hey everyone,
I set spectralayers as my default audio editor in ableton, and it opens up fine when i click “edit” on a clip. i can make changes in spectralayers, but when i try to save or update the file, it just doesn’t work.
this only happens on windows.On mac, the edits update instantly, and everything works perfectly. i’ve tried running ableton as admin, but it didn’t help. i’m wondering if it’s some weird file permissions issue or windows locking the file. ( the file updates if i close ableton, but this defeats the purpose of using spectralayers as an external editor. it means i have to open the file through ableton, close ableton, make edits in spectralayers, save the changes (which only works when ableton is closed), and then reopen ableton to load the updated file. not exactly practical, especially since this issue doesn’t happen on mac.)
I kinda figured a workaround by duplicating the layer in spectralayers, edit the duplicate (which creates a new file), and then drag the new file back into ableton. this works, but it’s not ideal, and i want to know if there a proper solution.
does this issue have a fix, or has it been talked about here before?
Thanks
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Windows generally locks files because of security in network file editing. ie you can’t have two applications editing the same file at the same time, so the file is locked. Sounds like Ableton isn’t releasing the source file when it’s stopped playing it perhaps? In Bitwig I use its project folder and edit directly out of that, then it just updates the audio in whatever track i’m editing in realtime, but Bitwig doesn’t support external editor command so that’s how it has to be done.
Thanks for the message, @Sam_Hocking . that makes sense regarding file locking on Windows. But, I noticed for example that iZotope RX handles this issue quite elegantly with Ableton. When you open a file in RX as an external editor, Ableton marks the file as “offline” as soon as you start editing it in RX. This allows RX to edit the file freely without any conflicts. Once you save your changes in RX and close it, the file reconnects to Ableton and comes back online seamlessly.
I suspect RX developers implemented this behavior intentionally, knowing Windows locks files and that Ableton can’t edit them simultaneously. Behind the scenes, RX most likely communites with Ableton anddisconnects the file from Ableton temporarily, allowing edits, and then reconnects it once RX is closed.
I wish SpectraLayer devs adopt in the future a similar approach, I feels like it is the best way to solve this windows limitation. For now, I’m just using workarounds.
That said, SpectraLayers has some fantastic features that RX doesn’t offer, like the ability to drag and drop directly from the editor into your DAW. This is invaluable, especially when performing stem separation in an external editor. You can simply drag and drop the layers back into Ableton, saving so much time. Also for example features like non destructive stem separation and other advanced tools make really SL the best in terms of competition. Still wished these small issues to be solved to have the full ultimate Package.
I’ll definitely revisit this issue to see what workarounds SpectraLayers can use on Windows, considering several apps (Ableton, Vegas, Resolve) seems to have issues with that.
@cubasened please give SL 11.0.60.403 beta1 a try (macOS installer/Windows installer), it should allow you to round-trip with Resolve, Ableton and other hosts properly now
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