Today I want to talk about something incredibly fun and exciting. File management. Way.
Don't stop the video. Don't go to another video I promise this is gonna
be very important. One thing I've learned is if you're going to perform
on stage using tracks backing tracks you have to do it in an efficient way.
And the way you do that is by having good found management techniques.
Hey this is all diet today we're going to talk about that managing files
and Ableton Live particularly with a focus on managing files for live performance.
So let's get started.
I think about file management kind of like changing guitar strings as a
guitar player. I have to know how to change my guitar strings. I have to
do it often now. I don't get gigs for knowing how to change MY GUITAR STRINGS
BUT IF I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CHANGE MY GUITAR STRINGS I can guarantee I'm
going to lose the gig because my guitar won't stay in tune and I can't
play a chord into it. Now to me farm management is a bit like that right.
You can step on stage and know how to do really great things with able
to live. But if you're an artist you're working with the worship leader
you're working with turns around and says Hey let's go to the version that
has a double chorus and you just kind of look at them cross-eyed and have
no idea where it is or how to get to it.
You're not going to be out to keep the gig for very very long. So I think
farm management is very important. Now most people don't like talking about it.
I do. But it's a question I get often. So I want to take you through my
process for managing files for live performance so this may not apply to
everyone but I want to show you how I do it. Now if you do something differently
let me know in the comments what you do differently and why you do that.
So let me show you how I start. Very first thing that's essential to me
is I manage sets not stems. What I mean by that is if I get stems from
a recording or I download stems from multi tracks for a worship set what
I make sure to do is I create a Ableton session particularly for that song.
I don't keep the stems in a folder I drag those stems into an Ableton session
and manage those stems as their own Ableton file. Another thing I do is
I make sure to name all my files exactly the same way. So let me show you
one of my favorite tricks that's going to kind of take us into all this.
One I use lives browser all the time to access into load sessions and sets
into another Ableton set. So I'm going to click the arrow here to the left
of my life set which opens lives browser and we go to the ADD folder area here.
Now you can see I have a folder called Ableton and within that Ableton
folder I have my files and my templates separate so when I click files
and hit open and then I'm going to do add folder again and let's go back
a level let's go to that Ableton folder I'm going to click templates and
hit open there.
So now what I've done is I've added the two places that I go often both
a folder that has all my files on my stems on it and then a photo that
has all my templates my properties enter templates my program change templates
and my template for using Ableton for keys. And I've got those separate
and I've named those so I can quickly get to them. Now if we look at the
files section here you're going to see each one of my stems has its own folder.
So for instance for the song Living Hope I have a folder named Living Hope
and if I expand that and open it up you're gonna then see my Ableton Live Set.
Again not stems but my Ableton Live set within that folder. Same thing
for this song and same thing for this song. Now another thing I want to
point out that I mentioned earlier. Every single one of these songs is
named exactly the same way it's the same naming convention. I have the
song name and then I have the key and I have the tempo that really quickly
helps me understand what key what tempo assignments I can quickly get to it.
So let me show you practically one of the things I do I'm going to open
this file up and let's start from here. And let's say we're in a performance
or in a rehearsal and the worship leader or the band director or the music
director turns over and says hey let's double that bridge.
So I could go here I could select this bridge section I could use my edit
time commands we've talked about that before I put the link to that previous
tutorial and the comments here command shift D is going to duplicate time
and now I have a another bridge. So what do we do in this case. Now I have
that song that has the song name again the key the tempo What do I do now.
So what I want to do is to file say that somebody do command shift s which
is going to open my save dialog a couple of things I want to point out here.
One I want to make sure that I save this new session as a completely brand
new able to my project and then a set within that project.
I do not save multiple sets within a project folder and I'll show you why
in just a second. So what I want to do is make sure I click on the main
folder for the song again not the live project I don't want to click here.
When I click on this folder here work back to there and then I'm going
to save this file before I do that. Though I want to mention that there
is a change there. So I mean to keep the song and to keep the key the tempo.
And then I'm going to go here and say double bridge and I'm going to hit save.
So now I know I have a completely separate able to live file that has this
edited arrangement that I can quickly get back to.
Which is gonna make this super super easy again to manage those files and
keep track of it. Now one other thing you have to do before you move on
is go up to the farm and you hear and do collect all and save. Now we've
talked about that before link to that video as well. I'm going to hit. OK.
What that's going to do is it's going to go grab where those files are
initially referenced and stored and it's going to pull them into this this
folder so that they're always there and that live project folder. If I
go to share and send that set to anyone I'm going to make sure I grab that
whole project folder so that I have it.
So now we've got our folders for each individual song within that song.
Let's actually go back to our browser here and you can see this looks like
now we see we have our song and then we have our two separate ableton live
sessions with the key with the tempo and then the distinction there at
the end if we have a different arrangement. Now sometimes though you do
your best to do this you do your best to manage this but maybe you get
into a performance and in the middle of the performance or in soundcheck
or rehearsal as you're getting ready for service or for that performance
some edit happens some change happens.
So let's say for instance we're here and suddenly we decide let's take
this a section out of the song. This case I'm going to do my delete time
command command shift delete to get rid of that. Now I'm going to hit save
so I save my set. But at the end of that performance I want to have that
file that I just had as something I can reference later. Now don't do what
most of us doing what I tend to do if I'm not careful here which is just
leave this in the set and hope that you're member. What set that you played
that song that particular way when you step off stage the same way again
as a guitar player things about changing their guitar strings or making
sure they pack their equipment up well think about your Ableton session
and go where their arrangement changes in particular songs.
And in this case yes we did change the arrangement of songs so here's what
I'm going to do when I leave my set open I'm going to do that same save
as command and we're going to create let's say a new file folder here.
So let's back out to that Ableton folder we'll go to files to create a
new folder and just call this wills song. And then let's name our lives.
As Will's song we're gonna pick the key of the thing that's like this is
in and 100 hundred BBM. Okay I'm going to hit save. So now before I do
collect all and save I'm going to select to the right of this song I'm
going to do command shift delete okay that deletes the content to the right
of it and then I'm going to select everything to the left of this I can
hold minus to quickly zoom out and I'm going to command shift delete to
delete everything to the left of that song.
Now when it hits save again. And now that I've clean this up and removed
all the samples I don't need now I'm going to go back up to file and do
collect all and save. So now doing this we're managing our files well before
we step on stage then we're managing our files well after we step off stage
and this is again got to really quickly allow us to go find that arrangement
that we did maybe a couple months ago and drag it into our set or it's
going to allow us to really quickly open a song and edit things well and
keep track of that. So before we wrap up I want to share one of my favorite
tips that I use especially when I'm talking with churches and using tracks
across multiple campuses or even across just one campus as a church.
Now if you're not a worship leader not performing a church this still applies
to you the first half of the second half just specifically the churches.
So after I get everything formatted and ready to go on my internal drive
I move all those files over to my externally you 32 shadow working kind
of dry. That's why I keep files and I work on now what's I'm done working
with those files I'm not using an asset I started them on an archive jive
and then I also use Dropbox. Now I use Dropbox not in the typical sense
for sync across computers but I upload files to Dropbox just for storage
and I'll show you one of my favorite tricks.
So when I'm done with the file I zip it or compress it and then I go over
to Dropbox. And when you go to the compressed file I can hit share I can
create a link for this file and then if I copy the link you could see with
that copy. Let's go just open a new browser tab here. I'm going to paste
this in. Now look at the end of the file it says D L equals zero
What I'm going to do is just delete the zero and add a 1 and the now 1 or copy
that else going to do command L to select it command C to copy it so you
can paste this link anywhere you can put it in a Google Sheet you could
put in an excel file so you have kind of a list of repertoire of songs
but again if you're specifically a church or doing this as a worship leader
music director for a church on a sheet one of my favorite things to do.
So I take this link then I go over to my song and planning center on I
press the plus sign here under files when I go to link and I'm going to
paste this link in again making sure that I have DL equals one at the end
of that. And then I can change the name to dream stamps and attach it to
the arrangement I'm going to hit submit and now I'm going to go over to
my service playing here. Let's add a song. I'm gonna go up here to add item.
Select add a song and I'm gonna search for the song I just added which
is dream so no I mean it's like my song and go ahead and hit except.
And now what's great about this is as I go to plan my service and add my
songs get them in the right order. I can hover over this linked section
in planning center and click it and it's automatically going to download
that file for me. So what I do is I build my set and then I go through
and download all my files onto my internal drive build my set with all
my songs in it to collect on save and then delete those files I downloaded
because I have them stored on Dropbox and I don't need them out of my internal track.
Now if you want to learn more about managing files for live performance
how to use able to live for tracks either as a worship leader at a church
or in any venue for any type of music then had to from studio to stage
dot com you can start a free seven day trial that gives you access
To every single course and access to the incredible community of people
that are learning to use Ableton Live to perform on stage. So we would
love to see you there now. Thanks so much for watching this tutorial and
I will see you next week. Take care everybody. Bye