So, I subscribe to and use Loopcloud as my sample manager app that integrates nicely with DAWs in terms of previewing, syncing, key lock, tempo lock, and so on.

However, many of the samples I use are within my own locally stored sample libraries that I have not purchased from Loopcloud. As Loopcloud's "AI" auto tagging feature is handy for tagging, and then searching and filtering my samples, it works well for me.

However, one things I'm still not happy with is the way I organise my samples locally on my external NVMe drive. It's kind of organised, but I still feel like it's lacking. I use an external USB-C connected NVMe drive so I can use on both my desktop and laptop as necessary without having to save and transfer things from computer to computer, or drive to drive.

At the moment I have an external NVMe drive using the letter S: and I keep my samples, presets, and project files within in, meaning I have have these folders on the drive:

S:\Grooves\
S:\Loopcloud\
S:\MIDI\
S:\Presets\
S:\Samples\
S:\Splice\​

I have then split my Samples folder down further into categories and genres, having a folder for each one, such as Acapellas, Bass House, Breaks, Cinematic, FX, and so on. My problem comes when I have a folder called "Techno & House", which currently has a number of sample libraries across both genres. There are also some sample packs in there that cross both genres.

I am finding this is getting a little frustrating as when I open them in Loopcloud, and navigate to the folder, if making a dark techno track I don't really wanna be shown more EDM-ish house sample, obviously. I've therefore been contemplating organising this folder down further, creating separated "House" and "Techno" folders. However, this instantly gave rise in my head to getting this issue again if I don't separate these further from the off, i.e. I don't want to be making a Deep House track in the future and be having to navigate my way through more EDM House type samples due to them all being within the "House" folder.

It just led me down a bit of a rabbit hole in terms of how deep to go and organise, as I find my workflow vastly improves and speeds up the more organised I am that is logical to me. Therefore, I'm just wondering how others manage these types of issues and organise their samples libraries and such?

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2023

This has been talked before here I think.

I don't use samples, but since I'm a geek/techie ordering things is important for me.
The way I see it there's two things you can do. Obviously the main problem is when a certain folder (set of samples) has two genres.

1. You can mak a symbolink link of that folder in the (what you consider) sub-genre or second genre.
Say you have this folder:

"blablabla\TECHNO\Techno & House Vol 4"
You can make a symbolink link (think of it as a shorcut on steroids) to the HOUSE folder so you'll see also:
"blablabla\HOUSE\Techno & House Vol 4"

You can obviously see which folders are actually symbolink links of another one. Be it command line or file explorer.

2. You can rename the samples (or folders). I don't know if you can do it because can be a lot of work and I don't know how LoopCloud works.
Say you have the same folder:
"Techno & House Vol 4"
You can rename it to:
"TEC_HOU_Techno & House Vol 4"
This can be applied to sub-folders and samples

 

Hi, I was facing the same problem a year ago and I came up with a system that in my opinion, is the best. Here's how I did it:

STEP 1: Split your samples into Loops & One Shots, each folder will have these subfolders:

- Drums > Kicks & 808s, Claps & Snares, Hi Hats & Cymbals, Percussion, Complex (these are full/striped loops that contain multiple types of drums in the same sample)

- Tonal > Guitars, synths, bass, etc. literally everything melodic, harmonic or tonal.

- SFX & Ambient > Textures, risers, drops, hits, downers, glitches and everything alike.

- Vocals > You can separate them by musical intention. for example: phrases, chants, spoken, whispers. etc.

STEP 2: Drag each sample into their respective folder. Most sample packs are already labeled inside folders according to their character/intention. This makes the process a lot easier but it's sometimes better to audition the samples just to make sure they go in the right folder.

STEP 3: Get Sononym and add each one of the folders you created. The app will sort your samples by categories, BPM, key, timbre, brightness. etc, giving you more detailed information in case you need a specific sample. The app is pretty smart and easy-to-use.

I found this system to be the best because you can browse your samples within any DAW, and it'll let you get extra info with the help of any sample manager you like while not depending 100% on it. The whole thing can be tedious at the beginning but it's worth it because it stays organised even if you decide to migrate to another machine.

Hope that helps!

 

Last edited: Dec 11, 2023

I have decided to not do this anymore. I used to split everything up and so on. Now I just delete all the junk like demo.mp3, documents, images, other file formats, and I just leave the wavs. I auto-arrange the packs by Name, which groups packs together with the "labels" they came from. I have so few libraries that are a big variety of genres/sounds anyway. I can tell what is going to be in them before I open them. Curating samples is a waste of time; for me. If I really like something when I check it out, I go to the top level folder and mark it with colored dots that we have in MacOS finder. Also, if you use something and it turns out you want/need to pay for one stupid loop; you can easily do that without having to ID samples from your own hard disks.

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2023

I've been organizing my sample library since 1987. When will I be done? I keep changing my mind about the hierarchy.

 

This sounds good and logical. However, I assume you only produce a single genre? Or do youcreate this breakdown within a folder for every separate genre?

 

I do produce many genres within electronic music but I also produce for other artists (hip-hop, indie, metal. you name it).

And no, I don't separate samples by genre. What if you're making a techno banger and the clap you need is in an EDM folder? You would never look there because your search was biased by genre.

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2023

I have a NAS which has a samples folder, split into Drums, Guitars, Piano, FX, Vocals, Mix Musical (drums, musical loops etc) etc, and dump all the relevant sample packs in the most relevant folder. Then I audition them using Media Bay (Cubase) and drag any over that I want to use, I find myself using mainly FX and top drum loops to thicken my drums, not too keen on using actual musical samples. In the Drums folder, I also have the single hits too, Kicks, Claps, Snares etc. Anything I drag into Cubase gets copied to the project folder, so no issues going forward for missing samples etc.

 

Sononym overall
xln xo for drums

 

I use my old sorting option, but I think that the approach needs to be changed.
Just a catalog of companies producing samples, and inside are the original names of each product.
Loopmasters:
-house mega duper blah blah
--loops
--one-shots
--etc

 

converted if its flac/aif, batch renamed if a bunch of extra shit is in the title or it is titled with bad logic, tags stripped, sorted into a tree of 21 subfolders

BOOM likes to use wav tags which are level2 difficulty to remove

 

I just split mine into two folders, Good and Bad. I try not to use the stuff in the Bad folder. Its great, I can spend hours listening to
samples without actually creating any music.