Do You Ever Just Delete Everything?

I've got:

- Dying rackmount sampler and hoping it doesn't die for good before I can get everything off it

- Hundreds of .SND files on 2000XL and the tedium of creating programs to convert them to .WAV for when I switch to 1000 w/JJOS

- Various midi sequences & files...who knows what patches, presets, pieces of gear they go to

-Loops & ideas that are 20 years old and sitting in Audacity because I'll do something with them one day?


I'm almost thinking about doing it and deleting/formatting everything away back into the aether. starting all over, starting from scratch. I mean at the end of the day those ideas may be dead & gone, but they are a product of me and I can just make more, you know?

I‘ve lost all my work like 2 times already until I started making backups regularly. I am not mad about it though, since before that I didn‘t make music that I might release or could still stand for quality-wise.

So yeah, I accidentally deleted it all.

I get what you mean. Aeons ago I did a fair bit of stuff on an S950/Atari/Korg M1 and just happened to send most of it out to a shitty tape deck, complete with speed fluctuations. All the original data on the floppies is long lost and even if I had it I don't have the hardware anymore. I do play that tape every few years, just for nostalgia. Yeah it's all crap, poorly produced and badly arranged but it gives me fond memories. Could I live without that tape? Absolutely, but it's nice to have even if I wouldn't dare let anyone else hear it!

DJ Premier can still whip out a floppy with his beats on them. Which he has no need for, given he has the gold record of said beat hanging on the wall behind him.

I lost some of my Stuff years ago...
I do, however, have copies of Beats I created using my ESI 4000 and Cubase 5 as Sequencer. I have no Idea, how I could ever re-open those projects and connect all Tracks to the correct MIDI-Channels... So **** it.

If you have something, that is totally on its own, so no other equipment is needed, then keep it. But if you have to load a program to the S950, another to the MPC2k and hook it all up via MIDI, also the MIDI-Synth has to get Data on the correct chanel and has to be set to that awesome basssound... Then just delete it.

I tend to record just Audio as a backup. If I'm totally into one of my beats, I record all Tracks seperately, but at the end, if you won't sell it, or plan to further mix/master something, than you'll never need thoise single projects, that contain some samples and a cool loop, ever again...

I delete or lose stuff every once in a while, I dont have access to anything older than 2 years, and this is on the brink of getting lost, too.
I dont have access to any of the 6? 7? soundcloud accounts I have filled in the past 10 years.
Some I had deleted flushing thousands of accumulated plays, some I have just lost access to due other reasons.
Same with Bandcamp, where I didnt realize that people who bought albums might
want to download something again.

I restart under different names, and did have different projects in parallel, and each time it seems a bit harder to get an audience but also each time I feel more liberated starting fresh.

Nevertheless I also remade a few tracks from the past, by memory.

I think what would be more interesting than listening to something from your past would be to have access in advance, to your future music....