Suggestion about managing different versions of a song

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cZarneKci
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:34 pm

Suggestion about managing different versions of a song

Post by cZarneKci » Mon Sep 30, 2024 7:48 am

Hi there,

I often struggling to manage versions/edits of the tracks I'm working on. Sometimes I duplicate the whole part in the timeline so I can try a new edit. Sometime I'm doing a save as.
Very often I'd like to listen to what I have done elsewhere so I'm exporting temporary audio files (called bounce or render). I think I would love to have the ability to listen to a preview of the .als file when pressing on the spacebar in the finder or live browser, so I wouldn't need to open it to check what's inside.

So, I find it difficult to keep organized. It is really important espcially if you are working on scores for movies to be able to keep a good trace of what you are exporting and keep the ability to get back to it, as sometimes movie editors/directors do some recuts of what you are giving.

What I'm doing right now is that after exporting an audio mix, I'm doing a "Save a copy" with same name. So I can still working on the track and get back to the version exported if needed.

Does it make sense for you? what are your methods?

I have opened a suggestion in the center code to make what I do manually quicker, something similar exists in reaper. https://ableton.centercode.com/project/ ... d8c08fbb78

ianstudio
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2024 5:31 pm

Re: Suggestion about managing different versions of a song

Post by ianstudio » Sat May 31, 2025 8:46 pm

What would help me a lot (and I guess many others) is being able to open several sessions as tabs... I do save copies along the way and being able to have some open in parallel would generally be what I would find efficient to go back and forth and quickly listen to other edits or even sections but as separate files.

Previewing of various .als from the browser without having to render them would be quite something indeed. Or some sort of open-as-read-only as secondary tabs, could maybe make it less heavy on the system.. In any case yes, the way it is now is lacking in the 'comparing sessions department.'

slow.robot
Posts: 214
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:06 am

Re: Suggestion about managing different versions of a song

Post by slow.robot » Sun Jun 01, 2025 2:47 am

stumbled across this video this morning--doesn't really help with my linear workflow, but sounds like there might be some tips that could help others: https://youtu.be/u83XcTqAnls?si=LeRhcD5Omxe4MbqY

ianstudio
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2024 5:31 pm

Re: Suggestion about managing different versions of a song

Post by ianstudio » Sun Jun 01, 2025 11:34 am

I've been doing this since forever already :lol: It is useful but not 'sufficient' for many situations.

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