logical archiving of sample categories

wakestyle · 24th July 2008

Here's something different for y'all....

I know there is the typical

piano
e Piano
Organ
Brass
Strings... etc

has anyone come up with their own (or others)
most LOGICAL method of sorting their samples?

Main categories AND sub categories, what makes the most sense. I keep having to re-arrange mine, and need something more standardized...

...any thoughts at all?

joeq · 24th July 2008

someone I was consulting for asked me to help him do this with his vast sample and loop collection.

there was just no way. Some of the loops, for example, would be organized by tempo. Sure we could go through and pull them out and stick them into new folders sorting by "Style" -put all the techno in here, all the ethnic stuff in there. But then when he was looking for stuff at a particular tempo they would be all spread out.

Or maybe we ought to sort them by "Instrumentation" all the piano stuff here, all the drum heavy things there. There was no Single organizing principle that would stand for all time as the way one would Always want to search one's sounds.

You are probably in the same boat as you are saying you have to keep reorganizing your system.

the logical thing to do would be to leave everything where it was, and set up a database and include indexes for all the ways in which you might want to search. Your search would then tell you what folder each sound that matched the criteria resided in. You would have to go fetch them but at least you could search by different parameters.

I have a feeling his would be a massive undertaking. You would have to enter each sound and all of its tags individually. I know for me anyway the effort of setting up such a database would probably take more hours than the hours I was saving by using it. Or at least it would be several years before I 'broke even' on time.

and by then I would have more sounds!

What I have instead is just a hand written notebook

with "maps" of the folder structures of my samples so I have a general idea of where that sound might be.

Another thing I do regularly is as I am auditioning sounds, I keep my ears open for sounds that jump out as interesting or potentially useful and I copy them to a Favorites folder.

Some people will tell you searching for the sounds is half the fun.

wakestyle · 25th July 2008

haha!

nice. I have tried some search engines and they seemed to work quite well. Except for the fact that I have to search for the file manually which sometimes, when loading entire drum kits, could prove tedious. Also like you said, that if I wanted to search by the category I would have to enter the tags of each sample individually. No drag and drop either:(

SO, I think.... that I'm going to follow the trend of what most synthezier companies have been doing for years. General patches based around the midi synths parameters.

24th July 2008	#1
wakestyle Lives for gear Joined: Dec 2007 Posts: 1,795 Thread Starter	logical archiving of sample categories Here's something different for y'all.... I know there is the typical piano e Piano Organ Brass Strings... etc has anyone come up with their own (or others) most LOGICAL method of sorting their samples? Main categories AND sub categories, what makes the most sense. I keep having to re-arrange mine, and need something more standardized... ...any thoughts at all? __________________ It could be different on a mac...

24th July 2008	#2
joeq Lives for gear Joined: Jun 2002 Location: New York Posts: 9,925	someone I was consulting for asked me to help him do this with his vast sample and loop collection. there was just no way. Some of the loops, for example, would be organized by tempo. Sure we could go through and pull them out and stick them into new folders sorting by "Style" -put all the techno in here, all the ethnic stuff in there. But then when he was looking for stuff at a particular tempo they would be all spread out. Or maybe we ought to sort them by "Instrumentation" all the piano stuff here, all the drum heavy things there. There was no Single organizing principle that would stand for all time as the way one would Always want to search one's sounds. You are probably in the same boat as you are saying you have to keep reorganizing your system. the logical thing to do would be to leave everything where it was, and set up a database and include indexes for all the ways in which you might want to search. Your search would then tell you what folder each sound that matched the criteria resided in. You would have to go fetch them but at least you could search by different parameters. I have a feeling his would be a massive undertaking. You would have to enter each sound and all of its tags individually. I know for me anyway the effort of setting up such a database would probably take more hours than the hours I was saving by using it. Or at least it would be several years before I 'broke even' on time. and by then I would have more sounds! What I have instead is just a hand written notebook with "maps" of the folder structures of my samples so I have a general idea of where that sound might be. Another thing I do regularly is as I am auditioning sounds, I keep my ears open for sounds that jump out as interesting or potentially useful and I copy them to a Favorites folder. Some people will tell you searching for the sounds is half the fun. __________________ . “What you ask about is music. What you like is sound. Now music and sound are akin, but they are not the same.” — Confucius

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25th July 2008	#3
wakestyle Lives for gear Joined: Dec 2007 Posts: 1,795 Thread Starter	haha! nice. I have tried some search engines and they seemed to work quite well. Except for the fact that I have to search for the file manually which sometimes, when loading entire drum kits, could prove tedious. Also like you said, that if I wanted to search by the category I would have to enter the tags of each sample individually. No drag and drop either:( SO, I think.... that I'm going to follow the trend of what most synthezier companies have been doing for years. General patches based around the midi synths parameters.