Ableton Forum

Does anyone here use Ableton **ON A REGULAR BASIS** between platforms? Not simultaneously, necessarily.

Is it a real bad can of worms? Is there a way to transfer key assignments, and other preferences? I'm very new to Live, so I don't even know what questions to ask, necessarily. Will my workflow be constantly interrupted?

Is it too simple to assume that I could put all my working files on a FAT32 disk to use between two machines?



Any thread like this is walking on thin ice, for sure. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease I beg for no inflamatary or snide comments.

I would respectfully ask replies from ONLY PEOPLE who are CURRENTLY using it across platforms and the issues I can expect. I am not a PC or a MAC - I'm a abbacus, I'm an amiga, I'm a go board.

Thank you for reading!

I use both Mac and PC with Ableton Live. The Mac is in my studio, and the PC laptop is used for live performance.

I can't answer all your questions about compatibility, but I can tell you about the tiny problems I've had. The only real issue with switching back and forth has been with two Native Instruments plugins- Massive and Spektral Delay. After saving on Mac and opening on PC, the liveset says it can't find the VSTs, even though they're both installed and working on my PC. I think the issue has to do with how the VSTs are named, and if they're named differently on each platform. I haven't had a chance to try and fix it yet.

Some users will tell you that audiounits are better than VST, but since I'm cross-platform, I stick with VST. Everything else loads fine. Ableton instruments and effects load fine. MIDI and key assignments were fine for me, too.

Also, I use an external FAT16 disk to store all of my samples and music, and I've never had any problem. I DO NOT recommend using a third party driver to write to FAT32 on a Mac. That gave me lots of problems and I lost a lot of data that way.

Hopefully this has been helpful!

Silverfish wrote:the liveset says it can't find the VSTs, even though they're both installed and working on my PC. I haven't had a chance to try and fix it yet.

I'm having the same problem! But I only use one computer & it's a Mac. So this isn't an issue going from one platform to another. I only have this problem when I use VST versions of my plugins. For you it's Massive & Spektral Delay, for me it's Zebralette & Microtonic. When I use the AU version, the false message doesn't appear. So you will probably notice when you save your presets & load them into the AU versions of the plugins & save a duplicate set that way, the false disabled plugin message won't appear.

Please confirm the issue to Ableton so they know more than one person are having the problem. I hope they figure out the problem with this soon. The plugins work in the sets but it's annoying to be interrupted & hit the OK button every time I load those sets.

I collaborate regularly with a Mac user (I'm a pc), and provided the right vsts are in place on both our machines it's no problem.

I use both. Mac in my studio WinPC as my on-the-go laptop. I just bounce everything to audio when switching between platforms. It just works.

Awesome, guys. That's great news. Thank you.

(minor side note: I thought FAT 32 is native to OSX?)

i use both as well, pc in the studio and mac live and studio..
i use dropbox to sync files with both computers plus provide an off site back up.
its like $10 a month for 50 gig
i store our performance sets, my presets, and current projects on their..
it acts like a normal folder on both machines and auto updates..
i've even used it to transfer files between the two while we where jamming.

here is a link you get 2 gigs free, 50 gigs for $10
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTE1M ... rc=global6
(i get some more space if you join too )

as mentioned before don't use au's only vst's and you'll be fine

the only main nuance is the ctrl key on the pc does what the appple/cmd key does on the mac and they are in opposite places. which make using hotkeys a little funky at first. i've been cross platform since OS9 so its second nature to me now..

edit...
o ya i used to just FTP into the mac and transfer all my files that too
worked pretty good.. a bit less of a pain then use an external but i like dropbox way better cause i don't have to do anything at all

townsend2005 wrote:(minor side note: I thought FAT 32 is native to OSX?)

Yeah, I totally messed that up. FAT32 is fine for both (4GB file size limit). NTFS doesn't play nice on Mac, and HFS+ doesn't play nice on PC. Don't know how I got my wires crossed on that one.

I've been transferring live sets from PC to Mac for years, using a USB key... They're all FAT 32 I beleive! Never had an issue.

The only thing is I have to manually change the MIDI yoke output to IAC Driver when I open a project on a MAC

Excellent! This is best news I've heard all year!

I use a windows keyboard a lot w/ my mac, anyways, but the Open Apple is always a stumbling block.

Thanks for the drop box link, too. I'm going to look into that..