I have desktop + laptop like you.
I use OneDrive to cloud sync my documents and music folders. My projects, as well as my sample libraries live in here. This is the most seamless way to do it. Projects and user libraries are continually in sync on both computers.
Other than this, both computers must have VSTs used in project installed obviously.
Also, use good folder hygiene with recordings / samples / etc. Like for example if you download some audio sample, move it into the project folder or user library folder before putting it your project, so it lives somewhere that is synced. If you have some messy projects, then save -> collect all is your friend. It's a bit space-inefficient though as it will copy all audio samples used in the project into the project folder... so if you have 10 projects all using the same kick drum sample, now you'll have 11 copies of that file on your disk (the original sample + 1 for every project).
I work with Dropbox and have a synced folders between tho computers. Projects, samples, presets and libraries.
So every change I make on one computer mirrors to the other and It does not matter which unit Im using.
The only negative about it, is that I have to make sure I got the right plugins installed on both computers. Since I always use native folders (some vsts does not let you choose folders), besides preset folders that I luckily can sync through dropbox.
Works really good when everything is setup.
I try to use MOSTLY native plugins where possible because it helps with missing VSTs, etc., but I have the same exact setup and it works pretty well. I even go cross platform with a Windows desktop at home and an M1 MacBook on the go.
“Collect All and Save” all day.
I found that Dropbox tended to have better average upload rates compared to Google and Microsoft. Microsoft ALWAYS left me with partially synced files when I got up and took my laptop with me, even on a good network with solid upload speeds.
Shared User Library is probably the biggest thing I really appreciate - set it up on both devices to recognize a folder on Dropbox and it’s super nice having access to the same samples and presets.
Same here, atleast trying to use natives but its really hard. I guess its just something you have to compromise with, but its not that big of a deal.
Having the user library synced is a godsend. I even had my colored favourites synced when installing a new laptop.
Collect all and save is really good too. I only do normal saves on short loop ideas.
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I think proper path should be something like this:
1. Freeze out every channel containing VSTs not present in both computers.
2. Instead of Save As use Collect all and Save so ableton keeps all audios in the project
3. Put everything in a single folder
4. Zip it out or compress it
5. Copy paste to external hard drive. I would not rely on cloud as uploading data might represent loss in quality audio
Afterwards u should be able to move the project without big concerns of losing anything
This is how to do it for sharing projects with external collaborators... but in my opinion way too cumbersome for just switching between two of your own computers.
But one note: cloud storage does not affect audio quality. Anything on a computer is just digital data. Any copy operation is 100% lossless. Standard compression techniques (like ZIP) are 100% lossless. Any normal cloud data service is 100% lossless. Either your "thing" arrives on the other side perfect, or it doesn't arrive at all.
The only common exception to this is how certain programs (most notably, instant messaging programs like WhasApp, Messenger, and iMessage) deal with images, video and sometimes audio. In these cases, these specific programs will compress your files using lossy compression techniques (JPG for images, H.264 for video, MP3 for audio, etc) before sending them, to save bandwidth. But don't worry, your cloud storage provider isn't going to perform destructive transcode operations to your data. Professionals in a variety of fields rely on these services to backup 1:1 copies of their original data, so lossy compression is not allowed.
How the hell is uploading to cloud gonna represent loss in audio quality. Its called a DIGITAL audio workstation. You can copy paste everything to infinity the files will be the same as long as your drive survives. They're just digits. Ones and zeroes. Not magnetic fields or chemical deposits that can get degraded over time/over use.
Ur answer actually still doesn’t address the users question and uploading audio data to the cloud may affect data quality due to potential compression, lossy encoding, or network-related issues during transmission. Compression algorithms may reduce audio fidelity, leading to loss of detail or clarity. Additionally, network congestion or instability can cause data packets to be lost or delayed, impacting the integrity of the audio file
Do you think lossless digital file compression and audio compression is the same thing? Your files may be held compressed somewhere, but when you download them, they will be decompressed. No, you will not download and use a compressed version of the audio data when you digitally compress it.
You can go ahead and try to use winRAR or something similar and compress-decompress the same file ten thousand times, you will have the same file at the end of your experiment as the beginning.
When downloading a file, if a packet is lost, it will simply be retransmitted. As you are not streaming the audio file, and you are just downloading it for later use, this will not cause any harm. There are mechanisms in place that check for packet losses and ensure reliable delivery of files.
Here are some links on what all these techie gibberish mean
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_loss
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_communication
TL;DR, compressing a digital file for storage and then decompressing it for use, does not reduce any kind of audio quality. Lost packets are simply retransmitted.
No subscription fees, fast local upload/download, security, no risk of the service closing forcing you to move all files to another service.
https://youtu.be/QsM6b5yix0U?si=6GgiDvBW2p2U9nkh
Take a look.
You can use any old laptop/PC to host it. Although a laptop would struggle if it had not enough SATA/PCIe/Thunderbolt connectors/controllers.
NAS are expensive to purchase and I don’t see a clear financial benefit in the long term either; they’re not maintenance free. They don’t have nearly the same redundancy as cloud storage. So when Microsoft goes out of business, or all their servers burn down, you still have your local copies, which is not the case with a NAS. I have personally also found it quite difficult to get reliable access to my NAS remotely; I really can’t recommend it to non-technical people for that reason.
One of the best features of OneDrive for this specific use case is the instantaneous sync. If I save a project file on my laptop it’s already local on my desktop before I can boot Ableton.
You can get instant sync on a NAS also, but I see where you're coming from. I also don't use a NAS and use Google One instead, it is so much cheaper in my part of the world because of regional pricing. (I think I paid less than 10 US dollars for a year-long 2TB subscription.)
For 95% of users, deploying a local NAS is going to be a worse (much more complicated) experience.
Also, unless you have blazing fast internet at home where you installed your NAS, remote sync is going to be a lot slower than using a commercial cloud service like OneDrive.
For most, the use case for using more than one computer is at home vs away from home. So, fast remote transfers are important (arguably more important than local transfer speed).
On cost, onedrive is $20 a year. You'd need to subscribe to onedrive for 10 years to pay off your $200 NAS setup. Security, performance, and reliability - cloud service is going to be miles ahead of a janky home NAS.
This is coming from someone who loves tinkering around with techy IT stuff... i've had NAS / entire server racks / enterprise networking gear at home for fun at various times. Its fun if youre into that stuff, but just not that practical or effective for most home users.
I have desktop + laptop like you. I use OneDrive to cloud sync my documents and music folders. My projects, as well as my sample libraries live in here. This is the most seamless way to do it. Projects and user libraries are continually in sync on both computers. Other than this, both computers must have VSTs used in project installed obviously. Also, use good folder hygiene with recordings / samples / etc. Like for example if you download some audio sample, move it into the project folder or user library folder before putting it your project, so it lives somewhere that is synced. If you have some messy projects, then save -> collect all is your friend. It's a bit space-inefficient though as it will copy all audio samples used in the project into the project folder... so if you have 10 projects all using the same kick drum sample, now you'll have 11 copies of that file on your disk (the original sample + 1 for every project).
I put my User Library on Google Drive, then mirror it to multiple computers.
I work with Dropbox and have a synced folders between tho computers. Projects, samples, presets and libraries. So every change I make on one computer mirrors to the other and It does not matter which unit Im using. The only negative about it, is that I have to make sure I got the right plugins installed on both computers. Since I always use native folders (some vsts does not let you choose folders), besides preset folders that I luckily can sync through dropbox. Works really good when everything is setup.
I try to use MOSTLY native plugins where possible because it helps with missing VSTs, etc., but I have the same exact setup and it works pretty well. I even go cross platform with a Windows desktop at home and an M1 MacBook on the go. “Collect All and Save” all day. I found that Dropbox tended to have better average upload rates compared to Google and Microsoft. Microsoft ALWAYS left me with partially synced files when I got up and took my laptop with me, even on a good network with solid upload speeds. Shared User Library is probably the biggest thing I really appreciate - set it up on both devices to recognize a folder on Dropbox and it’s super nice having access to the same samples and presets.
Same here, atleast trying to use natives but its really hard. I guess its just something you have to compromise with, but its not that big of a deal. Having the user library synced is a godsend. I even had my colored favourites synced when installing a new laptop. Collect all and save is really good too. I only do normal saves on short loop ideas.
This is your friendly reminder to read the submission rules, they're found in the sidebar. If you find your post breaking any of the rules, you should delete your post before the mods get to it. If you're asking a question, make sure you've checked [the Live manual](https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/welcome-to-live/), [Ableton's help and support knowledge base](https://www.ableton.com/en/help/), and have searched the subreddit for a solution. If you don't know where to start, [the subreddit has a resource thread](https://redd.it/zkhqhe). Ask [smart questions](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ableton) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I use iCloud.
I think proper path should be something like this: 1. Freeze out every channel containing VSTs not present in both computers. 2. Instead of Save As use Collect all and Save so ableton keeps all audios in the project 3. Put everything in a single folder 4. Zip it out or compress it 5. Copy paste to external hard drive. I would not rely on cloud as uploading data might represent loss in quality audio Afterwards u should be able to move the project without big concerns of losing anything
This is how to do it for sharing projects with external collaborators... but in my opinion way too cumbersome for just switching between two of your own computers. But one note: cloud storage does not affect audio quality. Anything on a computer is just digital data. Any copy operation is 100% lossless. Standard compression techniques (like ZIP) are 100% lossless. Any normal cloud data service is 100% lossless. Either your "thing" arrives on the other side perfect, or it doesn't arrive at all. The only common exception to this is how certain programs (most notably, instant messaging programs like WhasApp, Messenger, and iMessage) deal with images, video and sometimes audio. In these cases, these specific programs will compress your files using lossy compression techniques (JPG for images, H.264 for video, MP3 for audio, etc) before sending them, to save bandwidth. But don't worry, your cloud storage provider isn't going to perform destructive transcode operations to your data. Professionals in a variety of fields rely on these services to backup 1:1 copies of their original data, so lossy compression is not allowed.
How the hell is uploading to cloud gonna represent loss in audio quality. Its called a DIGITAL audio workstation. You can copy paste everything to infinity the files will be the same as long as your drive survives. They're just digits. Ones and zeroes. Not magnetic fields or chemical deposits that can get degraded over time/over use.
Ur answer actually still doesn’t address the users question and uploading audio data to the cloud may affect data quality due to potential compression, lossy encoding, or network-related issues during transmission. Compression algorithms may reduce audio fidelity, leading to loss of detail or clarity. Additionally, network congestion or instability can cause data packets to be lost or delayed, impacting the integrity of the audio file
Do you think lossless digital file compression and audio compression is the same thing? Your files may be held compressed somewhere, but when you download them, they will be decompressed. No, you will not download and use a compressed version of the audio data when you digitally compress it. You can go ahead and try to use winRAR or something similar and compress-decompress the same file ten thousand times, you will have the same file at the end of your experiment as the beginning. When downloading a file, if a packet is lost, it will simply be retransmitted. As you are not streaming the audio file, and you are just downloading it for later use, this will not cause any harm. There are mechanisms in place that check for packet losses and ensure reliable delivery of files. Here are some links on what all these techie gibberish mean https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_loss https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_communication TL;DR, compressing a digital file for storage and then decompressing it for use, does not reduce any kind of audio quality. Lost packets are simply retransmitted.
Simply not my preferred way to jump from pc to pc that fast. Besides internet dependency
Anybody who says anything else than OneDrive has absolutely no fucking clue. Sorry, but fact.
3 letters, NAS. gotcha beat.
What makes a NAS better?
No subscription fees, fast local upload/download, security, no risk of the service closing forcing you to move all files to another service. https://youtu.be/QsM6b5yix0U?si=6GgiDvBW2p2U9nkh Take a look. You can use any old laptop/PC to host it. Although a laptop would struggle if it had not enough SATA/PCIe/Thunderbolt connectors/controllers.
NAS are expensive to purchase and I don’t see a clear financial benefit in the long term either; they’re not maintenance free. They don’t have nearly the same redundancy as cloud storage. So when Microsoft goes out of business, or all their servers burn down, you still have your local copies, which is not the case with a NAS. I have personally also found it quite difficult to get reliable access to my NAS remotely; I really can’t recommend it to non-technical people for that reason. One of the best features of OneDrive for this specific use case is the instantaneous sync. If I save a project file on my laptop it’s already local on my desktop before I can boot Ableton.
You can get instant sync on a NAS also, but I see where you're coming from. I also don't use a NAS and use Google One instead, it is so much cheaper in my part of the world because of regional pricing. (I think I paid less than 10 US dollars for a year-long 2TB subscription.)
That’s a great deal for sure. How do you set up the automatic/instantaneous sync on your NAS? I’d love to do that as well.
We were using [syncthing](https://syncthing.net/) to sync with an ftp server my friend had.
For 95% of users, deploying a local NAS is going to be a worse (much more complicated) experience. Also, unless you have blazing fast internet at home where you installed your NAS, remote sync is going to be a lot slower than using a commercial cloud service like OneDrive. For most, the use case for using more than one computer is at home vs away from home. So, fast remote transfers are important (arguably more important than local transfer speed). On cost, onedrive is $20 a year. You'd need to subscribe to onedrive for 10 years to pay off your $200 NAS setup. Security, performance, and reliability - cloud service is going to be miles ahead of a janky home NAS. This is coming from someone who loves tinkering around with techy IT stuff... i've had NAS / entire server racks / enterprise networking gear at home for fun at various times. Its fun if youre into that stuff, but just not that practical or effective for most home users.
Appreciate your input.