Collect all and save is a handy way to take all of the files that you have used to make music in Ableton, And allow Ableton to store those files in its own folder.
Ableton naturally references files from outside of the program.
What does that even mean?
I’m glad you asked.
How Ableton Uses Files
Have you ever added an audio file to Ableton from your desktop? If you have, then you’ve probably noticed that a second file is created with a very similar name, except at the end of it, it uses the suffix “.asd”. An ASD file is Ableton’s analysis file. Inside that file contains everything the program knows about the song. But you may be wondering, why is it on the desktop, and not in the file that contains your live set.
This is because, by default, Ableton is able to play files outside of its actual project folder. This makes importing samples and sounds way faster. It also keeps your project files sizes down since the audio files that it’s playing actually lives outside of the Ableton file itself. In addition, there is only one copy of the audio file, rather than having whatever audio you’ve dragged in be immediately doubled.
But here’s how this often plays out…
4 years ago you made a song called, “The hippest song ever written”. You used samples you downloaded from a sample website that has since gone off the internet. Sometime in the last four years, you cleared out your downloads folder.
Yesterday you remembered that you were actually the original writer of, “The Hippest Song Ever Written”, so you decide to go back and give it a listen.
As you get ready to feast your ears on some musical genius, you notice the dreaded alert at the bottom of your screen, “Some media files have gone missing”.
“The Hippest Song Ever Written”, now has no sick drum parts, and is missing all of those cool sound effects.
Why is that?
Ableton knows to look for those files in your download folder, but you’ve since cleared out that folder, so now when it goes to search for your samples, it doesn’t find them.
Collect All And Save: The Remedy
If you would have used the collect all and save button, Ableton would have stored those samples directly in the Ableton project file itself.
Check out this file.
Here I have some stems that I’ve bounced down to my desktop and dragged into an Ableton live set.
When I click “save as” this is what my project folder looks like.
You’ll notice none of my very many stems have been added to the folder. If they were deleted from my desktop, this set would not be able to play back any of the audio.
Now when I use the collect all and save function, this is what my project folder looks like.
You will see that all of the stems have been added to the Ableton project file. So now, even if I delete this audio from my desktop, Ableton will still have a copy of it in the project folder.
Alright, now get out there and make something you’re proud of. You are already taking great steps towards making awesome music, and I’d love to be a continued support to you.
The best was to connect with me directly is to head over to my Facebook group. There you will find me, and a whole community of Ableton learners that will be able to help you on your journey.
It’s a great place to give and receive support.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
Until next time, happy creating.
-Brett