Workaround for organizing FAVORITE samples & instruments?

[jwing]

Hi there,
Curious what everyone else does to organize loads of samples but also identify, tag, or bookmark favorites? As of writing, Ableton still lacks a proper system of tagging and bookmarking. Live 10 added the "collections" pane but IMHO it doesn't go deep enough to make it very useable, especially for stuff like drums for which you'd ideally want to create subfolders organizing individual samples (e.g., KICKS, SNARES, HATS, etc.) rather than lump them all within the same "collection." Don't get me wrong, I like the collections feature for what it's worth, but I need something more comprehensive for my workflow.

Now I've heard some people say "just pick 10 of the best kicks/snares/whatever and delete the rest." To me that's a very limited view on production, especially for those of us who collaborate with other artists and work within several different genres. Even within one genre, every song is different, and let's say I have 10-20 kicks/snares/etc it doesn't necessarily mean that they will be right for all songs and styles. I do like to reach for favorites when starting a song, but sometimes I like to surprise myself with a new sound every now and again.

So for now, I've built a main folder in my user library of samples/instruments that I would possibly use and have been tagging the filenames contextually (source, instrument, bpm/key, whatever relevant searchable info). All of it is organized under folders, so for example under Drums I have:

• ONE-HITS
  01_Kicks
  02_Snares
  03_Cymbals
  04_Perc
  05_Toms

[and so on]

Within those, I may have a couple hundred of each instrument/drum that I may or would be willing to try in a song. If a sample pack has sounds I would never use, I delete and don't bother storing here (or anywhere for that matter).

Then, I've been making a !FAVORITES! folder at the top of this section. Under that, it has the same exact sub-folder structure as the master folder, for organizational and consistency purposes. Within each subfolder, I am keeping it limited to my tried and true go-to favorites, so really 10-20 samples each folder. If I don't find something here that inspires me, I have the master folder to refer to, organized the same way.

It's all very logical, but it's tedious and inefficient creating separate folders for each. I really wish I could just star specific samples within the master folder– not add to a "collection," but just quickly see when I search what is a go-to sample for me.

I have a friend who adds stuff like +++ or *** or his initials before his favorite samples' filenames, but to me that also gets messy really quickly, and seems rather clunky.

Curious what you do for your workflow? Looking for new ideas. Thanks!

[mholloway]

I use the User Library and create folders inside it as needed, much as you do, but not to the same degree of, uh, organizational agony.

I despise tag-based systems and have no idea why people want or like them. I think tagging is far more tedious / extra-work-creating than simply dragging and dropping content from folders in my User Library.

-M

[H20nly]

i just bitch and moan about it and swear that i'm going to clean it up later. this method has worked for me for about 12 years.

[Tarekith]

Paging Angstrom, I think he knows something about this too....

[Angstrom]

Mholloway says that they dont like tagging systems. Well thats probably because "tagging" is a terrible descriptive model of an attribute based filtration system. "Tagging" is shitty.
Think instead of attributes. Everything has attributes. Look around you, everything you see has more than one taxonomic classification. Old, wooden, furniture, upholstered, varnished. Small green fruit. Wooden door. Glass door. Glass window.

the browser we have now in L9+ was originally (hilariously) called the "tag browser" in its earliest incarnations. Those labels you see in the Sounds, or the Instruments sections are "tags" except of course they arent "tags" they are descriptive metadata. The only problem is that we can only assign one "tag" or descriptive taxonomic classification at a time for each item. So a sound can currently be tagged "Synth Rhythmic" but cannot be Bass and Synth and Rhythmic. You'll notice you never had to onerously type in "synth rhythmic" when saving, its a derived property.

The database supports that, and the "tag" system is already in place, but the interface, and the implementation are not very flexible.

Anyway, to repeat "tagging" is the wrong model. Instead think of attributes, derived and assigned,

The very worst taxonomic metadata is freely typed attibutes, laboriously entered, complete with typos.
For some reason everyone leaps to imagine the very shittest taxonomic classification system when imagining metadata. Nobody "tags" that way. Its stupid. If developers ask users if they'd like to spend their time "tagging" then of course the answer will be NO. For good reason. Nobody wants to do that, because its shit.

Dont imagine that. A good browser is not that. Dont imagine the shittest thing you can think of that nobody would ever specify. Imagine the best way, the non laborious way, the intuitive way. Thats what people spec.

. Live exports audio files such as MP3s, or aiff files with ASD meta info, that all exists right now and ...uh ...lets say its likely that the database is already populated with that data. The BPM, the author info. All that metadata is already present. The song creation data, the VSTs it used, the projects that files are used in, the instruments that an Instrument Rack uses, the Pack its from. We know this already.

Find content: Author: Angstrom or Isotonik, Last Modified Date - 2016 to 2017, tonality - Bass AND rhythmic OR Synth AND Rhythmic. Instruments - Massive OR Wavetable AND Operator.

Find Content: Type: Audio OR Song, Author: Angstrom or DJ Shadow, BPM : 100 to 115

Now, that needs an interface.

[mholloway]

For some reason everyone leaps to imagine the very shittest taxonomic classification system when imagining metadata. Nobody "tags" that way. Its stupid. If developers ask users if they'd like to spend their time "tagging" then of course the answer will be NO. For good reason. Nobody wants to do that, because its shit.

You obviously haven't used Maschine or any of the Native Instruments "Kontrol..." stuff. It's entirely built around this system of bogus tagging. And yes, they call it tagging. And it sucks. So that's your "for some reason": it's no mystery, it's NI. Same answer to your next point: your'e wrong, Somebody DOES do it that way, and it's Native Instruments. U-he recently adopted as similar approach, but it's thankfully totally optional within their browser structure.

Maybe your imaginary system is perfect, maybe it's not. But as long as it continues to not exist, I won't miss it.

meanwhile, I'm perfectly happy with my drag-n-drop into and out-of folders in my User Library / Hard Disk.
-M

[jwing]

I use the User Library and create folders inside it as needed, much as you do, but not to the same degree of, uh, organizational agony.

I despise tag-based systems and have no idea why people want or like them. I think tagging is far more tedious / extra-work-creating than simply dragging and dropping content from folders in my User Library.

-M

I used the word tag as it would be better than nothing. But my point is, I may have a lot of snares that I don't use all the time but could be useful from time to time. But jeez, seeing so much as a star or bookmark icon next to a favorite snare wouldn't hurt... to find them more quickly, but also while keeping an overall folder structure in tact. In the meantime I have to create a labor-intensive and honestly clunky workaround as described above– which I agree, is organizational agony.

[jwing]

Mholloway says that they dont like tagging systems. Well thats probably because "tagging" is a terrible descriptive model of an attribute based filtration system. "Tagging" is shitty.
Think instead of attributes. Everything has attributes. Look around you, everything you see has more than one taxonomic classification. Old, wooden, furniture, upholstered, varnished. Small green fruit. Wooden door. Glass door. Glass window.

the browser we have now in L9+ was originally (hilariously) called the "tag browser" in its earliest incarnations. Those labels you see in the Sounds, or the Instruments sections are "tags" except of course they arent "tags" they are descriptive metadata. The only problem is that we can only assign one "tag" or descriptive taxonomic classification at a time for each item. So a sound can currently be tagged "Synth Rhythmic" but cannot be Bass and Synth and Rhythmic. You'll notice you never had to onerously type in "synth rhythmic" when saving, its a derived property.

The database supports that, and the "tag" system is already in place, but the interface, and the implementation are not very flexible.

Anyway, to repeat "tagging" is the wrong model. Instead think of attributes, derived and assigned,

The very worst taxonomic metadata is freely typed attibutes, laboriously entered, complete with typos.
For some reason everyone leaps to imagine the very shittest taxonomic classification system when imagining metadata. Nobody "tags" that way. Its stupid. If developers ask users if they'd like to spend their time "tagging" then of course the answer will be NO. For good reason. Nobody wants to do that, because its shit.

Dont imagine that. A good browser is not that. Dont imagine the shittest thing you can think of that nobody would ever specify. Imagine the best way, the non laborious way, the intuitive way. Thats what people spec.

. Live exports audio files such as MP3s, or aiff files with ASD meta info, that all exists right now and ...uh ...lets say its likely that the database is already populated with that data. The BPM, the author info. All that metadata is already present. The song creation data, the VSTs it used, the projects that files are used in, the instruments that an Instrument Rack uses, the Pack its from. We know this already.

Find content: Author: Angstrom or Isotonik, Last Modified Date - 2016 to 2017, tonality - Bass AND rhythmic OR Synth AND Rhythmic. Instruments - Massive OR Wavetable AND Operator.

Find Content: Type: Audio OR Song, Author: Angstrom or DJ Shadow, BPM : 100 to 115

Now, that needs an interface.

I mean, yes, tagging every single sample would be labor intensive and a pointless waste of time. But to be able to "tag" or "bookmark" a favorite sample quickly, add a star, a little favorite icon, and then quickly sort by bookmarked or favorited or "tagged," whatever you want to call it... to me that just makes sense. Would take very little time if all you had to do is click an icon or hit a quick keyboard shortcut. Done. Semantics aside, tag is probably not the word I really meant here, so much as "bookmark" or "star."

Any other information I don't really care about. Maybe the occasional "boomy" "punchy" "soft" type terms could help me in searching, but I wouldn't even spend much time going that far with most samples.

I think my main point is let's say I have 200 snares I like and could have potential depending on context; shouldn't there be a better way to quickly visually identify the ones that are your top 10, without going to a totally different folder every time? Because as mentioned before, just because you may have your top 10 snares, you may work on a track with a collaborator where none of them fit, and it would be most convenient to be able to hot swap and cruise through all your samples in the same place... and then sort by favorites if desired, much as you might do in finder/explorer.

[jeblo05]

I use Samplism to organize my samples. It‘s tag based with an auto-tagging system. It‘s not fail save, but speeds up the boring work.

https://audiohelperproject.com/products/samplism/

macOS only, though

[fishmonkey]

for Mac heads, there is also AudioFinder: http://www.icedaudio.com/site/

[a1studmuffin]

I'm a bit late to the party, but if you're on Windows you can try Aural Probe - I made it, it's free and has resonated quite well with a lot of people since I first released it in 2005 or something crazy like that.