sample hoarding is a disease that kills creativity

I've gotten a bit carried away with downloading sample packs and spend most of my time organizing, deleting, and batch converting to 16bit wav, than I actually do producing anything. I'm wondering if any of you have any recommendations on sample management software.

well are you trying to manage a sample database for use with only MPC machines, or for a daw as well?

also, what computer platform are you on?


For me, I use good old windows with directories... I have sections and categories... I have daws pointed to the folders or I browse within the folders to find what I need. All of that is stored on it's own hard drive.

The good part about that is... if I want to add new material it's easy to find the right spot for it... also no matter what app, daw, etc.. I feel like using, it is compatible with searching through that for material. If I need to sample or transfer something to an mpc then it works for that too... but still can be used on other music making platforms.


Are you trying to get into some sort of mpc program creator to make mpc programs on the computer or what is your idea for using these downloaded drum kits?

Yeah I'm just using an mpc so wav's only. I'm on windows, and found an app that's almost perfect, called: Sample Librarian. The interface is a bit ugly but I'm finding it really useful as it maps the waveforms and has an internal player that allows for fast browsing all in one window. It's geared towards music production more so than other audio management apps that are designed for archival and film scoring.
It seems theres alot more apps similar to sample librarian on mac though.
I've got MPC Maid if that's what your referencing, another great app.

http://www.ryaudio.com/

I'm one of those ocd people that can't accomplish anything unless I'm totally organized first. I need to make a solid folder structure that spares me time trying to find sounds that fit the vibe of the tune.

I just have everything on one drive. Not nearly as organized as it could be though. Although I do have some sub-folders. I keep libraries in folders by manufacturer as opposed to style or content. I should mention though I'm kind of a weirdo as far as photographic memory type stuff. Of course I forget stuff is in there at times, but I generally don't lose too much time navigating it all.

I use Live, Reason and Maschine a lot their well thought out browsers help a lot too. But yeah man for a library that's almost always going in an MPC it gets way more tricky to deal with. To be honest I bought Maschine already having 2 MPC's at the time just so I could not lose time on the drums, chops and loops I would normally grab an MPC for.

It's taking the whole time I wrote this to even calculate the HD GB footprint. (547GB )

I think I'll be going back to copy/pasting the sounds I want to use in advance and get back into working from those. (For Destructive Edit, avoid missing file errors etc.)

Sample Librarian looks dope. On OS X there's AudioFinder which is pretty good.

http://www.icedaudio.com/

on my mpc i have a folder called mpc all sounds
then in that i have one called samples (for my main melody samples)
one called samples from viynl
vocal samples,
samples from movies/tv shows/ ect ect (in each of these i have a folder named the tv program, or episode number with the sample in it)
there is also a folder in there called all drums and inside is as follows:
kick
snare
clap
hihats
toms
^^^these are all sounds that i have collected over the years (maybe ones that dont go with each other so much in a cohesive kit, but are still dope enough to keep and build my own kits out of)
next folder is called
purchased drum libraries: (this is eveyrhting in the purchased libraries ive bought
next
full kits: (this is a folder of kits i have organized, but i need to organize it better )most stuff in here i have gotten from trades ect, but inside there i have each full kit broken down into folders. (ie kit 1, then inside it a folder for claps, kicks, snares, ect ect) ideally i want to consolidate these into a more organized way. ie when i open kit 1 folder a folder, all the sample inside that will be in that folder insead of having each seperate instdrumetn in a folder inside it. so the evntually the inside will look like this
kit 1, s_1, s_2, s_3 (for snares) k_1, K_2, K_3 (for kicks) h_cl 1, h_cl 2 (for closed hats, h_op 1, h_op 2 (for open hats) ect ect. you get the idea

hope that helps you a bit with your organizing. this is all within the mpc harddrive too btw, and i back it up on an external drive from time to time so i have it backed up if i add/change sounds.

if my rambling is too incoherent, feel free to ask me more, and ill try and explain it better.

pretty similiar to damien, i got my stuff setup like this;;;

Main folder is simply called "Sound Library", open that up and i have different kits setup ie (808s, 909s, Vinyl, Live, Percussion, etc. ) and then my Kicks, Snares, Cl Hats, Op Hats, etc.

Then I have folders that I keep all my sample melodies in that I have in wav form, also I have a folder called 'Breaks', which are all of my wav drum breaks. and each seperate break or melody sample has its own folder titled according to the title track.

Then i have other folders that contain sounds that remind me of certain styles, (DnB sounds, Jazz sounds, Acoustic sounds, etc.)

I have OCD, so I make sure all my stuff is organized. This way Im able to go find exactly what I want.

Floppies is the shit for this, haha!

I write beat name on it and what samples its got.
S950 <beat name>
- bla bla kick
- bla bla snare
etc etc.

Never been this organized before

marrelarre wrote:Floppies is the shit for this, haha!

I write beat name on it and what samples its got.
S950 <beat name>
- bla bla kick
- bla bla snare
etc etc.

Never been this organized before

Thanks man it's 6:40 AM and I needed to laugh that hard to wake up.

My sample library is on my harddisk installed in my 2500. Folders for kicks, snares, breaks, projects I'm working on, finished beats, new samples and chopped samples that still need to be sequenced etc.

Every now and then I take my time to reorganize all that stuff and doing back ups and shit.

Every chef has to clean and reorganize his own kitchen every now and then. Part of the job.

Metatron72 wrote:

marrelarre wrote:Floppies is the **** for this, haha!

I write beat name on it and what samples its got.
S950 <beat name>
- bla bla kick
- bla bla snare
etc etc.

Never been this organized before

Thanks man it's 6:40 AM and I needed to laugh that hard to wake up.

haha glad I could share some smiles!
I was serious tho, I like my new "library"

Oh I knew you were serious man.

I have a floppy only ASR 10, so I know what you mean.

Back when i used SCSI some samplenames overwrote eachother etc etc, here its just smoooth sailing!

+ i got 150 floppies for free so I wont be running out for a while!

marrelarre wrote:Floppies is the shit for this, haha!

I write beat name on it and what samples its got.
S950 <beat name>
- bla bla kick
- bla bla snare
etc etc.

Never been this organized before

+1 on this, floppies all day on my 2000. I like having everything in front of me, tangibly.

I think there's nothing wrong about sample hoarding, as long as you know when too stop for a while and make music. I'll make jams for a while, then take a week break just acquiring and processing new sounds. It's addicting to keep thinking "the sample of a lifetime is just around the corner." you just gotta know when to stop and make use of what you got for a while.

you could as well claim the opposite.. that sample hoarding brings creativity.. its not the samples that kills creativity, its how you deal with them.

with a little bit of simple organisation you can have both the easy navigation and the inspiration you can get from exploring unknown territory.. and it wont take much time at all..

simply make two main folders, one which is your 'faves and easy to find stuff' folder.. and the other being the 'unexplored and unsorted folder'

its as simple as that..

download as much as you want as long as there is space for it.. dont put in hours or days of work trying to sort it.. do the sorting as you go a long and make music.. if you explore and find something you like, simply move it to the "known" folder... and in time you will have a library that you know inside out because you have taken care of them properly and not just sorted them.. and by properly i mean they have caught your interest and not just been sorted out by putting all kicks in one place and all snares in one place etc etc.. but now any sorting you do will come from you going on exploration and picking sounds you are interested in using.. which is quite different from going through a folder and identifying samples and sorting them by the kind they are.. that way is different because it has nothing to do with music making.. but with this way you bring the music making into it because you think about how to use them and what they will fit with and so you sort them with creative thinking.. and its all really just the same as when you are picking sounds for a track, you just happen to sort them at the same time, which shouldnt be too tedious or take too much extra time since you are not doing all the sounds at the same time.. just the ones that caught your interest.



i got more samples than i'll ever need, but it does in no way hinder me.. i know where to go for specific sounds, and i know where to go if i want to explore and bring something new and fresh into that collection.. and i put very little time into sorting these days... ive definitely been in the same position though, stuck sorting when i could be sat down making music.... but its bit of an obsessive behaviour to do so too, and i know people that are extreme with it, and it hinders them more than it helps.. because as long as you at least have a litte folder with fave sounds and stuff you use a lot, then there is no need to sit and sort and have the sorting wear you down.. you can avoid that by letting go and allowing a little bit of chaos..

I don't like hoarding samples. I do keep a few banks of samples I'm undecided with, but if I got enough material for a track and its exported to CD and the net, I delete all of it. Sometimes the undecided samples was just what I needed for a track and after use, that sample gets deleted too.

End your hoarding and give them away to others to rape and pillage