NI Products Transfer from Intel Mac to a silicone one

AxMusic · 2025-03-17T11:44:19+00:00

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Hello all,

I am upgrading from a 2014 Mac mini to a 2024 Mac mini. Since, it is a jump from the intel one to the m chip one.. I was wondering if anyone had tips regarding all things NI software. The 2014 Mac definitely has an issue (not sure if it is hardware or software) that makes it incredibly slow. I have run malwarebytes and no virus was detected. However when I start up the Mac mini (2014) upon boot up the screen will for a second, flash an image of either multiple apple logos/ Or what looks like a screen of multiple bar codes (both have happened) then it jumps to the log in screen. In the past I’ve even had NI support while using teamviewer to help me with some issues, comment on how unnormal it is for the Mac to be THAT slow. On top of that there is for some reason around 200gb of “system data”that I can’t for the life of me figure out what that undefined data is…. I don’t use this Mac for anything other then music production (only logic & maschine & Traktor) So I have no idea what the system data could be.. this 2014 Mac was also a time maschine back up from an older 2012 Mac…so since this is the state of things, I am going to avoid transfering data from the 2014 Mac using a time maschine back ups/ or migration assistant….Since i don’t want to risk carrying any potential software issues that might end up slowing the new one down….

I was planning on using target disk mode.. and drag and drop files from the old Mac to the new one.

I was looking for some help with what i need to bring over to the new Mac and where to place all the files..? (I’d like to avoid redownloading everything..if i can)

Specifically help with NI Software.

What would need to be transferred over for everything to work smoothly?

Software

Maschine -all NI instruments, and expansions content are stored on an external drive.

Traktor - all the music Traktor is pulling from Apple Music app is also stored on an external drive

Native Access 2 ( I’m assuming this one i can just download?)

Thank You for any replies I get!

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Accepted answers

mykejb

Download Native Access from the usual download page - https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/native-access-2

Plug in the external disk, start Native Access and click Maintenance at the bottom left then Locate Content. Click Choose Location in the dialog that pops up and select the main folder containing all the NI libraries. Native Access will scan the folder and add all the libraries it finds.

Change the content location in Native Access to your external drive. You can then download any remaining software in the usual way.

For Traktor, you can copy the Traktor folder from your user folder (it'll be in /Users/yourname/Documents/Native Instruments) to the same location on the new system. That will copy all the playlists and settings.

If you have any user presets you can copy the whole Native Instruments folder tree from your user folder to the new system.

All comments

mykejb

Download Native Access from the usual download page - https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/native-access-2

Change the content location in Native Access to your external drive. You can then download any remaining software in the usual way.

If you have any user presets you can copy the whole Native Instruments folder tree from your user folder to the new system.

AxMusic

Thank You for the reply!

For Maschine would it be possible to drag and drop my maschine projects/ and anything i have in the maschine exported folder?

For Traktor if I copy the Traktor folder over would that carry over any tracks i have stems of…. along with saved cue points, and any colors I have on the tracks?

mykejb

Both of those should work ok as far as I know yes.

Just a thought to save you using target disk mode on the older Mac - you could drag the files from the Time Machine backups if you have an external TM disk? That way you can have both Macs running if you need to compare files. Option-Click the TM icon in the menu bar lets you browse "other" Time Machine backups from other systems.

AxMusic

Thanks for that, Yeah I was thinking I would use target disk mode since i have two mac mini’s and both require a display..Since I only have one, it seemed to be the only way I could think of doing file transfers while actually seeing what I’m doing. I didn't think about using time maschine backups in that way. I will give it a shot!

By the way, what do you mean by TM disk? Do you mean a hard drive for time maschine backups?

And for this to work, would I connect the time maschine hard drive to the new Mac and just pull the files from there?

Thanks for the info you’ve provided by the way!

mykejb

Yep TM is Time Machine sorry - you can plug the latest Time Machine external hard drive from the old Mac into the new Mac, start the Time Machine application and access the data on the external hard drive.

D-One

I wouldn't go migrating the data of an old computer riddled with issues… Install NA2 and use "Locate Product Content", some stuff will need to reinstall, do it at the cost of some time then live happy with a working responsive computer.

mykejb

I was thinking just data - like libraries, user presets, old projects etc. I agree totally with anything else, I use it as a chance to dump all the apps/vsts I loaded at some point, used once then never again!

AxMusic

Yeah, so originally I was planning on transferring the bulk of the old Mac.. for conveniences sake.

However since it would likely bring more problems and potential headaches down the line..I’m gonna start the new Mac fresh.

All I’m thinking on transferring via the time maschine backups are.. my maschine projects, & tracks in maschine’s exports folder. And hopefully getting the library in Traktor to reflect my current one… (keeping the stems, cue points, and color coordination) I have set.

Transferring just that, shouldn't bring over any issues from the previous Mac right? (Even if the backups were from a Mac with issues)

Also komplete libraries & tracks i use for Traktor are stored on external drives so that should be as simple as redirecting the apps to those drives when searching for them right?

Also since I have to redownload NA2, Maschine 2, and Traktor… would i have to redownload all the vst/Plugins I have from NI (e.g. Massive X & Raum.. or would pointing NA2 to where the content is stored (the external drive) suffice?

FYI I don’t store fx plug ins on the external drive..I just used raum as an example… I assume I will have to install all of those again…

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to cover my bases.

Jojo123

Any applications, you need to download and re-install, which typically goes on the system drive, not external. But content is fine. The good part is these (the applications) are generally pretty small and unlike some of the content libraries, take up minimal space.

mykejb

@Jojo123's advice is good - applications and plugins are best downloaded and installed fresh, only use the huge library files from the older machine. I have all my libraries and other big stuff on an SSD in a TB4 adaptor, was so much cheaper than getting internal storage !!!

AxMusic

cool, so apps & plugins i will install fresh.

@mykejb which “huge library files” are you referring to?

The plist files? Or something else?

Jojo123

Examples of the huge libraries @mykejb likely is referring to is, Kontakt libraries like Omnia 75GB (iirc), Cremona Quartet, (each of those are well over 20GBs) and many others. They range from a couple of GBs to 75ish. Of course this depends on what products you own, but any of the bundles will include sizable content files. Plist files are on the system drive and aren't large.

AxMusic

@Jojo123 ok, I see, So in my case I don’t have any of the actual content of the libraries in Komplete 15 ultimate stored on the actual Mac. It’s stored on an external hard drive. I guess what I’m wondering is once I’m in Native access in the new Mac, how do I go about sorting the libraries out? Would I have to redownload the libraries, and have Native access store the libraries in the external drive all over again? Or just relocate the libraries and point them to the external drive where they are already stored?

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/217017#Comment_217017

No, you just use the "Locate Product Content", it scans the external folder for those huge libs, so you dont have to redownload or do plist tricks.

If you will keep the old mac around for a while you can take your time to manually copy things like user content where projects, groups, samples, etc are located.

/Users/your-name/Documents/Native Instruments

AxMusic

ok, Got it.

Wouldn't I be able to copy the projects/samples ect… from the directory off the time maschine hard drive itself?

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