How do artists go about saving their work so that they can access it years later to say, remix it or remaster it? Or even to simply keep a catalog of all of the masters of the songs they have released?

I wonder how many artists simply don't have access to their songs from years ago due to poor organization?

My best idea (that I haven't been doing as of yet) in my case (as an FL Studio user) is called a "zipped loop package" in FL Studio. To the best of my knowledge, you can theoretically open your song with all the samples and presets intact (saved in a folder with the project file) on any future version of FL Studio.

Then there is the issue of keeping the all the original premastered final version .wav files, the finished mastered .wav files of all finished/released songs.

Anyway, I plan on organizing all my samples, project files, presets, ect soon and am finding keeping it all straight is more complicated than I would have thought. Curious on how anyone here keeps it all organized.

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Songwriter/artist and reluctant producer.

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Ableton has a collect all and save function, I would imagine all daws will do along the same lines.. As long as you save your work and store it, the only issues you would have opening it up in the future would be if you no longer had a certain plugin installed on your computer (assuming your working ITB, different story all together if not). You could always render all the stems and save them with your project so you would have access to all the tracks should you ever want them.

Actually I would myself prefer this:
1) loose all plugins (as in effects or dynamics changers - like compressor)
2) check if theres no distortion without them
3) export each track with the others muted
4) backup, backup, backup and then backup some more.

in the future, if you load it to any software (wavs will be always ok) you will have the tracks perfectly aligned.


Then save the midi files and backup those too (in case you ever decided to re-write the main hook for example).

Backup your audio folders, samples *and* your disk with OS and programs. Also helps a lot if you only use a few plugins, not thousands. Easy.

quote:

Originally posted by Andy28 Ableton has a collect all and save function, I would imagine all daws will do along the same lines.. As long as you save your work and store it, the only issues you would have opening it up in the future would be if you no longer had a certain plugin.

^ yeah it doesn't get any easier than that. i'm an ableton user and use the collect all and save feature. it saves everything to the project's "imported" subfolder, problem solved.

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Access Virus TI Polar, Moog Sub Phatty, Waldorf Pulse 2, Roland JP-8000, Technics 1210MK2's, NI Traktor Konyrol S4, Yamaha HS7's

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Don't just save...

Don't finish it if you want to get it signed in order for flawless victory, mkay man.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Dizzy ^ yeah it doesn't get any easier than that. i'm an ableton user and use the collect all and save feature. it saves everything to the project's "imported" subfolder, problem solved.

oh fuck...now i get what this is for lmao....good i read this thread. that makes sense. im always opening up older projects and theres always missing files, like audio samples because they have been moved to a different folder or something.

quote:

Originally posted by Robotrance Reason does this by default whenever you save. One file containing everything. no problem there, one of the many reasons i love it.

Any self-respecting sequencer should have such a feature

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Storyteller Website | Storyteller @ Facebook | Storyteller @ Beatport | Storyteller @ Soundcloud | Stephen J. Kroos - Europa (Storyteller Remix)
Anthony Mea - Get It On (Storyteller Remix)

quote:

If less is more think about how much more more would be. -Frasier

Protools it's called "save a copy".
Logic "save project folder".