anyone have any good library organizing tips?

[Eat Bass]

i've realized im getting in the way of my own productions. im mixing left and right brain tasks and its leaving me with a lot of unfinished tracks. i'm trying to organize my workflow and separate the two tasks. but i don't know how to go about organizing my sample library. i'm looking for ways to go about creating an efficient library. as of now i just have all different sample packs in a samples folder and inside those packs have all the different types of samples like kicks, snares, bass, etc. i dont think this is very efficient and i would like to maybe organize all my samples with folders such as 'punchy snares', 'high snares', 'clicky kicks', etc etc. but i dont know if thats really a good way and im not so sure i'd be good at naming the different types of samples and organizing them accordingly. any tips would be appreciated.

[mthrfnk]

I'd organise either by pack type or by sample type.

For example organise by "Drum Packs", "FX Packs" and "Vocal Packs" or like you said "Kicks", "Snares" and "Hats" etc.

Personally I prefer the former method because I know my sample packs inside out and I have "go-to" sounds in certain packs. You could also create a seperate section with your most used, favourite or "song starter" samples.

[Huts]

I spent the better part of the last week organizing my samples because I had the same problem, my goal was to make it as easy as humanly possible to find sounds to fit any type of tune I was making without having to go digging. I'll give you a run down of how I separated my stuff (Idk how in depth you wanna go, but heres an idea).

Drums: I don't layer kicks and usually dont layer snares so this was the easy part
Kicks
Snares
Percussion
-toms/bongo/asian/african

Hats:
1 hits
-open/closed/blips/shakers/cymblas
loops
-shakers/170/140

Breaks:
hip-hop/jazz/funk
DNB
garage
house
Fills

Instruments/Sounds:
horns
world (some asian instruments, arabian flutes and stuff)
Pads/Atmo
Reeses
- 1 hits
- long notes
- riffs

Vocal:
acapellas
speech

Also every time I chop a break to use as single hits I have another folder thats organized into hats/kicks/snares that I put those in. If I layer a sound(snares for example) in a tune I'll bounce it and put that into the same folder just so I've got a place where I can go back and hit up all the samples I've already used in tunes as a starting point. I think a big key is cut down on the size of your library first, then organization. Theres no need to have 700 kicks and 1000 snares and triple that in hats. My breaks folder is the largest simply because I like using breaks for drums rather than 1 hits, while my drums and hats folder combined come in at under 200 samples.

[billybuxton]

Iv got my samples organised like this

Atmospheric
Bass
CMM Collection
DnB
Drum Hits
Drum Loops Dubstep
MIDI
Musical Loops
Other
Percussion Loops
Remix Stems
SFX
Vocals

and inside them folders are more sub folders

Its a ball ache to do it but, its well worth it when its done

[Sonika]

My sample library is pretty unorganized but I know it well so I can navigate it fine.

It goes

kicks --> in that folder there's a bunch of miscellaneous kicks as well as the folders of kick sample packs

snares/claps/hits --> some claps and snares sample packs, a big folder of rimshots, and some other miscellaneous samples

other percussion --> a big folder of hats and then a folder of toms, and a folder of congas and bells and stuff

melodic loops --> exactly what it sounds like

percussive loops --> exactly what it sounds like

vocals --> acapellas, vocal phrases from sample packs, some movie samples, etc

[Eat Bass]

thanks for the tips guys. i want my samples pretty damn organized, so i want them deep in specific folders. i also think that i have too many samples, but i know im the type of person that will be hesitant to chuck any because i think i may be able to find a use for it. this is going to be a pretty big task, but i think im gonna think about it for a bit more before i decide exactly what i want to do.

[Climax]

I organize by how I use the samples, for instance

Risers
Transitions
Atmosphere
Vocals
Breaks
Etc

I find that to be the most efficient, the rest of it is by instrument like

Bass- heavy/dark/bright
Drums -
Kicks- deep/topend
Snare- deep/high

You get the idea


Sorting out drums like that really helps save time

Theres nothing worse than listening too 100 completely random kick drums lol

[Eat Bass]

I organize by how I use the samples, for instance

Risers
Transitions
Atmosphere
Vocals
Breaks
Etc

I find that to be the most efficient, the rest of it is by instrument like

Bass- heavy/dark/bright
Drums -
Kicks- deep/topend
Snare- deep/high

You get the idea


Sorting out drums like that really helps save time

Theres nothing worse than listening too 100 completely random kick drums lol

yeah this is what i was thinking of doing. the only problem is i have WAYYY to many samples to organize them all one by one like this. i might have to delete some samples :/. as of right now i have a few 'go to' sample packs. im trying to decide if i want to break those sample packs apart and organize them in the method we have been speaking about.

[Sonika]

I saw some big artist talking about this (I forget who) ^ he basically said the moment his productions really improved was after he set aside an entire week to organize his huge sample library into painstakingly clean ordering. It was horrible he said but worth it.

[mitchAUS]

the only problem is i have WAYYY to many samples to organize them all one by one like this. i might have to delete some samples :/

Rename your current sample folder to "unorganised samples" Make a new folder with all your new sub folders how you want to organise it and that. Then just go through your unorganised samples and drag sounds you like into the right spot in your organised sample folder. That way you don't have to organise everything at once. If you find 10 kicks you like stop going through kicks and look for snares, then move on to ur music loops or whatever. Once you have a relatively complete library of organised sounds write tunes with that. These samples could keep you busy for weeks or months depending how many you organised. When you feel like you have ringed these samples enough samples and your library is holding you back, you can go back to your unorganised folder, spend a few hours getting some new sounds into your organised folder. Over time you will have a very organised folder that you know inside and out. Ive just started doing this and it is really helping.

ps. Spent the last two days building up a logic template for me to use, this with an organised library will hopefully help my workflow

[krispy]

the only problem is i have WAYYY to many samples to organize them all one by one like this. i might have to delete some samples :/

Rename your current sample folder to "unorganised samples" Make a new folder with all your new sub folders how you want to organise it and that. Then just go through your unorganised samples and drag sounds you like into the right spot in your organised sample folder. That way you don't have to organise everything at once. If you find 10 kicks you like stop going through kicks and look for snares, then move on to ur music loops or whatever. Once you have a relatively complete library of organised sounds write tunes with that. These samples could keep you busy for weeks or months depending how many you organised. When you feel like you have ringed these samples enough samples and your library is holding you back, you can go back to your unorganised folder, spend a few hours getting some new sounds into your organised folder. Over time you will have a very organised folder that you know inside and out. Ive just started doing this and it is really helping.

ps. Spent the last two days building up a logic template for me to use, this with an organised library will hopefully help my workflow

This is the best answer by far but it would be nice to see what your list of sample root folders looks like

Mine is like:

Bass
Percussion
FX
Synth
Pads
Music Loops
Vocals

Im just starting to organize mine for the first time today
Just looking for other ideas

[JTMMusicuk]

I need to organise my library at some point soon, its getting out of control haha
all those CM drum hits are making my library a proper state

[Ongelegen]

Mine is something like this:

Drums
- Breaks & Loops (sorted further into categories like dnb, live drums, uber breaks etc. basically packs)
- Kits (sorted per kit or per pack, 808, 909 etc.)
- Hits (single hits that don't belong to a kit, sorted into Kicks, percussion, Snare & claps. Each folder also sorted further)
- Custom (my own build stuff)

SFX
(a huge folder with alot of subfolders for each category like animals, body, household, metal, wood, impacts, stone, electronics, doors etc. the list goes on...)

Ongelegen
(my own recording, not included in the SFX folder so I have easy and fast access to my own stuff)

Instruments
(lots of multisampled acoustic instruments instruments, each in a subfolder)

Pads
(sorted in subfolders per type/style, don't actually use this one that much)

Wave Cycles
(Contains the AKWF pack)

Patches
Contains only my own patches organized per plug, but I don't save my patches as often as I should)

It's a very minimal library and I often shift through it and delete stuff I don't see myself using to keep it organized. I don't like having a huge library with too much choise as I spend waaay to much time searching for samples.

[ehbes]

Delete shit you don't use and know will not use

[krispy]

Mine is something like this:

Drums
- Breaks & Loops (sorted further into categories like dnb, live drums, uber breaks etc. basically packs)
- Kits (sorted per kit or per pack, 808, 909 etc.)
- Hits (single hits that don't belong to a kit, sorted into Kicks, percussion, Snare & claps. Each folder also sorted further)
- Custom (my own build stuff)

SFX
(a huge folder with alot of subfolders for each category like animals, body, household, metal, wood, impacts, stone, electronics, doors etc. the list goes on...)

Ongelegen
(my own recording, not included in the SFX folder so I have easy and fast access to my own stuff)

Instruments
(lots of multisampled acoustic instruments instruments, each in a subfolder)

Pads
(sorted in subfolders per type/style, don't actually use this one that much)

Wave Cycles
(Contains the AKWF pack)

Patches
Contains only my own patches organized per plug, but I don't save my patches as often as I should)

It's a very minimal library and I often shift through it and delete stuff I don't see myself using to keep it organized. I don't like having a huge library with too much choise as I spend waaay to much time searching for samples.

Kinda unrelated but cool sound fx page in your sig!

[massimoz]

here's a screen shot of a bit of my sample library organisation:



Make sure to untick every sample (select all and then untick) as it stops iTunes automatically playing the next one. And don't forget to put your actual music into playlists so that they don't get lost in your iTunes library either.

Then I used a special script to make every playlist organise itself in the same way (title and then rating):

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/s ... iewoptions

Best 4 days I ever spent organising all the samples! Makes a massive difference

[Ongelegen]

Kinda unrelated but cool sound fx page in your sig!

Thanks

[Electric_Head]

I`m pretty piss poor with sample organization.
I have a samples folder, everything is in there.

[ehbes]

I`m pretty piss poor with sample organization.
I have a samples folder, everything is in there.