Organizing Samples

Was wondering how you guys kept your samples organized , was hoping to pickup somthing i havnt thought of.

Currently i have a disk for each beat i make , also lots with full of sample programs. Thought about switching it up to an entire disk full of kicks , another for snares. but with sample time so low i am not sure if that would work to well.

bad thing is you wont be able to play them when you are about to load them so you wont know what kick is what what snare also you can only use 1 program which im sure you know that so it will be a big mess what i do i chop my drums then my samples like drums on bank a loops on bank b then do sequence and save program and sequence to a floppy then name it with the sample name and date and thats how i do

thats the system I use as well
I put drums on bank B but I start with the drums first usually
then I put the main melody/chops on bank A
then I do bass on bank D with 16 levels
then once I do that, I put the bass on bank C but I program the basslines to pads and tune them to give it that extra real feel
then I turn the program on bank D off

thanks for the info , what do you mean program bass to a pad?

I mean assign bass notes to the pads
lke you would do drums
but instead of using 16 levels I do it that way
because sometimes I like to things with the individual notes
there's more than one way to do it but that's the way I like the best

I have saved kicks on some floppys and snares on some floppys for a long time, but now I put samples in folders on my Mac, kicks, snares etc, and can listen to them via the MpcPgmMaker, but I have a 3000, not 60.

I back up all my beats via floppys (USB external), and then i can copy all kicks from all beats into the kick folder, in no time.

I always name the sample so that all kicks has a K in the files last (8th) letter, all snares a S, all Hi-Hats H, or OH for open hats, all basses B, and the list goes on. If I sample in stereo I always split it and save them as L and R versions of the samples.

To remember where samples came from (so I can find them again some time if I need them, or if I ever have to clear them) I always use the first 7 letters from the title of the song which I sampled.


If I sample something for later use because I'm not feeling creative enough to make a beat, (or if the record stinks but has this one great kick - then I sample it so I dont loose anything by selling or trading it), I put the samples in folders with artist and album within the folders, like Kick - Donovan - Essence To Essence - YELLOWLK (Kick) and YELLOWRK.

It takes a bit longer to make all this folders, but after many years with sampling and billions of kicks, its a good thing to have them organized.