file management

My file management is a mess--or at least I have no standard way of organizing my programs, samples, sequences, etc.

How do other people here manage this? Save Project or All files? create lots of subfolders?

I've found it is definitely helpful to create a new folder for a program and it's samples. Things still seem to get scattered all over the disk and saved in multiple places though...I don't know...it's annoying and slows down the creative process...

start each song with an empty ram
work on the song
save the entire memory into its own folder
i don't bother saving pgms into their own folders cuz i rarely rarely rarely reuse pgms

but yeah it's hard to stay organized for sure
pop it onto usb sometime and clean things up that way, this kinda stuff is mousework for sure

Because the 1k/2500 lend themselves to such cheap storage the only way to work is like a DAW.
You work on everything like it's a project and save it to it's own folder.
The nice thing is you still have access to the stuff inside the folder for each project if you want to borrow something.
I think a lot of people started off in a bad direction by wanting to load up a sh*tload of drums when the MPC boots.
If you do plan to do that delete the PGMs that aren't used and then use the purge unused sample function to clean up what you saving.
it's really nice to be able to come back to something and it's as you left it.

good advice, good advice. i like the DAW analogy--that is more in line with the way i work too. i also rarely reuse programs, and often end up with lots of things in my program that don't even get used. so that helps--i'll start saving entire memory in its own folder.

i'm still going to try keeping raw sample material in folders such as "kicks", "vocals", etc. for easy access. i tend to separate my sample-scavenging excursions from my track-making process, so this makes sense for me. i like to accumulate lots of raw material in bursts and then experiment with it later. yes, the idea of all your samples auto-loading could be convenient, but as long as they're organized by category and i can find them, that'll work for me.

tomviolence wrote: yes, the idea of all your samples auto-loading could be convenient,

I meant that as a negative thing to do.
Having folders for KICKs, SNAREs etc is a good idea and useful for building PGMs, the key is in having a good naming process for identification of what it sounds like.

yep, i was basically agreeing with you; and saying that as long as you have a good naming/organizing system for your samples, you would not need to autoload them.

I have like 30 of the same snare in different folders because I loaded it up and saved the entire memory to a new folder. Luckily I have a huge harddrive or this would be a problem.

Lithion wrote:I have like 30 of the same snare in different folders because I loaded it up and saved the entire memory to a new folder. Luckily I have a huge harddrive or this would be a problem.

Why?
A 2G CF card is like $14.
You can buy multiples or just buy one and use it to burn CD ROMS on it on your computer.
The bigger your hard drive the more info it put's in a single place for failure.

Antonym wrote:start each song with an empty ram
work on the song
save the entire memory into its own folder
i don't bother saving pgms into their own folders cuz i rarely rarely rarely reuse pgms

i do it exactly the opposite way

used to do it like that in the beginning but then i started working on programs.. created about 400 programs, then put them somewhere in a dark space of my harddisk und created new programs again...

right now i have 8 drum programs, 2 bass und 3 piano / rhodes programs which are in my autoload folder (~50MB) where i also store all my sequences and songs.

it took much time but it really made sense after all to do it this way cause now it really is possible for me to start with a little idea and to make a whole song out of it without having to stop the sequencer every time i want to add something...

I do it how Nym was talkin' bout and I got a lil Autolaod folder that I'm still building. It anly loads a lil drumkit so when I boot up I can go find my sample and get straight to choppin', arrangin', and then put the bang on it with the drums. If I gotta stop the track to look for the right sound, I don't trip. Its worth it. But so I don't have to do that, I'm building that Autolaod folder day by day. But I still borrow pgms from other folders cause some of the other beats I used the same pgm, but I might have added different samples or tweaked the params so,... just do what works.

ntalec wrote:

Lithion wrote:I have like 30 of the same snare in different folders because I loaded it up and saved the entire memory to a new folder. Luckily I have a huge harddrive or this would be a problem.

Why?
A 2G CF card is like $14.
You can buy multiples or just buy one and use it to burn CD ROMS on it on your computer.
The bigger your hard drive the more info it put's in a single place for failure.

More CF cards, more chance of losing one or not being able to find it. It's negatives and positives for everything homie. I like having a hard drive, nuf said.

I make sure my pgms not be less or more than 16 samples each. I put them in a Autoload folder. Now when I want to delete the unused samples for the track I just delete the pgm and purge. It makes it easier to delete the unused samples in the pgm that you do use.

thats interesting to jump in:

i am thinking about this matter over and over again.
my approach until now was to create some drum-progs. some synth-progs. some bass-progs. and some FX-progs.
wich would hold all of my samples i plan to use.
i load them up and start from there.
after working on the sequences, i would store the whole memory, with all programs, therefore it takes ages to load/save,
and i have to save it into a new folder everytime i`ve been doing some work.

i am working on a live-set where my mpc plays the
drums, bass and some rhythmical FX.
i am building 8 sequences, each playing a rhythm. (a song)
then i change into track-mute and mute/unmute some of the parts (instruments) of each song, and do some other things (q-sliding) to have some changes into the performance.

now, the problem i run into was:
once i had a bass-sound choosen for - let`s say song 1, choose loudness, effects and filters,
the settings would be fix, means, if i change it when i use the same sample in another song, i would change it also for the first one.

now, i am looking into another way to go,
as i read this thread, i think it would be better for me to load some samples into ram, (or at all just on the CF-card/HDD)
and then build my programs with just the sounds i would use for one song.
this way i can load the same sample again in another song and use different settings.
that would mean, i have a program for each song containing soley the samples used in that song.

does that not limit you, if you have to stop the sequencer to search for some samples that would fit, load them and then play around,
- maybe finding out that it`s not so cool as it looked?

i mean, now that i have my samples all loaded, i can browse the programs, look for a cool sample, play it while the sequence runs, even record it and choose the best without ever stopping.

is someone still following me ?
sorry, usually i open up a thread myself, but this one fitts just right into this discussion.

any ideas how i could decide to follow my workflow best ?

does that not limit you, if you have to stop the sequencer

i've never thought it was mandatory to leave the sequencer on all the time. i can't tell you how many times i hit stop, we're talking 20+ per minute.

stop, flick back a couple ticks, play again. nope, not what i wanted. stop, delete, move qlink to reswing, record again. stop, flick back, listen.

the same goes for new samples