Hi Leo
Thanks for the incredible work with Ableset. I need your advice on how to use Ableset.
I have around 200 songs, each approximately 8 minutes long, with 8 scores and lyrics, and each with 16 audio tracks (all in the same format).
Do you recommend using Ableset in multi-session or in a single session? I often need to switch between songs instantly (before the song ends), and I don’t think that option is currently available in multi-session.
What I use for work is a 16GB M1 Pro MacBook. Sorry for my English it is not my native language 
Hey @andrews2789, welcome to the forum!
If you absolutely need instant transitions between your songs, then unfortunately, you’ll need to put all songs into one big session.
AbleSet and Live will both be able to handle this, though, so you should be fine after the initial setup.
Generally, with large sessions in Live, I’d recommend always being zoomed in so only one or two songs are visible at a time. Zooming out further might impact the performance of Live which leads to lags in AbleSet as well. Others like @patvalley have sessions of similar size and might be able to chime in with tips of their own.
Let me know if you have any further questions! 
Thank you for your answer, I already have more clarity, @patvalley if you have any recommendations for me I would really appreciate it.
Hey there, welcome!
One of my bands uses one large project with all of our material and multiple versions/medleys of some songs; our project is 15GB and 24 hours long (yes, I realize that is totally crazy). AbleSet works SO well at managing all of this.
Two things I have to do to make sure playback is smooth due to a GUI issue in Live:
- zooming in a good bit (so only a song or two are visible at one time)
- scrolling down in Arrangement view to the bottom of that window (where I mostly have busses without any audio files).
If I’m scrolled up with the majority of my audio channels visible, I can get playback issues (usually first noticed as lagging video output).
Beyond that, I can just advise some general good practices: try to eventually get a 2nd laptop for redundancy (using AbleNet and an interface like iConnectivity PlayAUDIO12), set computers on a laptop stand with fans running underneath for cooling, give your playback computer a fresh boot each show day, and use wired ethernet connections when possible for control (from an iPad, for example) instead of relying on wireless (could run into packet loss issues if there’s interference). Lastly, if you ARE using an iPad for control, make sure it’s a recent-enough model that can operate well without latency issues (I had to upgrade from a iPad Pro 2016 to an iPad Air 5th Gen for this reason, and it’s worked great since then).
Working with such a massive Set project can be difficult (long load and save times), but AbleSet makes managing it super easy, and it’s 100% worth it to be able to have that flexibility of instant transitions to any song in our repertoire.
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and for the advice. I’ll take it into account and put it into practice.
Thank you so much.
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Hello!
Apologies for resurrecting an old post. I am building my project files for one of my cover bands and I’m at the point that I have a decision to make. I am trying to decide between one large set with all of our songs, or 2-3 specifically arranged setlists.
For reference, I’m running off of a single M4 MBP (which will also be set up as an emergency backup for X32 control in case of a wireless failure, meaning X32 edit will be running) hardwired to a network hub with dedicated WiFi network in our rack. I will be controlling the project via Ableset from my M5 iPad Pro (I’m lead vocalist, so I’ll be stage front).
It sounds like one large project may be the way to go for versatility, but if we have very focused sets, would you recommend running a project for each set instead since there will be a break between sets?
Thanks in advance!
Hey there! Every situation is different, but it works best for one of my bands to have one large project file (16+GB and over 24 hours on the timeline).
Straight up, it takes a while to load (maybe 10 minutes or so), and certain Ableton edits while I’m programming (like adding in tempo markers for BPM changes) can take a minute or so to render, but this way, it doesn’t matter what type of show we’re doing: we can jump to anything in our repertoire immediately (literally without any dead air on stage) via AbleSet. We never have to worry about closing/opening a different project file during a show and any complications that could pop up in that process. We have a redundant setup, so it helps knowing there’s a backup MBP running in sync. Having everything accessible is honestly important for us, so it’s 100% worth it in our case.
I do make sure each playback computer gets a fresh boot in between show days, as that seems to help avoid any weird playback glitches (so not just leaving Ableton/the project/the MacBook open for weeks at a time and expecting everything to run flawlessly at the next gig).
My personal approach would be one large setlist with dummy locators in Ableton/AbleSet for “First Set”, “Second Set”, etc. AbleSet allows you to add different background colors for those, as well as easily define an automatic stop when you reach that, so Ableton won’t run ahead to the first song of the next set. Another approach could be 1 large Ableton project and multiple AbleSet setlist files you can load, so each one only has that current set visible (shorter list to scroll), but I personally think that one larger list works every bit as well with one less step to take during your set break.
I didn’t even think of programming multiple setlist from the same project file!
Thank for the advice! I’m leaning more toward one large file now, as I also didn’t take into account potential problems arising from opening a new project file during breaks.
Thanks again! 
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