Should I Re-Sort my whole sound library? or is it normal

Looking for best-practices here,

For years I have been collecting sounds, loops and samples in general (like all of you).

I do NOT like the way I have them set up in the drive though.
I currently have many folders, with sounds grouped by where/how I got them,
for example, if they were recorded live in the wild with my Zoom recorder, They're in one folder called "zoom" with sub folders like "home", "train sounds", Traffic sounds" etc

if I got them from one of those DVD's that used to come on the magazines, they're named "whatever that pack was called"

If they came off vinyl it gets crazier, One folder per record with as many samples as came off the record in that folder

This has caused paralysis of the analysis as a creative session turns into a hunt for a sound.

I would like to switch and separate the entire library into less cluttered, more organized by type of sound instead. For example ONE (1) folder named "snares" and then just throw every single snare I have in there.
then one for each type of drum, each type of synth, guitars, bass etc.
There would obviously need to be a "loops" folder for loops


I am switching to AKAI from Machine and think the down-time time in between can be used productively to update my libraries I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my MPC X

Whats the best practice here, am I on the right track or way off?

Ironically, wIth Maschine you can organise your sounds into folders 'by collection' (as you do already) but Maschine has proper tagging and indexing, so you can also simultaneously pull up all snares within the Maschine browser just by selecting the 'snare' tag, no re-organisation required. The MPC cannot do this (not without renaming every single sample with 'tags' in the file name, and that only works in the software, not standalone), so you just have to pick a categorisation option and stick with it.

There is no best practice here, if you want to organise by instrument you can do that, it's up to you, and whatever you ultimately prefer. The MPC browser is very poor compared to Maschine, this issue highlights one of its many shortcomings.

Thank you, I think I’m switching and jumbling all like-sounds together

There are a lot of different things to consider, but the most important is to decide what you want out of a sorting process.

For me, I want to actually be able to find sounds quickly and as efficiently as possible. This has lead me to trying to think about how best to organize on the MPC Live, and I've subsequently put together a directory structure that looks kind of like this...

/MPC/Firmware - all the firmware USB updates I have downloaded in case I want to go back
/MPC/Patterns/<Key> - a directory to export any patterns I may like to go back to for whatever reason and what key they are in
/MPC/Plugins/<Plugin Name> - a directory for any plugin settings that I liked
/MPC/Program/Instrument/<Name> - a directory for various Keygroups I have made along the way
/MPC/Program/InstChops/<Instrument and Key> - a directory for various instrument chops I have made and a mix of instruments
/MPC/Program/DrumChops/<Type> - a directory for various drum chops and their style of music
/MPC/Program/DrumKits/<Style and Key> - a directory of drum kits and the style of music I intended them for
/MPC/Books - Where I keep all the iterations of MPC Bible versions

/Samples/<Manufacturer>/<Kit Name> - This has in the past worked well for me... but is kind of leading to "what the hell sounds are in here"?

/Projects/<Author>/<Date and Name> - Doing this has at least helped me to keep some of my projects sorted and somewhat under control...

So, as you can imagine with this kind of layout... the most effort has gone into the MPC folder, and it is also where I can go when I know what I am looking for. The /Samples folder is kind of a wasteland in some ways, and is great when I'm just looking for random inspiration, but can also lead to getting a git lost. I have played with the idea of making the Sample sets I've collected over the years into MPC Expansions, but the reason it doesn't interest me is that it's a lot of work, and while I get something out of it... it isn't like I can release my work for others to take advantage of or otherwise put that content out into the world. So it ends up feeling a bit like a wasted opportunity where I could have invested my time in making my own personal, royalty and copyright free sample sets that I can then do what I will with, either giving them out for free, or looking into ways to monetize them.

Anyway... hope this helps a bit.

Just a tip from an IT point of view: do not save your structure under MPC's default program folder (or any other program folder) because if you ever update, it is possible that they do not handle things correctly and your folder gets overwritten during the update (or reinstallation). What's funny is that the MPC/Plugin folder isn't even the default install path for VSTs among those distributed by Akai. Instead they use /Steinberg/vstplugins which I prefer because I'm not installing Cubase or anything specifically from Steinberg. If I was, I would move them to the below path.

C:\MPC\<Structure> would be a much better idea and can be set up like NearTao outlined.

Don't want to start a giant quoting chain...

@NearTao: wow dude, thanks for the input and all the thought you put into it, I appreciate it. I think I'm going to use some of your naming conventions and include a ton of subfolders for specificity- lots of work, but the result will be worth it. . (I have about 10 days before delivery and semester just finished, BORED)

Question @NearTao: Do you have these folders on the MPC? External?
I ask because I will be installing a 2 TB SSD in the data bay. I see you have software and PDFs in the drive, how do you access those? (forgive me I'm not even an MPC newbie, don't even have mine yet).

--breakbeat--

@Guruvirus: Thank you.
Program folder like on the computer? again, I haven't even touched an MPC before but surely there's a way to put all these sounds on the SATA drive inside the MPC?!
And if so, is there a way to back that drive up separately to a backup drive as an individual (like separate from internal) drive?

Elpimpo wrote:@NearTao: wow dude, thanks for the input and all the thought you put into it, I appreciate it. I think I'm going to use some of your naming conventions and include a ton of subfolders for specificity- lots of work, but the result will be worth it. . (I have about 10 days before delivery and semester just finished, BORED)

Honestly, my advice is to spend as much time dumping garbage that you never liked in the first place, as you do sorting and organizing it. It'll just free you up from so much wasted time searching through "another bad vox" and things that you're just thinking are lame in the first place.

Elpimpo wrote:Question @NearTao: Do you have these folders on the MPC? External?
I ask because I will be installing a 2 TB SSD in the data bay. I see you have software and PDFs in the drive, how do you access those? (forgive me I'm not even an MPC newbie, don't even have mine yet).

Well for some of that stuff I just consider it a backup from my PC, and to access it I need to mount the drive on my computer. At least I've got it with me, and in a pinch I can use a phone to USB cable to get at files and make things happen.