why not just organize by genre and type ?

For samples, have a folder with sounds you've considered using or used before sort of like a favourites. You will have to spend the time to go thru each sample library, pick what you find interesting and put it somewhere you can remember. The task is laborious but there isn't really a way around it.

I use this

http://store.soundminer.com/macintosh-products.html

but it is rather expensive. But it allows you to imbed meta data in wav files. That is the best solution in my opinion. I'm sure there must be some free thing that does something similar.

And you should have your own personal preset library which you should be using more than pre made stuff. IE every second day make sounds, keep track of those sounds, and allow you to develop your own style instead of using other peoples sounds.

I think your issue is that you are mainly a hoarder. Stop collecting presets. Start making music. Stop trying to find the perfect preset. Start every track with a init patch. And produce. Listen to music, retain the stuff you like in your noggin, and it will come out while you make sounds that please you.

There is a reason you never actually make songs. You are stuck in this never ending feedback loop. You feel like you never have the right presets or samples so you hoard samples and presets but it is never gonna fuckin end. Same with vsts. I bet you have ever vst uner the rainbow.

How many EQs do you have ? Be honest. I don't care if you have cracks. I mean if you were to load up your vst list , how many of those do you use , how many have you never used.

I think this is one of the benifits of buying stuff. You lose that hoarding aspect because things are no longer free. But you soon find out that you don't need 90% of the tools you have.

if you want to be a great producer, you need to make tracks. Lots of them. Quantity trumps quality when you are starting. In the last 5 years, how many finished tracks have you made ? Ask the same question to any succesful producer they will tell you a very different answer.

Stop fucking about and make a song. You approach music like weightlifting and I know enough of them that they are never satisfied. There is no end . If you want to produce , you need to stop this hoarding and just do it.

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old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

Last edited by Looney4Clooney on Nov-02-2011 at 22:31

Fuck me, that was one Hench post, to ask How do you organise your samples?

Richard (or is that Dick?) is right.

You should keep sounds that you like in a master pool, then separated by type (i.e. Bass, lead, fx etc), then in that folder, listed in terms of key for each sample.

If you've got that many samples, my advice is to just dump the ones that you can't instantly identify or categorize easily.

Just chuck em. They didn't cost you anything and it's not worth trawling through hours of one shots, loops and weird sounds just to figure them all out.

My advice: Create a folder that will contain all your "preferred" samples.

Now as you "aquire" samples, only add ones that you can A) quantify easily/fast and B) really like or may have a use for.

Dump the rest in another folder or on another drive and you can always revisit it if needed, but it doesn't bog you down as a thing you have to wade through.

You may not have many samples to begin with after dumping them but it's better to have a few good samples at your fingertips, than thousands out of easy reach.

oh i should mention my maid Consuela does the organizing with soundminer. Have you considered hiring banditos? For 30 $ a week, she cleans, organizes my computer files and does about 25% of my mixdowns. And she has a tomato garden.

There are actual people you can hire tho. Might want more than 30$ but it is an actual job people do all day.

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

Actually, how the fuck does soundminer add metadata to Wavs? That's technically impossible without converting it to AIFF or MP3 etc. The wav format does not support metadata or tags?

Does it just store info in soundminer itself, like filemanager?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extens...tadata_Platform


http://www.digitizationguidelines.g...ntro_090915.pdf

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

I think your right about the old Zeta, presets are a bit all over the place - if its any help the new presets in the recently updated version are categorized better.
Same with Alchemy, ACE, PolyKBII - everything spread out into Arps, Basses, Pads etc.. thats the way it is for most synths out there i would have thought??

Honestly if you use sample packs like for example Wave Alchemy - to me those samples sound excellent, i dont know what more you would want?

I see you say you used Trilian for a week but didnt like the sound???
I think Trilian is absolutely fantastic, really really excellent piece of kit. I think of it as more than just a standard bass synth, you make all sorts of weird and beautifully crystal clear sounding textures with it - i think it took me about a year of constant use to really get into it properly

oh and good point there about buying stuff - after spending €200 or whatever it was on Trilian theres no way i would stop using that.

my advice - just nail down some quality synths/samples - lose the rest. Then constantly use those synths/samples until you really know them.
After all if the top guys can make great tracks with them, they should be good enough?

What way do you start tracks? Are you starting with say a lead preset every time? Because if you are and you are using the same bank all the time (did you say Adam van baker?) you can see how thats gonna get old

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No I know you are right (about approaching producing like weight lifting). But I go for long periods doing nothing but opening FL and consistently producing. It is definitely good every so often for me to step back and do other shit. Like I've been neglecting my computers speed lately so started doing virus checks. Figured my pc would be handicapped so good time to step back and focus on something else.

Opened up my library and just realized it is no where near what it can or should be in terms of sounds and overall organization/easability. I just can't help but be convinced it is having a major impact on my producing.

I will prove it to you by doing this. Taking a picture of what the contents actually look like. They are a joke and extremely weak overall. I've always known this but told myself its not important. Still for some reason today I just feel its important.




You can't deny there is a *large* margin for serious improvement there. I have so many duplicate folders for samples its not even funny. Kick drums are in like 10 different folders. It goes that way for a lot of different samples. I need to "elementize" my library then have it further divided into more specific contexts for each instrument or sample. Like speed or key, but genre would be useless for me because I don't make other genres I would rather have instruments like violin or guitar (in their own folders) rather than a rock or orchesta folder. And then my presets folder is nothing but scattered random folders of banks. No organized presets and none of my own sounds in my own folders. Thats another big thing that bothers me. I *should definitely just have days where I focus on programing and making my own sounds. I do it far too seldomly. I also think it will help nurture more cohesive productions too. This has to be an important thing even though you talk it down.

But aside from that you all make a lot of excellent points and I am absolutely putting them to work next time I sit down. I don't feel serious enough in terms of my producing and it has to have a toll on my inspiration to wanna make serious music.

___________________
Sequencers: FL Studio 9XXL & Reason 3.
Main Synth Bass GTs - Pro-53, V-Station, Sytrus, Subtractor, Trilian, Blue, Sylenth & Z3ta.
Main Synth Lead/Pad GTs - Z3ta, Sytrus, Sylenth, Vangard, Albino & Nexus.
Main FXs GTs - Waves Plugins, Soundtoys, Volcano, FL Native FX.
Hardware - Truths, Echo Audiofire, Virus Snow, & Novation Xio Midi-Synth.

Last edited by DJ Robby Rox on Nov-03-2011 at 03:31

quote:

Originally posted by evo8 Honestly if you use sample packs like for example Wave Alchemy - to me those samples sound excellent, i dont know what more you would want?

They're extremely limited you can't do much with them. Not in terms of the fx but for the intruments you have no real ability to manipulate certain parameters of the sound just because they are samples.

That is my problem is samples always tend to sound better and some of my best sounds happen to be samples (not presets) but in terms of manipulating them I can't adjust the samples the way I need so they do what they need to do in a track.

Or maybe I'm just not a skilled sampler myself who really knows. They are excellent sounds no doubt but once you hear them over and over and can't changed them the way you want I tend to ignore a lot of them.

___________________
Sequencers: FL Studio 9XXL & Reason 3.
Main Synth Bass GTs - Pro-53, V-Station, Sytrus, Subtractor, Trilian, Blue, Sylenth & Z3ta.
Main Synth Lead/Pad GTs - Z3ta, Sytrus, Sylenth, Vangard, Albino & Nexus.
Main FXs GTs - Waves Plugins, Soundtoys, Volcano, FL Native FX.
Hardware - Truths, Echo Audiofire, Virus Snow, & Novation Xio Midi-Synth.

would you like me to send you a hardrive with all the libraries in nicely organized ?

how many hardrives do you have ? Man just that folder and the programs I see around it make me clausterphobic, And your wallapaper is not cool/

And why do you have files on the desktop. Verboten. Only links to programs. Come on robby. Is your room that messy?

Spend a weekend organizing shit. Like really go thru everything,

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

Last edited by Looney4Clooney on Nov-03-2011 at 04:39

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney Man just that folder and the programs I see around it make me clausterphobic, And why do you have files on the desktop. Verboten. Only links to programs. Come on robby. Is your room that messy? Spend a weekend organizing shit. Like really go thru everything,

He's absolutely right Robby, but I'll go one step further; dump all that shit and start from fresh.

It would take hours to wade through and sort that crap out. I don't want to get all Spock on you, but there's no file structure or logic to your folders there.

I think it's a discipline thing though - the fact you have so many random files on your desktop indicates that you're not orderly when it comes to organisation as a base level. I'm kind of saying it's a mindset thing. It's like not leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight: if you just do it as you go along, it never happens and you never think about it ever again.

Same with file organisation - if you just do it one way and make that you're only method, you'll always know where everything is, and it goes from simple text files, all the way though to entire drive management. Even if you don't know where one particular file is, you can just apply your set out logic of where it should be and you'll hopefully find it where it makes sense to be.

Hope I'm making sense now

600 FUCKING DRUM LOOPS


PLEASE SEED THIS SHIT

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