How do you folks organise your sample libraries?

Discussion in 'Samplers, Synthesizers' started by Bunford, Sep 23, 2016.

  1. Bunford

    Bunford Audiosexual

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    Do you sort them by the company, by instrument, by genre, by rating etc?

    Just starting to sort mine out and looking for some inspiration on a good way to do it to get to what I need quickly.
     
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  3. Hennessey

    Hennessey Platinum Record

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    That is a good way,but my other folders/partitions of 7Tb are totaly mess because of lot of unecesery samples which gonna be deleted in upcoming days !!!! :)


    Best way so far is for me by Brand,ease of use ,find and funktionality... But fpr example gor some instrument loos like guitar,there is so many companies and i dont like to sort em in that way so samples i use you can see GITARE folder and there are almost all guitar loops from various brand,but BIG FISH and Ueberschal they have folders for self :)
     

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  4. Raffz

    Raffz Member

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    I have one folder that houses all the samples I have organized alphabetically but I also have another folder called Favorite Stuff which has lots of subfolders called "Kicks" "Loops" Cymbals" "Midis" so on and when I remember, I make a copy of any sample I find in the bigger folder that I like and throw it there. It's not a great workflow but it's working so far, in the future I intend to take the time to delete stuff I've never really used.
     
  5. faunus

    faunus Ultrasonic

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    by instruments
    bass,piano,drums,cinematic......
     
  6. flworius

    flworius Member

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    I have an ok-ish Structure in my Windows Folders, kicked out most of the old random samples, kept the good ones in "samples different origin", the rest goes into "samplepacks/cds" and is all hq stuff thats worth to keep, there ordered by main genres/categories like dnb,reggae,fx,ambience,drums(oneshots/mixed/kits), instrument sequences, instrument hits.... with an § before the name to have the bigger folders at first.... if a certain category isn't clear, it just comes into the mainfolder and is listed below alle the folders with a § .... if the sample pack contains battery or kontakt instruments i create links for those in my presets/kontakt instruments folders as well.....my plan for the future is keep this structured samples as a base and create a second samplebase where only the really,really good or selfmade stuff goes into....and everything that wanders in there has to be tagged, either in cubase or with a file tagging software such as "elyse" which i downloaded recently but didn't use yet.....just was too lazy for that yet.....but gotta do it....also bought a 1tb ssd recently for important libraries/samples, but also want to limit myself kinda with this "only" 1tb of space for real essential samples and also profit from its speed, just find fitting samples instant thanks to previously done work/tagging, load them very quickly cause of ssd and then be able to play around.....workflow/good sounds at your fingertips without long searching is essential imo, if your are more the kind of experimenting/sound engineer than classical composer, which I am.....often killed my mood by searching for samples, beeing stuck, going with that bog-standard preset instead.....
     
  7. SineWave

    SineWave Audiosexual

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    I keep them rather simple: Bass, Kick, Snare, Hihat, String, Experimental... and then there are subfolders. No companies mentioned at all. And I make a lot of custom samples myself, too.
     
  8. bluerover

    bluerover Audiosexual

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    I just throw them into folders like this (hypen included in folder name) :

    - aiff
    - AKAI (format discs)
    - battery
    - beatthang
    - bitwig (third-party templates etc...)
    - breaktweaker
    - CDDA (uncut images)
    - CDS (samples chopped from CDs, vinyl, DVDs, and FLAC)
    - DW (Direct Wave format)
    - elastik
    - FL (Fruity Loops third-party templates etc...)
    - FLAC
    - geist
    - GOG (drumagog files)
    - IR (impulse responses)
    - kontakt
    - kurzweil (K2VXS synth)
    - live (templates, racks, M4L, etc...)
    - maschine
    - MISC (calibration, sound check, test CDs, etc...)
    - mp3 (samples in mp3 format - black box, speeches, youtube cuts, etc..)
    - MULTiTRACKs
    - OG (original and manipulated samples)
    - OLD SAMPLES (my sample collection from the 90s-2000)
    - reference tracks (production, arranging, mixing, mastering - FLAC reference tracks)
    - RMX
    - slate
    - uncut
    - wav
    - wusikPACK

    for presets, same way :

    - ana
    - diva
    - dune 2
    - TI (hardware)
    - Micro Q (hardware)
    blah, blah......
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2016
  9. Moogerfooger

    Moogerfooger Audiosexual

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    I organized over 10Tb of sample libraries earlier this summer. Took me close to a month to organize & the cost for backup RAID (or peace of mind as I like to call it) was worth it. First, I backup everything the way I receive it. Then on the drive I use for producing, I organize folders by Company. I delete all unnecessary files within the library I put on the production HD (.nfo, txt, demo mp3's, jpegs, sampler/synth patch files & then if necessary beyond that I'll try to keep nested folders to a minimum. I find it counter-productive to have more than 2 folders deep for a certain sound like kicks or snares, WITH THE EXCEPTION when dealing with foley SFX. Thats pretty much it. I sometimes leave a random folder open on the production HD to drop files that I use a lot. Kind of like a "currently using" folder that I can add or take away from. This might not be helpful to you. But once I organized everything this way I was able to focus on production 100% & not worry about wondering if I had something better hidden elsewhere within my hard drives...Cheers
     
  10. Sonny Crockett

    Sonny Crockett Kapellmeister

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    I have 3 folders: Kontakt, that includes basically a mix of things but trying to keep it oriented to cinematic stuff. Then Pads & textures folder (no need to describe it) and Synths, that contains different synths (Roland, Nord, etc etc etc etc) libraries I got all around these time.
    Key is to know your stuff. I usually know mine so if I'm working with a cinematic project and I want to use a pad (for instance) I go straight to that folder and look for a library that may have the a sound I'm looking for; or, go straight to X library there to use that one patch precisely.
     
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