How do you manage/organize your sounds?

[Advanced Suite]

When I first started making music I was given this masssive sample pack with folders within folders within folders.
I found it incredibly difficult to remember and find sounds in it. So I set it aside and started fresh with only the reason fsb and growing from there.
Now my refill and sample folder is starting to get out of hand. Similar to the problem I had before. :-/

Sooooo, how do you manage/organize your sounds to achieve the easiest workflow?

I don't know if I should split the refill packs up put sounds with sounds
Make genre and put them in there
Make folders like poly mono drums etc and place them in there?

What are my options and what is the best?

[Kov]

I don't use refills. I have 1 folder per song and in there go all patches/samples (that are not fsb) i made/used for it.

[MitchClark89]

I don't use refills. I have 1 folder per song and in there go all patches/samples (that are not fsb) i made/used for it.

I think the point/question is - where do you store the banks/libraries of patches and samples that you then choose from to build those songs

[submonsterz]

Complete chaos my end i have so much shit now with refills and sample sets etc and vst libarys etc its just a mess nothing is organised now too many different song saves from different programes etc its a loosing battle here . so i just save to desktop now everything then after that fills up i sling it all in to folders and forget it exists .

[Advanced Suite]

Complete chaos my end i have so much shit now with refills and sample sets etc and vst libarys etc its just a mess nothing is organised now too many different song saves from different programes etc its a loosing battle here . so i just save to desktop now everything then after that fills up i sling it all in to folders and forget it exists .

Lol, That is exactly how I have been doing it for years. Might be what works for me. I know I am a messy producer since my studio is always a mess my racks in reason are a mess and my desk top is a mess but I still yearn for that organization:)

[joeyluck]

I keep them all in a folder within my Google Drive folder (so they can be backed up and I can access them anywhere).

I do all of my organizing via Favorites within Reason (since ReFills and Rack Extensions can fall under multiple categories, it's tough to organize them outside of Reason). For instance I have a Favorites list called: Piano. In it I have all my Piano ReFills (such as Abbey Road Keyboards and Reason Pianos) and the folder of presets for Radical Piano. Handy for those Rack Extensions that have patch browsing and presets that can be sorted into a favorites list. Of course, Abbey Roads Keyboards also falls under: Keys. Outside of Reason I can't place it in more than one folder, but I can place it within multiple Favorites lists.

This also helps so you can make changes to your organization (within the favorites) and not affect the actual location in which a ReFill is stored. I keep backups of my current favorites and some of my old ones as well by making a copy (or moving) the .favo file.

[Advanced Suite]

I keep them all in a folder within my Google Drive folder (so they can be backed up and I can access them anywhere).

I do all of my organizing via Favorites within Reason (since ReFills and Rack Extensions can fall under multiple categories, it's tough to organize them outside of Reason). For instance I have a Favorites list called: Piano. In it I have all my Piano ReFills (such as Abbey Road Keyboards and Reason Pianos) and the folder of presets for Radical Piano. Handy for those Rack Extensions that have patch browsing and presets that can be sorted into a favorites list. Of course, Abbey Roads Keyboards also falls under: Keys. Outside of Reason I can't place it in more than one folder, but I can place it within multiple Favorites lists.

This also helps so you can make changes to your organization (within the favorites) and not affect the actual location in which a ReFill is stored. I keep backups of my current favorites and some of my old ones as well by making a copy (or moving) the .favo file.

I have seen the favorites but never really dove into it. (Until now
Do you know if reason has a back up for all that information you created?
For example: if you have to re-upload reason. Will you loose all that hard work you did?

[joeyluck]

I keep them all in a folder within my Google Drive folder (so they can be backed up and I can access them anywhere).

I do all of my organizing via Favorites within Reason (since ReFills and Rack Extensions can fall under multiple categories, it's tough to organize them outside of Reason). For instance I have a Favorites list called: Piano. In it I have all my Piano ReFills (such as Abbey Road Keyboards and Reason Pianos) and the folder of presets for Radical Piano. Handy for those Rack Extensions that have patch browsing and presets that can be sorted into a favorites list. Of course, Abbey Roads Keyboards also falls under: Keys. Outside of Reason I can't place it in more than one folder, but I can place it within multiple Favorites lists.

This also helps so you can make changes to your organization (within the favorites) and not affect the actual location in which a ReFill is stored. I keep backups of my current favorites and some of my old ones as well by making a copy (or moving) the .favo file.

I have seen the favorites but never really dove into it. (Until now
Do you know if reason has a back up for all that information you created?
For example: if you have to re-upload reason. Will you loose all that hard work you did?

They are saved as .favo files

[ravisoni]

After something similar happened, I went back to the drawing board and came up with this conclusion: the first step in managing my sounds was to stop downloading all free samples/loops/refills on the godly interwebs. Saves so much space and many, many other issues.
In terms of actual organization, I have a folder for all of them at a specific location, which has been the location since Windows Vista. That way if reason ever needs to reference something years later when we'll have windows 20, it'll still be in the same location. I just try to take screenshots of my folder every once in a while (and also have a word doc with a general idea of what's within the folders within the folder), and that way I can simply forget my sounds since reason always does its search in case something goes missing, or if I open a project file 3 years later.
This works for me since I only use Reason.

[stratatonic]

Complete chaos my end ... its a loosing battle here . so i just save to desktop now everything then after that fills up i sling it all in to folders and forget it exists .

[skie]

Great topic!! One of the keys to being a great producer is knowing where your good samples are at any given time. I've tried many different organizing strategies and the one that works best for me is starting a new sample folder each year. I tend to spontaneously buy a lot of drum kits and refills etc. Instead of putting them in one massive folder I organize them via the year I got them. I have a folder for each year since I started doing this in 2013...so 2013, 2014, 2015, etc...for some reason the strongest association I have with a sample pack is the timeframe which it was purchased...its like, where's my BlapKits sample folder? And my mind instantly goes to where I was when I bought its so I know it's in with my 2015 stuff. I keep all these Years folders in the same individual folder. So you might try making a folder each year for whatever purchases you make that year.

[Advanced Suite]

Great topic!! One of the keys to being a great producer is knowing where your good samples are at any given time. I've tried many different organizing strategies and the one that works best for me is starting a new sample folder each year. I tend to spontaneously buy a lot of drum kits and refills etc. Instead of putting them in one massive folder I organize them via the year I got them. I have a folder for each year since I started doing this in 2013...so 2013, 2014, 2015, etc...for some reason the strongest association I have with a sample pack is the timeframe which it was purchased...its like, where's my BlapKits sample folder? And my mind instantly goes to where I was when I bought its so I know it's in with my 2015 stuff. I keep all these Years folders in the same individual folder. So you might try making a folder each year for whatever purchases you make that year.

That is a fantastic Idea. I think my brain works in big hunks of time anyways so this might work great for me..... I can already picture what year some of these packs can go into. I like this Idea a lot! this makes a lot of sense to me.

[skie]

^Glad you like it. I think you will find it's a good way for getting a hold on massive amounts of kits and such. This is how I also organize my works in progress, until I finish them, at which point it goes into my demo/finalized folder.

[TheGuyNotNamedBob]

As far as actual samples go, I ripped my packs apart and created a file Hierarchy that is very organised.

Something like

Samples
Drums
Hats
Closed

And then do that for all drums

Or for Inst samples

Samples
Inst
Arp 2600

Mostly sorted by note/key/chord

For ReFills, I'd just put them in folder labelled FX, Inst, Combis, then if you wanted, go from there, like downtempo, or EDM, etc.

Sorry that there's no pic.

[Noplan]

I try to put as much as i can into the song self-contain settings.