I'm in the process of sorting out....it has accumulated a lot over the years....it is just too much, I have over 500gb of sample libraries alone, so I mean drums, one shots, construction kits...

How much do you have and how much of it do you really use?

What also interests me is how did you organize them?
By music genre, by manufacturer or by producer?

Do you use a sample library organizer VST or how do you do it, how do you quickly find the sound you are looking for?

Best regards , ✌️

 

About 2 TB at the minute - I've got them organized in folders by manufacturer but most are kontakt libraries or DAW plugins so I access them from the menus on the programs they're embedded in

 

For sample packs, I leave all the wave samples in the original folder that is created when extracted. That keeps the original title, but I clean it up by deleting all special characters and so on. That is how I leave the sample pack. The rest of the stuff, I remove from them.

I delete all "Construction Kits" from any. I move any folders of Midi files separately into a "All Midi Files" folder. I have another "All Presets and Content". I delete any duplicate copies of formats I do not use. I delete all Artwork, Info files, Demos, and Stems.

I have a few sample manager programs, but I mostly just use the Mac Finder. Scanning drives takes way too long.

 

I've deleted a lot and burned and archived a lot onto Blu-ray, DVD, and CD. What you have is what you have. If necessary, you can then use your archived samples. In the early days of the internet, you had few samples, then at some point you had enough, and now you have too many.

I created a folder called Samples, then subfolders: Drum, Synth, Bass, Leads, Chorus, Effects, Single Shots.

I have several storage media with samples whose gigabytes I don't even know. It's very confusing.
At least the burned discs are labeled, but searching for them is always very tedious and time-consuming.

Conclusion: If you have fewer samples, you don't lose track and can find a sample relatively quickly. Labeling burned discs is very important and saves time and effort. I've downloaded so many that I have enough samples to choose from even without the internet, so there won't be any boredom or a shortage of samples.

 

one drive 3.35 TB
main 1.85 TB
collecting kontakt libraries is the worst habit I've ever gotten into LOL

I probably have 2 Tb of sample packs

 

I have a bit more than 3to, accumulated for over 25 years (not including the Kontakt lib)... But I'm in the process of deleting some (mostly the thing I know I never use like melodic loops).

For organisation, it's sorted by type and genre, for exemple, every drum shot are group by kicks, snares, hats, crashes, percussions... and in each folder there's around 50 genres folders, and in that, all sounds are in a folder with their brand and name of pack (so I know where it's coming from).
And beside drums, I got folders for melodic one shots, one for FX (with subfolder for type of FX, like one shot, loop, build up, foleys or texture), one for vocal (with subfoder for vocal cuts, full acapella, loops, predrop vocal), a folder for loops, and a folder for midi (with a separation for drum midi and melodic midi). All those folder organize by genre like the drums (around 50 each time) each samples in their folder name by brand-packname. I also do the same for Serum, Massive and Sylenth presets.

I realise when I write it that it sound a bit complicated but it's more complicated to explain than it is to use I promise

But with that kind of organization it force me to be organised and because it take some time to add a new pack, I now tend to be more selective with my downloads (that's also why I'm deleting some stuff, cause I got to much useless thing accumulated, and I still have some old sample to classify with this system)

 

I remember in the 90's and later years i collect tons of samplecds and used the 5%? ..now some TB os libraries and using the 5% again.
Psychologist section needs!

 

Same thing. I like to use samples as a "creative jump start" if I feel stuck, so I want to audition some randomness. If I already knew what I wanted, I'd probably just make it myself. The only real exception to that is chopping up a specific drum break or other old vintage thing into a loop. My organization goal is to separate wave files, sampler patches, midi, and presets. I did that "micro-organization" for a long time, but when I started using Snapper, I stopped.

 

ive got 2.5 TB samples, 2ish TB kontakts, 2-3 TB various other synths (east west, EZ / Superior Drummer, UVI etc)

 

I also have around 500gb of samples.

In my samples folder there are subfolders:
- Acapellas
- Drums
- Packs
- Sound FX

In the subfolder "Drums", there is another subfolder called "#Loops" which mainly contains drum loop sample packs. It's a bit messy because many of these packs also contain drum one shots or instrument one shots. On top of that, it's not ideal because some drum packs of the same manufacturer are split this way. For example, "V Don - Lost Gemz Drum Kit Vol. 2" is sitting inside "Drums" whereas four more drum loop packs by V Don are sitting inside the subfolder "#Loops" because, well you've guessed it correctly, they mainly contain drum breaks.

In regards to my workflow, the separation between drum one shots and drum breaks makes sense though.

I like clone's method of extracting one shots, midis and whatnot to separate folders but it takes a lot of maintenance work, thus I don't do it. On top of that, it makes me uncomfortable cutting and moving sounds from packs to new locations. Workflow-wise it absolutely make sense though.

In the subfolder "Packs", there are a plethora of construction kits. On top of that there are the subfolders:
- #808s
- #One Shots & Instruments

I almost never use any of the construction kits because I hate sampling that way. Why did I get them in the first place? FOMO and download addiction probably...

A good way to deal with all this mess, is to curate, I guess. I haven't done it so far but I'm planning to do so soon. Depending on how your DAW works, you can rearrange your folders freely because many DAWs copy used samples to the project folder. So there won't be any problems of files missing or so.

You could, for example, create a "favorites" folder and copy (if you're anxious of changing anything) or cut and paste (if you're feeling courageous) all sample packs you often times and repeatedly use inside. This way, you wouldn't have to dig and scroll through a ton of sample pack folders only to return the same ones time and time again - because this is what ends up happening anyhow, doesn't it?

I've also heard that many producers or artists do it this way when they produce an album or a project in general. Beforehand, they curate a sample pool and mainly use sounds from within. This way, their projects end up sounding cohesive and a certain way naturally.

 

im coming up to or just right about at 40tb's... and counting, FML, lol.

 

get loopcloud worth it imo

 

87 GB, but it should be much bigger. However, I convert all samples to 44kHz 16-Bit FLAC, because I don't objectively need 96kHz 32/24-Bit Wave files for anything I do. And if I ever will need this level of quality, I'll find something there and then.

I also stopped downloading new samples, because I basically almost never use them, and I recognised that it can turn into an addiction.

I'm also trying to curb the addiction of gathering pointless Kontakt libraries, that I will most likely never use, as appealing as it is, it just wastes money for that silly dopamine rush of "OOO, NEW SHINY THING...that I'll NEVER use...".

My parents were hoarders, and I don't want to be the digital equivalent of that. I try to download only truly unique and very good libraries, that I will likely use.



HOWEVER...I have over 2 TB of software, that I did not sort through yet. Still learning what's actually useful and what's garbage. And which of the 50 compressors I should keep

 

Good question. This is my samples folder and there are 58G. If you want to add libraries like CDROMS, SFZ and SF2, loops, and Kontakt and Romplers and stuff that would be a lot more. But these are my "samples". Organized by hand which took I think a number of weeks. There really isn't that much "incoming" nowadays. I am sort of content?

 

just celebrated my 1 year abstinence from kontakt libraries

 

I have 15 gallons of samples, I find it easier to measure by the gallon. I started with less than an ounce many years ago.

 

I just have a few Kontakt piano libraries and a handpan thing after purging everything else which I never used (I've not used the handpan so that will go too). Samplewise I have a bit of drum and cymbal hits and not much else as my music is me playing an actual instrument and usually just me singing. I have lots of hand drums but no kit, hence the samples I have.

 

7TB, third of that is Spitfire and Sine Player stuff, the rest mostly Kontakt.

Edit: Oh, Sample Packs too...hmm, about 1TB of those?

 

After reading everyone's input and the vast differences in libraries, I'm considering converting from gallons to grams just in case I want to acquire a lot of EU samples (especially french, since Napoleon they've been absolute nitpickers about life by the gram),,, anywhooooooo, is there a utility available to convert gallons to grams or do I have to pay some blighter 5$ on fiver.com to pretend to be an AI and write a program to accomplish my needs?

IF the program is available for free, that would be great, and if there is one where they pay me a 1$ for every sample I convert that would be even better. Also it should work on a Mac, so i can run a mac emulator on my pc to impress people while I'm doing it. Or if somebody can do it for me. I can send you a couple gallon jugs of samples to get started on . you can keep the empty jugs when you are done...

I love this board, I learn something new everyday...sometimes 2 things on a quirky day or if i get deja vu...

 

I couldn't help but notice a dearth of Banjo and Accordion, how do accomplish any "real" music without those 2 building blocks of modern composition? Do you use a synthetic Banjo and Ai Accordion?

I have a half finished steam powered glockenspiel and I never seem to be able to finish a song I start on it.