Recently I'm looking for how to create a portable USB drive. Like daw and plugins. Do you guys have this kinda setup and if it's which daw and plugins do you use? And how do you manage plugins?

 

reaper with a config file and fabfilter plugins is all I really need

 

I know some plugins available in the portable version. But can I use any plugin? And recently I'm thinking to pass reaper, what do you mean about the config file?

 

I tried making a portable HDD setup to take it to college with me (this was way back before the pandemic). First I tried Ableton Live, but since I was never able to use the same computer twice when I went to the lab, I would've had to run the keygen every single time (besides, the keygen required administrator rights, and I didn't know the password).

I also tried Bitwig Studio; but every time I ran it, it copied itself in its entirety to the Documents folder, so not exactly portable. No idea why this happened.

Finally, I tried FL Studio, which itself ran fine (it wasn't even a portable version, I just copied the install folder to the HDD; it might've been the way it was cracked that made it work, perhaps? In fact, this is what I did with the other two DAWs, plus copying the .dll dependencies to the .exe folder). However, I could never get it to detect my Maschine 2 and FM8 VSTs. Same with Reaper; I could never get it to work with my Native Instruments VSTs.

Then it occurred to me that I could install Windows on my HDD, with Ableton Live and my VSTs, and boot from it on the lab computers; but I was never able to test if this would require secure boot to be disabled on those computers, or if they would prompt me for the BIOS password if I attempted to boot from my drive, etc. Perhaps you could try this?

Ultimately I just resorted to buying a cheap Core i3 tablet and loading my things there. Nowadays when I grow tired of being at my desk I just walk around the house with the tablet, my headphones and my mini-amp. Sorry if this wasn't helpful, just wanted to share...

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 8, 2021

No man it's actually useful! Cause right now I am on FL and mostly using NI products. But I was thinking to pass REAPER Portable cause I'm seeing that "portable reaper" tag everywhere. So thanks.

 

May be using symlinks... I'm not sure. But the speed of the flash drive should be like rocket level.
As has been pointed, you can't avoid to re-run the "vaccines" of the DA/plugins that use some hardware-ID