Best way/approach to organize sample libraries

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Hi,

I know that this is a frequent question, but I couldn't find an updated good answer.

I've demoed a lot of suggested software, but none of them satisfied at 100% (neither at 50% :(). I would like to have something like Audioloop library browser from Logic Pro, but I am using Studio One and its sound set management is very unusable (no one provide loop library in this format, and creating one by yourself it's a nightmare since it is not possible to tag multiple selections).

In my opinion the best one so far it is AudioFinder (http://www.icedaudio.com/site/), but anyway it is very slow (and I have a NVMe disk and a Skylake CPU), it takes about 1/4 second to start playing a sample and same time to stop it, also list scrolling is not fluid and heavy, so it is very annoying to use, also I think it is interface and workflow are overcomplicated.

I was thinking to, from now on, buying only Appleloops that are tagged and use some software to browse them (again... which one?), but I am not sure if Loopmasters and other big sellers, always provide tagged Appleloops. I am talking about Appleloops because from what I understood WAV don't have an clean/official way to be tagged, so it would make their management more complicated.

So I was wondering which is your approach/tools that you use to organize big sample libraries?

Thank you.

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I tried a lot of things. Tagging etc. Eventually I settled on:

Generally speaking folders for each company I've purchased samples from.

That could be:

My Samples\Big Fish Audio\Acid Jazz City 2
My Samples\Big Fish Audio\Neo Soul 2
My Samples\Zero-G\Classic Disco

Etc.

I also use another main folder called 'Misc Drum Hits'.

Same idea here.

Main folders represent the company I purchased the pack from.

So for example:

Misc Drum Hits\Samplephonics\45 Roland 626 and 707 Samples
Misc Drum Hits\Zero-G\Total Snare Drums

Samples can belong in so many folders. Especially if you use drum software like Battery or Kontakt. I haven't found these tagging methods of much value to me personally. We all have our own way of working, and need to find what works for us on an individual basis. I don't think there is a 'one size fits all' method.

I've kept my post quite simple. There are all sorts of ways I like to have things that would just confuse you even more if I started getting into the details.

Good luck with it! :)
This is the same method MJ used when he was working on Anthony Marinelli's Thriller.

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Generally speaking folders for each company I've purchased samples from
I also thought about a solution like that, but I would like to avoid duplicated files, or usage of symbolic links.

Anyway thank you for your reply, I would like to see how other people organize their libraries in order to understand if there is an approach that could fit also for me.

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I hope you find one. I struggled with it for a long time myself. :tu:
This is the same method MJ used when he was working on Anthony Marinelli's Thriller.

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