How do you organize your drum samples?

[Tricky-Loops]

So I managed to get 25 GB free space on my hard disk again by deleting tons of terrible free loops and samples...
(good bye, Musicradar! )

...but now I'm still left with loads of good drum samples and drum construction kits, and every pack has different kinds of drums included, i. e. kicks, snares, O/C hi hats, cymbals, claps, shakers, wood blocks etc. Recently I searched for "kicks", and there were about 5,000 kicks on my hard disk...

The problem is to find a good kick, I have to search in every sample pack for the kicks, and when I finally found them, I forgot the other kicks I've listened to, and I listen to them again...

But I want to have a simple list with all my 5,000 kicks, and the same with snares, hi-hats, claps etc.!

I'm thinking about buying Sample Librarian but it costs 30 EUR which a big sum for me at the moment as I'm struggling financially (and otherwise, too). I tried a few free sample library organization programs but they didn't make me happy...

How do you organize your drum samples?

[ZenPunkHippy]

This is pay-ware, but it sounds like you need something similar:

http://www.revel-software.it

I'm sure if you search for "Windows audio sample manager" you'll find some free software to do the job.

Otherwise you need to go through your sample folders by hand and sort out the good sounds from the bad sounds - put all the "good" samples in a new folder structure that uses some standard naming convention like:

Code: Select all

Samples\
    Percussion\
        Kicks\
           Kick1.wav
           Kick2.wav
        Hats\
            Closed Hihat 01.wav
    Loops\
        Drum Loops\
            A Nice Loop.wav

It's slow and not very fun, but once it's complete you'll have a great place to find your samples. In future only put new samples in the new folder structure if you are likely to use them, and keep the folder structure maintained.

Some hosts have features to do this too, so that's another option.

Simple, no?

Peace,
Andy.

[Tricky-Loops]

This is pay-ware, but it sounds like you need something similar:

http://www.revel-software.it

Looks promising but 63 EUR (and that's the 25 % discounted price) are too much for me at the moment...

Otherwise you need to go through your sample folders by hand and sort out the good sounds from the bad sounds - put all the "good" samples in a new folder structure that uses some standard naming convention like:

Code: Select all

Samples\
    Percussion\
        Kicks\
           Kick1.wav
           Kick2.wav
        Hats\
            Closed Hihat 01.wav
    Loops\
        Drum Loops\
            A Nice Loop.wav

It's slow and not very fun, but once it's complete you'll have a great place to find your samples. In future only put new samples in the new folder structure if you are likely to use them, and keep the folder structure maintained.

I thought about this approach but the problem is then I don't have any oversight anymore from which sample pack the drum sample is and which license applies to. To solve this problem, I'd have to rename every drum sample with a name like "Kick2_Drum-Sample-Pack-XY", and put the license file into the folder, and to do so with around 50,000 drum samples is quite tedious...

[ZenPunkHippy]

Why do you need to keep the license info with the samples?

Are you planning on re-selling some of the samples you don't use?

Or using some of the samples to create sample sets you will sell (which would obviously require a specific license)?

Yeah it's a tedious job, but you only need to do it once ... and maybe not even the full set of samples ... just enough to create some unique kits you can use.

Perhaps "one kit at a time" is the answer? Spend some time designing a couple of kits to use now, and then create more when you are bored with what you have.

Lots of interesting ways to solve the problem without moving a million files this week ...

[cryophonik]

For simplicity and ease of browsing manually, I keep all of my samples (including e.g., Kontakt, Spectrasonics, etc. libraries) on a dedicated 1TB hard drive, organized by developer with subfolders for the library (e.g., Wave Alchemy folder containing subfolders for the Synth Drums, Drum Tools 01, Paperskin Snares, etc. libraries). But, I use Battery 4's and Maschine's library functions for importing, tagging, and searching my drum/one-shot samples. I tag them with attributes that generally describe the sound or intended use of the sample (e.g., hard, soft, distorted, club, acoustic, long riser, impact). Since most good sample libraries come sorted in subfolders by sample type (e.g., kicks, snares, claps, hihats, cymbals, toms, FX), it's generally pretty easy to batch tag the samples within each of these subfolders, rather than go through and tag the samples one-by-one. NI's browsers let you easily narrow down your search by selecting the attributes within your library. The first time I tagged them took a while (several hours spent over a few evenings IIRC), but each time I add a new library, it only takes 10 minutes to quickly import and tag them.

[RunBeerRun]

I use plugins that automatically load them from path

or use Energy xt with that huge old school drum machines pack as presets

[Tricky-Loops]

For simplicity and ease of browsing manually, I keep all of my samples (including e.g., Kontakt, Spectrasonics, etc. libraries) on a dedicated 1TB hard drive, organized by developer with subfolders for the library (e.g., Wave Alchemy folder containing subfolders for the Synth Drums, Drum Tools 01, Paperskin Snares, etc. libraries). But, I use Battery 4's and Maschine's library functions for importing, tagging, and searching my drum/one-shot samples. I tag them with attributes that generally describe the sound or intended use of the sample (e.g., hard, soft, distorted, club, acoustic, long riser, impact). Since most good sample libraries come sorted in subfolders by sample type (e.g., kicks, snares, claps, hihats, cymbals, toms, FX), it's generally pretty easy to batch tag the samples within each of these subfolders, rather than go through and tag the samples one-by-one. NI's browsers let you easily narrow down your search by selecting the attributes within your library. The first time I tagged them took a while (several hours spent over a few evenings IIRC), but each time I add a new library, it only takes 10 minutes to quickly import and tag them.

Holy kick, you must be a professional!

(Unfortunately I don't have Alchemy, Battery or Maschine... )

[Tricky-Loops]

Why do you need to keep the license info with the samples?

Are you planning on re-selling some of the samples you don't use?

Or using some of the samples to create sample sets you will sell (which would obviously require a specific license)?

If only I could make dope drum samples...but I don't have any chance against Goldbaby and his expensive gear...

Seriously, if someone asked where I got this kick, and all I know is that it's "Kick_3756", I might feel embarrassed... That's why I want to know where the sample is coming from...

But to add to every drum sample the name of the sample pack ("Kick_3756_EDM-Drums-Volume-2" etc.), that's tedious, given that I have more than 50,000 drum samples!

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

But to add to every drum sample the name of the sample pack ("Kick_3756_EDM-Drums-Volume-2" etc.), that's tedious, given that I have more than 50,000 drum samples!

batch renaming might be a good idea in this case. there is this for osx, but i'm sure there is an equivalent program for other os

http://renamer.com/

you would have to rename the files to something that included the library name, then allow the samples to be renamed sequentially

but 50,000 drum samples ??? stop hoarding

[vurt]

Why do you need to keep the license info with the samples?

Are you planning on re-selling some of the samples you don't use?

Or using some of the samples to create sample sets you will sell (which would obviously require a specific license)?

If only I could make dope drum samples...but I don't have any chance against Goldbaby and his expensive gear...

Seriously, if someone asked where I got this kick, and all I know is that it's "Kick_3756", I might feel embarrassed... That's why I want to know where the sample is coming from...

But to add to every drum sample the name of the sample pack ("Kick_3756_EDM-Drums-Volume-2" etc.), that's tedious, given that I have more than 50,000 drum samples!

when are you going to use 50000 of anything?
at most around 20 of each will be sufficient.

i avoid this dilemma by rarely using drums. and if i do i use a drum machine!

[Turello]

I've deleted\uninstalled all samples, libraies, samplers (Kontakt Included!), leave just EZdrummer, XLNAudio Drummer, Melda FreeDrummer, Groove Agent 2 and some free acoustic drums in Maize Sampler format (that are self oganized )...
I can't sped all my lifetime to organize libraries for samplerate\bitrate (to avoid glitch, pops etc etc and it happened!!!), better spend time on creativity... and leave free HDs for 24bit 44khz tracks...

to myself

[foosnark]

I tend to mostly use Maschine kits. With the factory libraries plus four other NI expansions plus Uppercussion libraries and a few Goldbaby and some random others, I don't generally dive into my non-Maschine samples unless I am going to put together another kit from them.

My raw sample folder is roughly broken out by developer/source, and within each of those folders anything goes. Ditto for Maschine and Kontakt folders.

[Tricky-Loops]

I (still) don't know what to do with mys...err...my drum samples...

50,000 are too much, and they're all in a lot of drum kits and sample packs. But I don't want to delete them, either. I've already deleted the really bad ones...

If there were any free alternatives to Sample Librarian, so I could tag them all and choose my favorites without actually having to re-organize my whole sample folder!

[ZenPunkHippy]

There is no automatic way to do what you want.

Some options:

1) Leave the samples where they are now, and learn which samples you like to use by making kits / tracks
- this is basically what I do

2) Spend some time re-organising files manually so that you know where the good stuff is

Neither (1) or (2) is going to happen by itself

[Tricky-Loops]

1) Leave the samples where they are now, and learn which samples you like to use by making kits / tracks

The problem is that my songs are absolutely different, so I use different drums for every song. If I'd make psy-trance, 5 kicks might be sufficient (same with claps and hi-hats), and I could put them into a single drum kit. But then I don't even adhere to any genre(s), so if I'd make a rock kit, a pop kit, an EDM kit and a trance kit, it wouldn't help me at all!

On the other hand, if I listen to all 50,000 drum samples every time I want to make a song, my creativity is gone before I've found the right kick...