Ableton Forum

Alright, hypothetical situation.

One song.

2 Tracks.

1 audio track - samples from a sample folder on my desktop
2 midi track - midi notes and a preset i made in massive.


If I reformat my computer, and reinstall ableton (keeping in mind that I will be overwriting the new "user/music/ableton"with the old folder I had with all the session files and samples, and keeping in mind that I will have the same exact samples folder on my desktop) will the ableton on my newly formatted computer recognize the sessions and the samples within? Will ableton also recognize the presets that automatically load up with Massive when I open the session or will I have to redo those (hypothetically assuming that I have not saved them as presets perse, but just rely on the vst itself to automatically load the preset I have loaded onto massive within the session)?

I have the same concern. Can anyone shed light on this issue?

Yes... Or at least "Should"

Your settings for pretty much ANY VST instrument/effect are stored in the ableton project so as long as the instrument is installed correctly and ableton recognises it as the same version then it will open up as normal.

If you are using additional sample sound files then I would personally do a "Collect ALL and Save" for all projects which will copy the samples into the project folder. If you do not wish to copy all your samples then Ableton will stoll locate them from their ORIGINAL paths but if you move the folders where your samples are stored you will have to re-link them. If you are talking Abletons inbuilt samples then these will load fine if they are in Abletons library.

If at all possible though (depending on your situation), if you have the ability to install a new HDD then I would recommend this so your old hard drive and the structure/projects are still in tact should anything go wrong.

thanks jester, this helps a lot.

I will do the collect all and save just to be extra safe....

when I do this, where does ableton "collect all and save" to?

Every time you save a new project it creates a folder that all your project data lives in (if you have created any tracks you should see this. Inside this folder it creates folders for your samples, recorded audio and other various reference material. When you "Collect & Save" Ableton will gather material you have imported that is not inside these folders for you and then it will reference these files instead of the original ones.

Keep in mind this is all only true for Ableton samples. If you use a VST such as Battery Drum Machine or another instrument that can use samples, Ableton cannot gather these together so normally there is a way to create a "kit".

At the end of the day if your samples are stored at D:\Music\Samples...., and you format your PC and put the samples back to D:\Music\Samples...., all will be fine.

I have gone through about 10 complete formats of my PC over the last 5 years and haven't had issues yet (this will jinx that now so thanks for that) but as the old saying goes, when in doubt....