I will admit I am a bit obsessed with organizing my patches. To my defense, I think it's critical to saving time and work quickly especially when doing an electronic score since it's about create that palette.

Here's how I do it. We all have tons of sounds which is great but you need to know what you have in your library and know how to find them when you need to use it. Every time I get a new patch library for my synths (Massive, Absynth, Omnisphere) or a sample library for Kontakt. I meticulously go through it and flag the patches I like and can see using.

In Omnisphere I've created "projects", In NI synth I've created folder in favorite. In Kontakt I use quickload (I wish they had a better system easier to manage but I can manage).

I break them down as follow: / means subfolder

Ambient / Dark / Drones / Eerie / Light / Suspense / Tension
Arp + Rhythm
Atmos = harmonically rich patch that you only play one note
Bass
Ethnic / Percs / Solo
Experimental = weird, unusual cool patches
FX
Guitar
Hits
Horror
Low synths
Melodic
Metallic
Misc Instr = put my favorite accordeon, banjo etc. specific instruments
Pads
Perc
Piano
Pulse
Rev
Scrapes
Transition / Soft / Hard = all swipes type patches

The challenging part I find is to organize the ambient type patches.
Dark = usually low and ominous, intense, louder, distortioned
Drones = sustained minimal changes
Eerie = brighter light tension
Suspense = light tension with movement, even rhythm
Tension = dissonant but not too big

Anyway I would love to hear how others do it to see if I can improve my system.

 

in Kontakt i have seperated libs via a company... All in browser

sth like that and this is a 1/20 of all

 

I constantly feel like my workflow could be improved by organising my sound library better but I have settled on a system which has helped me a lot...

One thing that I think helps is deleting stuff that your not into, so rather than just highlighting the things you like most, actually deleting the other stuff, clearing the options away leaves you more time to make musical decisions. For years a whole variety of music was made with the guitar 'preset', the bass 'preset' etc and the musical variety came from what they did with those instruments musically and how they produced the sound....

anyway here's what i do.


I have Kontakt libraries grouped by sound or genre....




I produce a variety of styles so it's useful for me to have certain sounds grouped by style, but for non genre-specific things like Bass I can have under one folder with divisions for Acoustic and electric libraries. One shot bass hits that fit in a particular genre will go in a folder under that tab.

Some of my libraries are organised more by mood, like Cinematic Atomospheres will have Simple Cool/Dark/Warm/ Evolving Cool/Dark/Warm, etc.
Other libraries are mixed and because they are locked they will just go in the Cinematic Sounds/Orchestal Mixed, but I am starting to copy instrument files as well, so the samples are still in the original folder structure but the Drum Hits are with the other Drum Hits etc.

I have a couple of synths that I use a lot, Massive and Sylenth, mainly cos thats where my sorted sounds are.

I've created banks in Sylenth (pain in the ass to do) where I've grouped favourite patches I've made or from other banks, (Literally a 128 patch bank I might keep 10-15 sounds so Its quality rather than quantity) so I have an Arps bank. Pads bank. Leads Bank, House Bass Bank, Hip Hop Bass Bank etc, etc. massive is easy to sort patches, again quality control is the biggest factor.
Other synths even if i I like them a lot, I don't use as much because I haven't put the work in organising my sounds and it takes more effort to find the sounds I want.

Drum Sounds I have folders sorted, like Kicks with subfolders by type of sound, like Punchy, Subby, Stompy etc (I Know what these sound like) Not ony does this mean you can reach for a sound quickly. It also helps get rid of duplicate sounds as well, (you don't know how many almost identical 808 or 909 kicks you accumulate, even if they are labelled as something else or you've sampled it from a record or whatever.) In a folder of similar sounds you can A/B compare and get rid of stuff that you don't need.)


A frequent feeling I have while producing is that I might not have settled on the right sound before I do the effects and production tricks. I've got too many options and get indecisive. Thinning out my Library has really helped and since sorting out my sounds more my productivity has really improved.

 

Thanks for sharing.

I do film / game / cartoon stuff as well as produce songs in various genres so I'm all over the place as far as the type of sound I need.

 

As you can tell I'm a bit obsessive about it as well.

 

I don't organize a damn thing, takes all the fun out of it.

 

I totally agree with you sound patch organization is a necessity to work well and fast.
Very good point about getting rid of stuff you don't like or don't see yourself ever using. That's on my "to do" list this summer, a huge undertaking and not very exciting to say the least.

I also feel the same sometimes where I gathered a good palette of sounds but I will keep sifting through to make sure I got the best set possible. Too many options can kill creativity and output for sure.

Now that pic you posted, that is a composite image right? I don't think Kontakt can have multiple library panes like that. It would be nice they update that and make it easier to navigate your libraries on the drive as well as the tabs.

 

Its just 3 Kontakts open next to each other.

 

That looks awesome Homer!!!!! You're smarter than you look!!!!!

...and I LOVE the wallpapers!!!!!