I recently bought some groovy new tools for sampling drums and percussion. I really want to approach this seriously and see myself doing quite a bit of this going forward. But right now I'm at the point in this new venture where I am fretting about how to name my samples. I need a robust and clear convention for finding sounds at the file search level. I'm reaching out wondering if the more experienced among you have developed a good scheme that has stood the test of time? I'm using Abobe Audition and NI Battery 4.

 

I organize my drums samples with only 4 tags.

1. Hard
2. Soft
3. Live (Real Sounding)
4. Tonal

It covers pretty much everything I need.

 

I liked 3 letters short in name :
SNR snare
CLP clap
KCK kick
OHH open hihat
CHH closed hihat
CMB cymbals
RD ride
...
example :
SNR Dropper
KCK Shaker

Short 3 letters to filter out. Removing AEIUOY create faster filtering.
And you can put all your files in the SAME folder.

About tags, i can't really help you. It is a more creative/personal concept.

 

Hi Pipotron, Thanks that's useful, however I will also be sampling some pretty exotic percussion instruments, (Cassaba, den-den daiko) so I could end up with a load of baffling abreviations!

 

808

 

BD
SN
CL
CYM
OH
CL
RD
FX (if it is drum effect, foley perc, processed, zap, laser shot, etc)
PRC

 

Ha! Bravo milk!

 

I don't know much about drums but you already have good suggestions.
About the naming convention I'd suggest you to use tags at the end of the file name starting with the main classification. Two, or three if need. Also, two characters or three. Depending of how much you need.

For instance if I have video clip:
Nightwish Ghost Love Score.mp4 -> Nightwish Ghost Love Score.[VID][MU].mp4

Now, if this video is live I go like this:
Nightwish Ghost Love Score Live Wacken.mp4 -> Nightwish Ghost Love Score Live Wacken.[VID][MU][LV].mp4

Or "Nightwish Ghost Love Score Live Wacken_VID_MU_LV.mp4"

You could use for instance this as the first tag

And the one below as the second. For instance:
Metal snare D013.wav -> Metal snare D013.[HRD][SN].wav, or Metal snare D013_HRD_SN.wav
The important thing of course is how you'd think when searching for one.

 

Last edited: Dec 10, 2020

Xupito That's brilliant! You put some good clues together and you got me thinking how I can do it now. I'm working on it and will post up the idea - in a few hours...

Thanks to everyone,

M

 

I go with a simple scheme

Like

BD - 909 - Hard - Short
or
BD - Ludwig - Soft - Roomy

Just a couple of words for expressing the tone. Then I can search for those easily.

 

A pleasure. Comes with my job that often forces me to use only command-line. So I'm used to make to make the most of the filenames/path whenever I can.

I'd also add don't overthink it and make some small tests first. And get a good batch-rename tool

Oh, and don't use long folder names containing the samples. Not all programs work well when you exceed Windows 255 characters limit.

 

Last edited: Dec 10, 2020

While you were joking, I actually personally think it's good to have your descriptors at the beginning because it lets you sort things a lot easier. You start with the most broad descriptor and work your way to the detailed. Folders are an option for sorting too, but for the most part, I hate having to hunt through folders to find stuff and the question comes up.. do you keep them by kit, or do keep them within the same drum/percussion/fx/etc component.

Having said that, I'm suddenly reminded of when someone at my old work came in and forced us to rename all our project files and documentation to some new naming convention standard. We called her "Taxonomy Bitch" cause the naming convention was pretty convoluted and it became difficult to find anything after that point. haha But seriously, my personal preference is the aforementioned way of naming things.

 

A couple that are basically the same:
1. Be able to jump to the first original "m", the first "d" easily
2. Don't mess the original order because can be useful
But it's okay to use them at the beginning if it works better of course. Probably works better at the beginning in some cases.

If you don't put a weird character like "_" or "[" you're bound to have problems with the original name.
Example: you use SN for the snares. You look for "My Snare SN.wav" so you search "SN" and the results sooner or later will look like this:
My snare SN.wav
SNOOPY'S COWBELL.WAV
The Sneezer clap.wav

If you use "_SN" or "[SN]" like in My Snare_SN.wav that's extremely unlikely to happen. And if you use two like My snare_HRD_SN.wav is almost impossible.
That's why I personally use brackets "["

PS. I know you're messing with me but they're still legit questions. Screw you anyway

 

I was assuming they can't choose the original names, like in downloaded samples.
But now I remember the OP wants to record their own samples.
In that case yeah, go for putting them at the beginning @Magneto

And I take out the screw you think thing @No Avenger ... well, mmm not really, I'll find a reason soon
Noo don't bite me!! @Olymoon !! This fartiger is bullying me, ban him! Or ban someone...

 

Last edited: Dec 11, 2020

I'm years too late to the organizing game. Ai needs to take over at this point. I have over 10 million samples. XO cant even handle half of my collection. Its taken years to horde as much as I've collected. Not bragging or anything, just saying. Its too unwieldy. Programs like Sonosnym, Audiofinder & XO are paving the way...

 

Yeah, that's way too much. Impossible to organize at individual sample name level.
Toontrack's drums plugins libs come with a full-fledged database for a reason.

 

Last edited: Dec 10, 2020

Yes I was thinking batch files. I'm going to keep the Sample Repository on a big spindle drive, separate from any kits I create with them in Battery too.

I have to upload the idea I have so far as describing it ended up really long..

 

I feel for you man. I'm just starting out doing my own stuff - so attempting to get it as sorted as I can.