[dead] Sample organisation

interesting subject. i'd like to know that too

which organization programs you are suggesting for mac users>????

hi ralzy72,

i am answering now in the hope to help you a little or at least give some suggestions, probably any1 else will know better then me but thats another topic.

i dont think a database or a dedicated app for the purpose of finding quickly the right sample for you is a good idea: first you need this special app (which I guess might doesnt excist in the way you would need it)

then this app takes time and some work to to get it running and then to search for you the right sample.

if you do have very much samples, your wish for an app to help you isnt such a bad idea, but please think, that a database like excel for example ( which isnt a databse on its own i think) is also limited, so if you are searching for a scalable app, which helps you, you have to invest much time...

Now, yet a much bigger problem is, that you have to categorize every sample on your own, because only you can decide if a certain sample for example is for you a pad, a rythmic texture, some kind of strings or just a synth sounds...maybe there are appz out which can do this categorizing, but I guess you wont be satisfied with the results.

My suggestion is that you invent, try out and evaluate your own system, which then suits perfectly to your needs, so if you do have much samples you should allready started long time ago to build a good directory structure.

From this structure the categories of your sounds and samples is given then.
You have to find your samples easy and fast, so try to sort your samples in the way that suits your needs most.
Too much categories isnt a good idea and too less either...maybe it should look like this:
0_1 drums, 02_bass, 03_percussion, 04_keys, 05_synths, 06_ orchestral, 07_ethno and historic....then not too much sub direcoties like 02_bass: 01_real basses and 02_synthetic basses....By following your own structure you learn where your samples are the day you copy them at a certain place and then hopefully you will remember these...
i think this is the fastest and best way...I dont believe that this can be done sufficiently with software; I once visited a real big store house of a really big producer of metal items and they had so many different items ( like you and your samples) that the best system for them is random system which means that there is no system and the computer just remembers where it put something..if there would be a better solution for this warehouse i am sure this company would do it a better way, but there is no better way..

I spent a long time looking for something like this too and as is the case most of the time the most obvious answer was right in front of me all along... iTunes. I simply created a new library separate from my MP3's and between the Categories, Authors and Albums sections was able to catalog all 80GB of my samples, loops, one shots, sound fx etc... and in the end I have a collection that I can easily search, audition sounds, back up, move, drag files out of into my DAW, add new files without doubling up etc... All you really need to download is one of the many library managers that modifies iTunes so that you can create and select a library other than the default. Pretty simple really, I think you'll find it will work nicely.

i do have some bad experiences with itunes, dont think this is a good idea.
mp3s do have tags but wave file and giga or nki dont have tags so you cant automatically sort them...

my collection will soon become over a TB is size folders on HDD are good for readymade solution and I think everybody uses them in one way or another for categorizing, but I burn stuff that i am not using right now on DVDs for thematic archival (drums, House, HipHop, EDM, Orchestra, Synths, VSTs, SF2, Kontact Libs... etc) so a DB system is a must for me for keeping track of which stuff is on which disk platter.

@adjin I have already spent the time creating the folders and putting the samples into the groups of which they should be e.g House, Bass , Loops One Shots and so on. It has taken me along time to get this right even though I say this It is still not what I would call perfect. As I`m still left with some samples which I have yet to find a home for as they don`t seem to fit in any of the groups I`ve created already so they are in a miscellaneous folder till I figure out what to do with them. I raised the question in hope there may be a better system that could be put in place than the existing one I have already. as i use Reason aswell as Presonus Studio One I have a seperate Hard Drive Dedicated to cater just for the 790 Gig of Reason Refills & other Reason format files I have. Again these are in groups like I have completed already for my wav files. It has been a time consuming task. But a very worthwhile one at that. I do believe there must be a better system though than this hence why I raised the question.

To me, creating folders, using catalogs, databases or index files for samples is just a lame work-around to what a computer, in my opinion, should in fact do for me: To simply find the sound that I have in mind!

I believe that a really well-working audio search engine that could find all sounds/samples that are similar to a given sound/sample would help me much more than even the best folder structure or database, because the latter might give me, let's say, for example 2000 snare drum sounds and it's up to me to fumble half an hour for the maybe 10 snares that sound right.

I would have to let all my samples analyze once, but after that, I'd be able to find easily what I'm looking for.

Same for loops.

Anybody knows such an application?

There's an mp3 comparison tool called similarity, which looks like a first step in that direction. (www.music-similarity.com)

Audio Finder (Iced Audio) is OSX only. (Best in my opinion and worth each cent i payed)
http://www.baseheadinc.com/ (freakin' expensive)
http://www.soundminer.com/SM_Site/Home.html ($$$$$)
http://ifoundasound.com/ (lame, now waveform preview)

Fast Sound browsing:
Ableton live :) (wavform preview)
Flstudio :) (very fast prelistening of audiofiles together when adding to step seq)

I have many samples and many of them clones of differend sound packs
so aplication 4 preview cataloge and manage samples nedeed
but i dont know aplication 4 help artist manage preview or cataloge samaple information on pc
most aplication i see 4 menage mp3 they don ever play short samles correctly(

@Calcatian there are many programs for cd catalogues like cd catalogue or acd or something like that...

again i dont think that there is a program that can read your mind and then find samples that are belonging to a categorie that you made ...it can find samples the same lenght maybe with the same "frequency fingerprint" but that doesnt mean they sound the same...

i once converted (ten years ago) all rebirth mods to wave sounds by an batch app which named then with numbers so i had to listen to every one of them and then gave this sample a name fits like phatsnareshort or brightsnarenatural ...this took a long time and it was difficult not to use the same names..again how can an app know in which way you are categorizing these files...

and said before, maybe there are tools for wav or mp3s but we are talking here about halion, kontakt and sfz and giga files and i have never heardt of a tool capable to analyse these sounds with schematics that suits your hearing habits and then categorize them in a scalable database...

as mentioned by someone else before the clue is not to put any sample in your pool...you get the samples you unpack them and try em out, then you decide if you really need these, if yes you put them in a directory that comes close...best way i think...at least this workss for me well...

there are apps for example, that can tell you what is on a picture but first, same problem, doesnt work with all picture formats, and then knowing that the content of the picture is for example a mountain doesnt bring you any further because you maybe have 10000 pictures of mountains...

aint no mountain high...

Indeed ;-)

But it's not impossible. I wouldn't even expect the software to read my mind, but being able to find similar sounds compared to one I'm currently using would be very helpful alone.
And there are programs that can read many sample formats (Extreme Smpl Converter, CD-eXtract etc) and extract the individual sounds of GIG, NKI, SF2, ... so it must be possible.

I agree that pre-qualifying and selecting the seemingly "best" samples and deleting the rest seems like a good idea, but have you never found that in a certain mix, some sounds that appear boring when auditioned individually might just fit perfectly in the context of the mix? I find it hard to tell what you'll really need in the future.
And I'm surprised that there are so few helpful applications out there featuring such capabilities.

scoobydoobypoo,
yes those are generic cataloging solutions. you can use them for DVD movies or anything else like ebooks etc. i use one already - WhatDisk, which is the best imo. but still they lack some extra features of the specialized sample management apps mentioned above.

I use zipcat pro for mine (PC).

@huschiwuschi Thanks for pointer I will give basehead a try links are below for anyone else to give it a try aswell.

BaseHead - Feature Overview

BaseHead is our flagship product for searching and finding your Sound Effects, Music and Audio Files..
It makes it easy to Add and Scan through 1000's of audio files and then Filter the Results/Audition and transfer directly into your Target App like Nuendo, or copy to a specified directory.
Either the whole file or just a small section of the sound file can be spotted directly onto the timeline.
Originally we made this program just for ourselves to use and speed up our work, but the BaseHead Project has grown beyond that thanks to the input of hundreds of users.


Features: (PC)
Ultra-Fast Searching, Filtering and Previewing of Audio Files.
The Slickest/Quickest/Coolest interface of them all
Drag and Drop Support of the whole file or a selection with either Copying or Referencing
Cross-platform license and Database format
Waveform caching of all formats supported.
Skip Silence playback (Cached files only)
42 Fields of Metadata searchable
FileBrowser Window
Tag Viewer Window
Quick switching between multiple databases
Pitch Slider (Controlled from Ctrl+Mouse Wheel)
Taglist Page for Copying/Transferring/Renaming multiple sounds at once
Ability to Add Pre, Post and BWAV Descriptions or Shorten file names on Transfer
4 Separate Search Input Fields so you can fine tune searches. Also with Search History
Injects renamed Descriptions back into the audio files (WAV/BWAV only)
CD/Folder Browsing of files in the Database
Can act as a Media Player!
Boolean Searching (And, Or, Not, Xor, Exact)
Opens sounds in a wave editor such as WaveLab or SoundForge for destructive editing
Multichannel audio playback Crashed to Stereo
Nuendo/Cubase and Reaper Spot-to-track support
Nuendo/Cubase Project Path Recall with Auto-Switching depending on which project is open
Adobe Audition and Premiere Pro Support to send files to their Audio Bins
Drive Anchors to keep track of Drives even when they have different drive Letters
Hiding of off-line files and folders
Ability to access licenses thru the Network or Web!
Works over a network
Ability to set and mark playback regions
SoundMiner v3 Metadata Importing from BWAVs.
SoundMiner Ripper v4 data now imported
Reads MP3 ID3 tags
Premium Support is FREE!!
Improves your Sex Life........hehehe

http://rapidshare.com/files/102102968/Basehead_Sfx

_Database_v1.69.87-Air.rar

If you use Cubase or Nuendo then problems solved, Media Manager will solve it.

Wow that's a living music forum...
Everyone seems to face the same problem : overwhelmed by so many resources...
and everyone seems trying to find a way out of what could quickly becomes... a mess !

Interesting ideas and products have araised from that thread (THX to all )... but at the end no one seems to have found the holy grail...
Sorry guys, don't have it either !
The only thing i wish to say :
for those wanting to step on a database, why not make your own app with PHP - MySQL??
for those aiming for the best classifying system... think good BEFORE you start because if you have to change it afterwards.....
To finish : with so brilliant brains out there in computing science, if there was a perfect way... it would have been already found... don't you think?
I would like to state this : if you have choosen to work with loops, they became then part of the job, to found YOUR way to work with this resource will be the way to become efficient in what you aiming to be... at the end, only the result counts, the track... so maybe we should ALL of us still keep that in focus and NOT desesparatly looking for THE app....
Cheers all and THX so much for the enlightful moment...

hi,
every library you don`t know in and out is useless.
time matters, creativity matters. so the best way is to throw awy all the stuff you do not use and to keep your head clear from all that waste. know your gear. read tutorials, practice, play with other people. rather then downloading and keeping useless stuff.

people were making great music 10 years ago, 100 years ago.

you need good single dums, a collection of instruments (keys, basses, orchestral and so on, a couple of loop cCDs, two different romplers, maybe one synth for pads, one for leads and one for experimental stuff.

and you need good ideas : )) if you find that in a database tell me

greetings schurl

so make categories as suggested

all the stuffs i collect and archive are not just for my personal use, i have mates who collaborate with me for various projects on regular basis and the nature of our work does not allow us to be restricted in a specific genre. so I gotta maintain a huge DB.

hi to all
her is the last version of "Basehead" i know

BaseHead.SFX.Database.v1.7.11

http://rapidshare.com/files/409624371/BaseHead.rar


no pass

cheers

seek77, once again you amazed me buddy

btw, now all image line stuff $49 for all plugs bundle. just wanted to share.

you are welcome! Calcatian

My favourite Sample Manager App right now is ifoundasound from ifoundasound.com
Okay i know that it's more designed for SFX sample libraries etc. but you can also use it for other samples aswell.
It can read WAV, AIFF, bWAV, MP3, FLAC and WavPack and also supports various MetaData formats like BWF, ID3 and iXML.
You can also create your own database structure with folder and various subfolders. You have a little waveform editor too in which you can cut out little potions of sound etc.
The search features are also quite impressive......just check it out yourselves.
The "Free Edition" can hold up to 8000 entries, so you can try out if it works for you.

I, personally, just use it to browse my SFX samples collection. For my other samples like drums etc. i use a well organized hdd folder structure....hehe.

Also the developer from ifoundasound provides an app called ifoundacd which does ripping, renaming and tagging of audiofiles (WAV and MP3 formats supported).
This tool is fucking genious as you can keep the real filenames short but provide accurate sound descriptions via the metadata......perfect for SFX sounds etc.
You can rename and tag files that are already on your HDD's or you can rip audio cd's.....and everything supported by an ever growing online SFX database.....

CU

Errrrrrrrrmmmmmmm.....What is wrong with just actually going through your new sample pack.If you dont like them then delete what you dont want from pack if they offend you that much.Or merge folders from packs like kicks,riffs etc.......Its not hard to remember if you liked the sound of the pack is it?normally the title gives it away on what style of music it is.lol
Maybe the next progression from this topic will be 'is there a vst that will lay my track out if i tell it what style i want and what mood im in ? loooooooooool
Seriously,if you cant be bothered to listen to and search for your sounds for how ever long it takes to make your track then maybe you have become a collector of samples and forgot what you started out doing!!!!!!!!!!!!