sending a track to another computer - please help!

EyeBallKid · Post by **EyeBallKid** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 3:37 am

First let me apologize in advance for the length of this post.

I am having such problems with Ableton Live right now I'm starting to regret ever getting it in the first place. All I want to do is send my projects to my new computer. I just got a new laptop, which is a Mac and my old computer with all my music is a PC. I have music that I've been working on for months all in Ableton Live and I need to get it on my new computer.

So, I tried just sending the sets to the new computer, but then with each set, when I open it it says something like 600 samples are missing. If I try to find those samples, it will find most of them because most of them are in the software instruments themselves. It will be "missing" the kick from one of the Impulse drum sets, for instance, then it'll find it through the manage set thing. That's pretty annoying, but at least I've figured out a solution to that part of it.

But then anything that is an audio clip, including all the things that I've flattened that started out as MIDI clips is missing and can't be found after I send the project (which is most of the music, because I took to flattening every MIDI clip when I realized Live will spontaneously change the way just about any clip sounds if you move it around in the arrangement view, but that's a separate issue). I basically know where these samples are in my PC, but they're in a giant folder of hundreds and hundreds of samples and clips, none of which have real names, and there's no organization to it whatsoever in the folders. It's just numbers and letters.

This seems to be because, for some reason, on my PC, Live has never created any PROJECT FOLDERS. I didn't even realize there was such a thing until I started using Live on a Mac, and every time I made a set, it would create a project folder that would keep all of the project's samples in one place. That would be useful for this, cause then I could probably just e-mail a little folder like that to myself for each project, but instead I have massive folders with hundreds of samples and no way to transfer all of it at once, and trying to figure out which samples go with which set one by one would take an immense amount of time and I'm not sure if it's even doable, despite the fact that the projects themselves seem completely organized and normal when I'm working with them in Live on my PC.

I've tried figuring out another way to transfer lots of stuff from my PC to my Mac at once but have had no luck. I went to the Apple store and talked to the "genuises," who basically just told me to read the instructions online for connecting the computers, but after working at connecting them directly for hours, I've made no real progress for reasons I won't even go into. They offered to do it for me, but only if I leave my computers with a group of strangers who can freely go through all my original music files for three days. So, I feel like I've reached a dead end as far as sending my music to myself through any method.

I have also tried "self-containing" the sets, which appeared to have worked at first, but then when I sent it to myself and opened it on my Mac, it was EXACTLY the same as when I sent just the set without self-containing it. It still said hundreds of samples were missing and it was unable to find any audio clip from the set, presumably because that method didn't result in all of the clips actually being sent.

My real frustration is that, after working on this problem for two days, I have yet to manage to successfully SEND a single track to myself in Ableton in full. This is not just a PC/Mac issue, this is something that really affects what I think of Ableton as a program that I can use in the real world as a musician. How is it possible that this program isn't set up in such a way so that you can send your projects to another computer through any method that I can figure out after all this work? How are you supposed to collaborate with other musicians or DJs on your Ableton Live projects if this is so impossible? It seems like this would be an essential, basic feature, and I'm unable to figure out how to make it happen, and the MANUAL has virtually nothing on this topic. I assumed when I bought the Mac that I would be able to just install Live on there and send my projects to myself.

I have reached the point where I feel like I've wasted months of work on music that can never be shared with another computer. I feel that I've wasted huge amounts of time and money because of this problem, and I'm eager to find out if other similar programs have this kind of problem. I could go on and on about this, but I know this has already become a very long post, but I just wanna say that I completely give up on this if no one out there can help me solve this problem. And if anyone's actually read this entire post all the way through, thank you for your time, and I appreciate any help from anyone at this point.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:55 am

Project Folders have nothing to do with Mac / PC.

A project folder cannot exist within another project folder, and the library counts as a project folder. Therefore on your PC it's safe to say you were either saving your sets inside another project folder, or in the Library.

I would suggest this: on your pc, open a working set and save it to a new location outside of any project folder or the Live Library. It should then create a P.F.

From the Live browser, you should right click the new project, select 'manage project', and then you can collect all the samples into that project, and also pack it as an .alp file. Installing the .alp (Live Pack) on your Mac should be the best bet for getting a fully functional set there.

There are a few screwy things going on with file searching that still need to be fixed so not all of the problems in that area are necessarily just you...

don't give up

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:58 am

EyeBallKid wrote: I'm eager to find out if other similar programs have this kind of problem.

From my (limited) experience of sharing songs in Reason and ProTools (not using protools myself) - nothing easy there either.

I got tons of missing sounds in Reason, and lots of useless protools files that wouldn't open in other programs, with .L and .R extensions - couldn't rename them to .wav, etc. Never got it to work.

EyeBallKid · Post by **EyeBallKid** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 4:47 pm

Okay, I've successfully managed to send from my new Mac to my old PC by creating a pack in addition to self-containing and then sending the alp file to myself. I'm now trying to do the same with my PC, which is harder because it doesn't have any project folders other than the Ableton library, but I'm using longjohn's tip about saving the set outside of the Live folder to see if that works. It's taking a bit, but I'll report back after I've tried that.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:17 pm

By the way, is there some reason why you can't network the computers so that you don't have to "send" the files - you're emailing them to yourself?

EyeBallKid · Post by **EyeBallKid** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:26 pm

Hallelujah, it finally worked! Thank you so so much longjohns. At first it seemed like it hadn't worked, but then I did a search for all the missing samples and it found them. Thanks a lot.

EyeBallKid · Post by **EyeBallKid** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:49 pm

longjohns: I spent a long time trying to network the computers or connect them directly, but with one being a PC and the other being a Mac it was very complicated and I couldn't do it, even with my IT friend trying to help me.

This was the piece of instruction on Apple's website that I could not figure out how to do:

"Type your PC's network address in the Server Address text box using one of these formats:

* smb://DNSname/ShareName
* smb://IPaddress/ShareName"

I eventually found the IP address, but I have no idea what the ShareName is. I also didn't know the network's password and I'm not sure if there is one.

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:39 am

The DNSname sounds like the name you have assigned to your computer. One way to do this is through the windows network setup wizard.

The ShareName corresponds to the name assigned to a shared folder. Right click any folder, select properties, and there's a sharing tab. Then you can tell it to share the folder and assign a name to the share. It will not necessarily be the same name as the folder, but it could be.

I just tried to setup a windows computer to print off a printer connected to a mac. eventually gave up. Sounds like you are ahead of me actually because you got as far as getting Samba set up (?)

Tim Moore · Post by **Tim Moore** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 8:54 am

ok just check this articles to connect 2 computers - it's quite easy, really
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics_other

sending a track to another computer - please help!

sending a track to another computer - please help!

Re: sending a track to another computer - please help!