# Opening and editing audio assets in an external sample editor (Ableton Live Studio 11)
**URL:** https://qa.fmod.com/t/opening-and-editing-audio-assets-in-an-external-sample-editor-ableton-live-studio-11/19718
**Category:** FMOD Studio
**Created:** [January 10, 2023, 12:18am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/opening-and-editing-audio-assets-in-an-external-sample-editor-ableton-live-studio-11/19718 "2023-01-10T00:18:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bmblack](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Bmblack)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2023, 12:18am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/opening-and-editing-audio-assets-in-an-external-sample-editor-ableton-live-studio-11/19718/1 "2023-01-10T00:18:12Z")
Hey all,
I’ve been trying to open and edit audio assets from my FMOD Studio project in Ableton Live Studio 11’s sample editor. So far I’ve had success importing audio files into an Ableton using the context menu in the assets browser, however, I can’t figure out which edits in Ableton Live will change the audio file in FMOD’s internal directory. I’ve tried cropping, reversing, and changing the starting position of Ableton Live’s sampler, but when I click refresh on the audio asset in my FMOD Studio project, nothing changes. What am I doing incorrectly?
Thanks
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### Author:  [@joseph](https://qa.fmod.com/u/joseph)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2023, 2:57am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/opening-and-editing-audio-assets-in-an-external-sample-editor-ableton-live-studio-11/19718/2 "2023-01-11T02:57:18Z")
FMOD Studio reads the file from disk rather than directly communicating with your Ableton Live Studio 11 session. As such, only changes that have been saved to the file on the hard drive can be detected by FMOD Studio.
This is because there is no reliable way for FMOD Studio to guess whether the changes you have made without saving are changes you intend to use in FMOD Studio, an incomplete work-in-progress that still needs more work, or an experiment that you may choose to discard. Saving your work signifies that you want to keep it.
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### Author:  [@Bmblack](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Bmblack)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2023, 1:22am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/opening-and-editing-audio-assets-in-an-external-sample-editor-ableton-live-studio-11/19718/3 "2023-01-12T01:22:23Z")
Thanks joseph,
Does this mean I would have to use a destructive audio editor to write all of my changes into the file? I’ve already tried saving an Ableton file with the changes I made, however, since Ableton doesn’t do destructive audio (at least as far as I’m aware) it will never actually write the changes into the file and thus not show a noticeable change in FMOD Studio.
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### Author:  [@joseph](https://qa.fmod.com/u/joseph)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2023, 2:36am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/opening-and-editing-audio-assets-in-an-external-sample-editor-ableton-live-studio-11/19718/4 "2023-01-12T02:36:28Z")
> [@Bmblack](#):
>
> Does this mean I would have to use a destructive audio editor to write all of my changes into the file?
As I said, FMOD Studio reads the file on the hard drive. If the file does not change, FMOD Studio will not detect any changes.
> [@Bmblack](#):
>
> since Ableton doesn’t do destructive audio (at least as far as I’m aware) it will never actually write the changes into the file and thus not show a noticeable change in FMOD Studio.
Ableton does support making destructive changes to audio files. It is, after a, tool for creating sound files that can be used for a variety of purposes.
If you’re having trouble making changes to files, I suspect it’s because you’re saving the Live set; a Live set is a separate file to the audio files used to create that Live set, and saving the set does not affect the audio file. If so, you should instead try to export the live set’s audio as an audio file. For information on the differences between saving a Live set and exporting audio, I reccomend reading [this section](https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/live-concepts/#4-15-saving-and-exporting) of the [Ableton Reference Manual](https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/).