Ableton Forum

I just had my laptop stolen from my car. My monome and controller were in the same bag and were also stolen.

This is depressing. I had a year worth of work on it, I did sketches almost every day. I had A few tracks especially that I was really excited about, with a lot of detail and work. Of course I never backed up any of the files.

Has this happened to anyone before? Do I have any chance of getting the files back (at this point I don't care about the MacBook Pro and equipment). Anyone recommend things I should do now to increase my chances of getting it back or getting just the files back?

My sympathies, getting things stolen of that value and on top of it your work, that is really tough!

In my city, the first thing I would do is file a police report right away - especially if you still have the serial numbers for these items handy - makes it easier to recover things when you find them. At the same time I would start regularly checking all the pawn shops and online used sale sites. If you are connected in your local scene, telling your Facebook or Twitter friends (with a good description and pictures of the items) can help to have more eyes looking out for your things.

I know it's not exactly what you asked regarding the data on your drive, but at least you may luck out in finding the actual items. It may be a slim chance, but I've seen it happen before. I wish you luck!

i never had my gear stolen like this but i doubt you can get your old projects back unless like the other guy said you do police reports and give serial numbers to pawn shops and you get lucky to retrieve it

the thing is though how many people actually keep that shit on hand i bet its very few amount of people

i also bet they would just trade the computer for drugs to the dealer directly because thats what i assume it got stolen for (its what they do here)

i hate people who steal they literally are one of the worst scum on earth

No chance you have any of that stuff backed up to an external drive too?

I filed a police report. I was able to set up and auto message to anyone that turns on the laptop on and connects. I asked if they could just email me the als files anonymously. If I have those I can recreate the tracks. I've compiled a pretty immense custom sample diary the last year-these samples I have backed up on 2 computers (but of course the tracks are only on the laptop)

dhpetrescu wrote:I filed a police report. I was able to set up and auto message to anyone that turns on the laptop on and connects. I asked if they could just email me the als files anonymously. If I have those I can recreate the tracks. I've compiled a pretty immense custom sample diary the last year-these samples I have backed up on 2 computers (but of course the tracks are only on the laptop)

I'm sad this happened to you. I hope you get it back, or the set files at least. It also illustrates why I back up everything I produce (not everything on my disk) three times a day, weekly, monthly and yearly.

Whatever happens with the tracks, learn from that it did happen. Data Loss can occur at any moment for any reason.

Yeah that sux. Having shit stolen is never good. Have never had my laptop stolen but I have stuff stolen from my car before.

Hopefully if nothing else you can think of it as a wakeup to put some kind of automatic backup in place. Physical things are one thing but the data is something you just cannot replace.

I've had many drives die over the years including a whole production machine with 4 drives from a power fault (which would have killed a RAID array if I relied on that for "backup"). Backups have saved me every time and I am super paranoid about loosing something even by accident. I have multiple layers of both mirror and incremental backups for all my machines completely automated.

I use very very simple tools on my home server (Windows server) which consist of a simple batch file, robocopy and 7zip. This is enough to collect data from all my machines and backup to internal, external drives and for personal important stuff, to the cloud also. Apply the rule of 3 to your important data... If it does not exist in 3 different physical locations then it's as good as gone.

Unfortunately that's how, in our fresh new all-digital age, people discover the critical necessity of... back-ups !
You've probably lost valuable bytes, but the good thing is that you won't less this happen anymore !
Sadly, you've learned it the hard way it seems
Hopefully you'll end up making 100 times better (and backed up) things this year and won't regret it for too long.

Hey Bro....I sincerely feel your pain. I was in Bahamas a few years ago and went swimming with my blackberry in my shorts without realizing it at the time. Blackberry was ruined and I lost over 3000 biz contacts which were badly needed for my home based business. After crying and drinking myself into a stupor, I turned lemons into lemon aide and learned a new marketing skill to generate 1000s of new leads which turned out to be a blessing and worked out for the best.

I realize this story does not bring back your lost work, but I am trying to imply that the new work you create will be better than all the old sketches you had which you think you can't live without. It sucks big time to lose your work, but letting you know a year from now, you may be happier than you are now with the new music you create as a result of the music you lost. Instead of going back to fine tune sketches, you will wind up creating new and more interesting music. And the rub is, one of the new songs you create can somehow push your career in a new direction you never possibly imagined.

That's how life works.

I hope this helps a tad. And as long as you are healthy, don't sweat the small stuff because it really is. I was pronounced dead in an accident 3 years ago that I am still recovering from. When I tell you I would go through it again because of how much life changed, put your trust in the Universe and that everything happens for a reason.

And I know you will have 5 different backup methods when you get your new laptop.

Peace

BobbyD

So sorry to hear that man. I haven't been in that exact situation but we've had our house broken into, and our cars on numerous occasions. It's definitely a rotten feeling when someone violates your space like that.

I hope you're able to recover from it soon.

ps. I'd suggest getting a cheap little external and a Carbon Copy Cloner (or something similar) license. A subscription to a cloud service, like BackBlaze, would also be a good idea. I've got some daisy chained external drives connected to my laptop that run nightly Time Machine backups, and nightly bootable Carbon Copy Cloner backups. I also have an annual BackBlaze account, so everything is backed up remotely as well.

It's definitely the first thing to get in order as you rebuild - even if you do recover your material.

Best of luck!

dhpetrescu wrote:I just had my laptop stolen from my car. My monome and controller were in the same bag and were also stolen.

This is depressing. I had a year worth of work on it, I did sketches almost every day. I had A few tracks especially that I was really excited about, with a lot of detail and work. Of course I never backed up any of the files.

Has this happened to anyone before? Do I have any chance of getting the files back (at this point I don't care about the MacBook Pro and equipment). Anyone recommend things I should do now to increase my chances of getting it back or getting just the files back?

This is the worst feeling of being violated. Sorry about what happened. I have seen too many people become victims of theft. Must be realistic, your chances of recovering your laptop or equipment are very low, but not impossible. Get any witness statements, and check with pawnshops / law enforcement etc as you have been doing. To safeguard in the future, get lowjack on anything important and valued over $600. I have a 4 year ojack on my laptops, and it cost about $25 a year or $100 for a 4 year premium edition licence.

Investigate your social media channels, for example your facebook has a loged in timestamp which has the location of logins in the instance they opened your facebook.http://logintips.com/facebook-login/che ... tivity.php

Google has the same feature for Gmail, https://support.google.com/mail/answer/45938?hl=en

Anything you log into, try to find its loginhistory and report to their admins that your laptop was stolen and that you need any login from said device for evidence. Usually webmasters woould obleige - same with ableton, contact ableton support and request a log history of all your log ins to this forum.
https://www.ableton.com/en/help/contact-support/

Also, the perps will be well aware you are on their tail, so be discrete in your investigation with law enforcement until you have suspects.

Monetary rewards also help in certain circumstances, but not always.

So sad for you my friend.
I've made time machines almost every time before going out for gigs or touring. Never had a problem, but i recently changed my computer, and this made the change relatively smooth. (i still had to re-install Kontakt, and anyone who's gone through this know the pain it is).

Move on. Sometimes, trying to re-create what you've lost can be highly productive : using your memory and the imprints it left on you, you might end up with only the best ideas/concepts that were contained in it.

Also, i thought that apple made some sort of way to locate computers and iphone.
A friend of mine got once his iphone stolen during a football match and managed to catch the robber, waiting for the bus, with dozens of other phones in a bag....

That sucks. Buck up! Buck up! Buck up! You can't print money but you can duplicate data.

The thief will probably try to sell the laptop. You just have to make sure you're the client. Keep an eye on Craigslist or eBay. Don't confront him and tell him you're the owner if you actually find it. He will just delete the auction and try again later.

It sucks but you may actually have to buy your own laptop again. But even then the chances are pretty slim TBQH.