Best Practices for Collaborating Remotely
Live Versions: All
Operating System: All
For the best experience when making music with other Ableton Live users, here are a few tips and techniques for collaborating with other users remotely.
- General Advice
- Method 1: Sending Files Back and Forth
- Method 2: Sending/Syncing Files via Cloud Storage
- Method 3: "In the DAW" Collaboration Tools
- Method 4: Collaborating via Screen Share
General Advice
- Before starting a collaboration, please make sure that all participants are using the same edition of Live (Intro/Standard/Suite). If they are not, use the guidelines shown in this help article to create a Live Set that is accessible from all versions. (If that is too prohibitive, however, consider sending each other audio stems).
- If you receive a Live Set from your partner that immediately displays the "Media Files Are Missing" error, try sending this article to your partner, and ask that they send it to you again.
- Always use the steps shown in "Scenario 1" of this help article to ensure that your Live Set is ready to transfer to another computer.
- When syncing a single Live Project across multiple systems, it is important to only open it from one system at a time. Always double-check that your partner has finished uploading their version of the Project Folder (and that you have fully downloaded the updated version) before opening it on your computer.
Method 1: Sending Files Back and Forth
In many cases, sending your work back and forth is the most practical option. However, the average Live Project is generally too large to attach to an email. In this case, you can send files to your partner using one of the services below.
- WeTransfer [The free version has a maximum 2gb upload limit]
- pCloud Transfer [The free version has a maximum 5gb upload limit]
Method 2: Sending/Syncing Files via Cloud Storage
While this is often the simplest method of collaboration, it is also the most likely to cause errors in performance and file-indexing. For more details on the potential risks (and how to avoid them!), we kindly refer you to our Cloud Storage Best Practices.
Method 3: "In the DAW" Collaboration Tools
Some developers have been hard at work creating devices for remote collaboration that work directly within the DAW!
Method 4: Collaborating via Screen Share
Some users with especially fast internet connections can route audio in and out of Live with screen-sharing application such as TeamViewer, Skype, or *Zoom.
However, these applications often introduce latency, stereo imaging, and external routing issues that require intimate knowledge of their platform to compensate for. As a result, problems that emerge are often beyond our range of Support.
* Tip: Here's a handy guide on enabling stereo audio in Zoom.