for example my sample library is on dropbox and I can see that samples I've used in projects get the ableton data saved along side and is available for both machines.

Anyway, my question is - do I just need to set 'Location of User Library' to the dropbox folder to enable me to work in this way, or do I also need to copy all of my packs into dropbox too? Not sure if the content of the packs change at all as you work...

Any help appreciated.

Ta,

c_fol

I've done this throughout the beta, and for me it was one of the best parts about the update. I have my user library in a dropbox subfolder syncing, but not the packs or the core library so not sure about those. For me it works pretty well, but I recommend disabling dropbox syncing (or completely disabling it) while Live is running. For me when they were both running it really slowed Live down.

[c_fol]

Cheers for the reply. I've go enough space on dropbox to add the packs... I'm just not sure I can be ar$ed with the huge disruption to internet access at home whilst it uploads over the course of the next few weeks...

Think I might just sync my 'User Library' for now. Any idea whether it's possible / easy to move the Packs if I want to sync them across dropbox in the future..?

[tech44]

Cheers for the reply. I've go enough space on dropbox to add the packs... I'm just not sure I can be ar$ed with the huge disruption to internet access at home whilst it uploads over the course of the next few weeks...

Think I might just sync my 'User Library' for now. Any idea whether it's possible / easy to move the Packs if I want to sync them across dropbox in the future..?

Not sure about that. For me, since it didn't seem like the content within the packs was editable and they wouldn't change, I didn't want to waste time or dropbox space backing them up and syncing them. I just installed the same packs on both machines and I think they should just stay the same (not 100% sure about this, but it seems correct).

Mainly I wanted to be able to do 'prep' sessions creating clips and presets while I'm away from the studio, and have them ready for use when I get back to the studio. The user library sync via dropbox works great for this.

[alexjholland]

I've run a Dropbox sync using Ableton 8 for at least a year; which is delightfully excellent.

I started with just my project folders.
The key was ensuring identical sample folders and packs installed on each machine, so that the only audio kept in each project was live instruments recorded.

I then upgraded to keeping my MIDI instruments, which was an obvious and easy next step.
With MIDI instruments and over 100 products, it was still under a couple of Gb.

The final stage was buying a Dropbox 100Gb subscription (120Gb including my invitation bonuses) for my 60Gb sample folder.

So the only thing that didn't sync between Dropbox were my packs, which I manually installed on both Macs to keep them identical.

Absolutely no performance issues for me. I can make a song on my iMac, hit save and walk out of the door with it on my Macbook.

Question for me, is will Ableton 9 change, restrict, or open up new opportunities in any way?

[tech44]

Question for me, is will Ableton 9 change, restrict, or open up new opportunities in any way?

I remember I tried it a while ago with 8, I had issues at the time using the same library on two machines. Maybe it was something to do with the audio files that were referenced in clips and sampler presets? Can't remember exactly now.

[alexjholland]

If you set it up correctly, it works perfectly.

When I first tried, I realised I had individual .ALS files and no project folders; with all my samples somewhere deep in a referenced folder in my hard drive.

I had to Save and Collect (being careful not to select any factory sounds) my entire way through perhaps 150 projects; each one being saved as its own project folder.

Since then, it's been perfect. Trick is making sure they're saved and collected in individual folders, but that you don't save Factory samples, as these quickly turn a several MB files into gigabytes!

[tech44]

If you set it up correctly, it works perfectly.

When I first tried, I realised I had individual .ALS files and no project folders; with all my samples somewhere deep in a referenced folder in my hard drive.

I had to Save and Collect (being careful not to select any factory sounds) my entire way through perhaps 150 projects; each one being saved as its own project folder.

Since then, it's been perfect. Trick is making sure they're saved and collected in individual folders, but that you don't save Factory samples, as these quickly turn a several MB files into gigabytes!

Yeah, projects were never a problem because I always did save and collect, just the library. Now that I think about it I probably had file references and missing all over the place and need to just clean up the library.

[c_fol]

Cheers for the replies all. I'm gonna run with this for now:

Dropbox: Projects, Samples, User Library

Gonna install the packs on both machines, doesn't appear any editing of the content so no need to sync.

Right, where's that old microphone of mine - time to test my human beatbox skills and giving the audio 2 midi a whirl...!

[alexjholland]

Hmm. Let me know how user library goes, as I havent done that yet!

[tech44]

Cheers for the replies all. I'm gonna run with this for now:

Dropbox: Projects, Samples, User Library

Gonna install the packs on both machines, doesn't appear any editing of the content so no need to sync.

Right, where's that old microphone of mine - time to test my human beatbox skills and giving the audio 2 midi a whirl...!

Exactly what I'm doing and it works great (other than the slow down I mentioned earlier). I'm sure you already know this, but be sure you have the "Collect Files on Export" set to "Always".