Help
for your first session.

Getting started

1. Open MusiDrive. It appears in Finder under Locations, like a drive.
2. Bring your sounds in: on Home, choose Add a Folder and pick a sample folder or library. It's read where it is, so nothing is copied onto your Mac first. You can also drop files anywhere in the window.
3. Save your recovery key when MusiDrive asks (see below).

Uploads keep going in the background and slow right down while you're playing. The Uploads page shows what's left and lets you pause, or leave it to finish overnight.

Your DAW

Your DAW sees MusiDrive as one more folder. Point it there once.

Ableton Live

In Live's browser, click Add Folder… under Places and choose MusiDrive. Its folders now show under Places: click a sound to preview it, drag it onto a track to use it.

Logic Pro

Open the browser (F), choose All Files, and find MusiDrive under your locations. Preview and drag sounds onto tracks the usual way.

FL Studio

Go to Options › File settings and add MusiDrive as one of the Browser extra search folders. Every pack then shows in FL's browser.

Everything else

Any app that opens files can open them on MusiDrive. If it asks for a folder, choose MusiDrive in the sidebar of the window that opens.

Kontakt and other samplers

Put the library on MusiDrive, then point the sampler at its new place. For Kontakt libraries, use Native Access to locate or relocate the library to its folder on MusiDrive.

When you add a sampler library, MusiDrive offers to keep the start of each of its sounds on your Mac. Say yes: it takes a small part of the library's size, and the instrument then opens without waiting on the internet while the rest streams as you play.

Finding sounds

Press ⌥ Space over any app and type what you're after: a name, or a description like "dark trap 140" or "warm pad in Eb". MusiDrive reads tempo, key, genre and feel from the sounds themselves, on your Mac. Press ↩ to show a sound in Finder, or drag it straight into your DAW. You can change the shortcut in Settings.

Ask MusiDrive can also tidy a folder for you ("put vocals together"). It shows the moves first and does nothing until you approve. It reads the folder's file names and sizes to plan, as the security page explains.

Working offline

Anything kept on your Mac plays without internet, and so does anything you've played recently. Before a flight, keep the folders you'll need on this Mac; they're listed under On This Mac. When you're offline, MusiDrive says so at the top of its window, and everything else opens when you're back online.

Missing plugins

In MusiDrive, choose Add to Vault › Check an Ableton Project… and pick a project. You'll see every sample it uses and any plugin this Mac doesn't have yet, grouped by maker, with where to get it.

Your recovery key

Your recovery key is the only way back into your Vault if you lose every Mac. Find it in Settings › Recovery, then copy it or save it to a file, and keep it somewhere that isn't one of your Macs: a password manager, or printed and put away. Anyone with it can open your Vault, so don't share it, and we can't recover it for you.

Another Mac, or a lost one

On a new Mac, install MusiDrive and choose Restore with a Recovery Key, or turn on iCloud Keychain sync on your first Mac so the key arrives by itself. Changes reach every Mac about a second after they're saved.

If a Mac is lost, sign it out from another one in Settings › Macs. It can't reach your Vault after that, but anything already on it stays, so keep FileVault on.

Still stuck?

Email us and say what you were doing when it went wrong. A person will reply.