Ableton Forum

Hello!

Looking for the most effective way of digging through MP3s and loading them up into Live whenever I find something I like.

Right now I have to:

1. Load archive into Winamp
2. Find what I want
3. Right click on the song
4. Select "View file info..."
5. Select and copy the folder name in question
6. Open an instance of Windows Explorer
7. Paste this folder name into the address field
8. Locate the file in question
9. Drag it into Live

Thinking it's kinda tedious. What do you guys do? Maybe it'd be possible to make something in Max to really speed up this process?

Thanks!

Maybe this:

Designate an MP3 main folder
throw them all in there, or make as many sub folders inside
Use one of the 3 browser tabs in Ableton to navigate to the main MP3 folder
When you get the mp3 folder, double click it so that it's contents are being viewed in Ableton's browser
Mouse up to the very top of the browser window and you will see C:\my documents\blah\blah\blah\MP3's (or whatever your file structure is called
Click that text and choose "Bookmark Current Folder"

What this will let you do is instantly bring up the MP3 folder to any of the 3 browser tabs!

Once you set this (any any other important folders) you simply click that c:\blah\blah\ text again and the drop down will show all your shortcuts.

I have one for my samples, my live songs folder, my mp3s, my vst's, Live's sample recording folder, etc. Very handy!

Yeah, you can make a shortcut to the folder - but that doesn't help when it comes to searching.

DJ software generally uses a database created from ID3 tags, which can be searched and results displayed instantly.

You can't do that in Live.

But then the Live MO doesn't really lend itself to choosing tracks on the fly - it's not DJ software.

DJs switching to Live from A.N.Other DJ software need to get their heads around the "paradigm shift" and realise that
things really need to be prepared in advance with Live rather than on the fly.

Or Ableton need to bring out a DJ Edition that has a feature set closer to that of 'normal' DJ software.

Ice Audio Audio Finder.. drag and drop from browser to ableton..

Interesting! Thanks y'all! Lots to think about now..

Looking for the most effective way of digging through MP3s and loading them up into Live whenever I find something I like.

I use foobar as my player and you can use different searches then drag'n'drop from the playlist to Live.
Surprised Winamp doesn't do that...

You can drag an drop from iTunes, and iTunes smart playlists are simple to manage.

op says that he opens winamp and shows it in explorer.
meaning that he uses windows.

yet you tell him to use iced audio finder, which is osx only.
interesting, that.