Ableton Forum

Two questions:

1. Is it practical to store your Live Clips and rest of your music library on an external HDD? For me it is a space issue to accomodate my 60GB Laptop. With USB1.1 transfer, will the slowdown cripple Live6' spontaneity?

2. How do people out there structure their libraries? Is it just like Windows Explorer: heirarchical and anyway you desire, or do you have some specific strategy in building your library that makes it easier for you to store and find what you want when you want it?

I'm starting from the beginning today so all replies will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
P220ST

I have all my clips, loops, and samples on a Network Attached Storage so it runs over Ethernet. Live does take considerably longer to load a file than if it were on the local hard disk, however it doesn't interrupt the music, so I just have to be patient and load things in plenty of time.

As for structure, I have:

/
-Bass
-Bits and pieces (atmospheric stuff that isn't quite percussive, general oddness)
-Distorted Reality (1 and 2, split in to hits, loops, etc)
-DrumHits
-DrumLoops
-Instruments (samples of traditional, real instruments)
-Misc (stuff that isn't tuned and vocals)
-Pads
-SonicImages (weird noises sample CD)
-Synths

I don't organise so much that I can find it, as I like just loading a random sample and seeing where it takes me. It's more so Live and Reason can find files I've used in saved arrangements.