Ableton Forum

so i have a collected and saved set in a folder thats say 2/3 gb. but when i open the set (clean the cache before opening) my HD space starts using way more than 2/3gb of hardrive space. it also takes pretty long to load. any ideas as to why?

Probably because you are loading MP3 files into slots and Ableton converts the MP3 to WAV so it doesn't have to decode a billion tracks at once on-the-fly.

Is there a way to swap the MP3s for the created AIFF files permanently?

Mike Caffrey wrote:Is there a way to swap the MP3s for the created AIFF files permanently?

If you "Collect All & Save" it should create the decoded files in your project folder. I am pretty sure that as you add files into your project they are decoded to the project folder. I haven't really paid attention tho as I always do collect all as I save just to be sure.

jestermgee wrote:

Mike Caffrey wrote:Is there a way to swap the MP3s for the created AIFF files permanently?

If you "Collect All & Save" it should create the decoded files in your project folder. I am pretty sure that as you add files into your project they are decoded to the project folder. I haven't really paid attention tho as I always do collect all as I save just to be sure.

I do that all the time because I move between two computers.

Looking in the samples folder I see a lot of files that end in .asd, but none that end in either .mp3 or .aif

The .asd files for the mp3s are .mp3.asd. I thought that a .asd file was only a description, not audio. Is that not the case?

I've just VNC'd into my server and checked a backup of a project and it appears I have all the MP3 versions of the project along with an ASD file (which I believe holds the warp data for the file) in the Project\Samples\Imported folder. It would appear then that Ableton will decode these files when you open the project (which you will see in the clips when you open as a "progress bar"). Ableton will decode the files to its cache and then play from there.

I'm not sure now if you could easily swap out the decoded version for the MP3 version to save the decoding. There must be a way. I tend to decode most content to WAV before I import but I also don't use MP3 files that much either.

If you have a session that's only MP3 clips and you flatten all the tracks, that would make them all aiff files, right?

It would also crop the file length.

Do the MP3 clips still have to be buffered?

They'd still be in the samples folder, so to really shrink the session down you'd have to save it as a separate session and then collect all and save.


I think my workflow is going to require this as I think I'm expecting ableton to do more than it can.