Plug-In Organization Question

[Nihilis]

Howdy. So, I'm doing a clean up of all my samples and plugins. I put all of my samples in various folders to help tidy things up. I have FX, Drums, vocals, etc with sub folders when needed. I wanted to do something similar to my 3rd party plugins but I'm stuck at figuring out what folders I should have. The best I came up with is a folder titled "Instruments" for all the synth vsts, "mixing and mastering" for things like ozone, compressors, eqs, limiters and such, "space" for reverbs. but I'm not sure what to do with the other stuff, like distortion, phasers, stutterers, delays and things that don't fall under the other categories.

I know this a frivolous thing to ask, but I was just curious if and how you guys organize yours. Want to share your organization decisions?

[Googly Smythe]

I use Cubase's vst manager to sort them out in the DAW, so I just bung all synths in one folder, all processors in another, and the vst3 plugins in the default folder.
Using the manager I sort them into eq (track and mix) , dynamics (track and mix), guitar fx/sims, echo/reverb, modulation, consoles, tools (metering, etc) and misc for all the rest.

[tmech]

I use these categories. I used to have them much more fine-grained but that just mean there were great plugins hidden away in strange places that I never looked. This way I can find the ballpark quickly, and something takes my eye once I'm there.

[aMUSEd]

Firstly a way to avoid physically moving plugins:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... k#p6593473

my Symlinks folder is organised like this:

Screenshot 2016-11-28 12.05.33.png

but you may prefer to take out the folders named by Vender - it's just I quite like having those that are a distinct collection all together. The folder named 'FX' is basically modulation fx (phasers, filters, flangers, chorus etc) and 'Instruments' is for plugins that emulate 'real' instruments (acoustic and electromechanical ones)

[MogwaiBoy]

I keep the physical location of the plugins very straightforward, organising them by maker.

Examples:
D:\VST Plugins\64-bit\Fabfilter\Pro-Q 2\
D:\VST Plugins\32-bit\Soundtoys\Little Radiator\

Then inside my DAW (FL Studio) I have the shortcuts to those dll files organised by status and plugin type.

Examples:
FL Studio 12\Effects\Compressors\Commercial\64-bit\Toneboosters

FL Studio 12\Effects\Compressors\Freeware\64-bit\Tokyo Dawn\

This is to help steer me towards the ones I paid for first.

Using this system I can update or even move plugin dll files around in the D drive, and simply run a quick scan in FL Studio and it finds their new location. Nothing drops out of any project, current of previous.

[DJ Warmonger]

Use "delete" key a lot. It makes life simpler.