Get your files sorted!

Keeping my files and folders organised has never been a strong point of mine.  after all, I'm a musician.  I want to spend my time making music.  when I sit down with inspiration to work, I want to be constructive and end up with something to show for it.  I need to grab the inspiration when it comes and be sure not to waste any time. So for a long time, I never really gave much thought to archiving sound and projects in any particular way. As for trawling through the depths of my hard drive to retrieve and organise files, I wouldn't even know where to begin.  It is very time consuming and a lot of patience is needed.

But after ten years of new project after new project, and multiple new hard drives, I started to wonder “where is all the work that I've spent so much time doing?”  Every now and then i plug in an external hard drive from 5 or 6 years ago and have a look over some of my old work,  most of it unfinished, but I usually friend something that gets the creative juices flowing, so I'll bounce down a couple of sounds and start a new project again.

 This went long enough for me to recognise that working in this way is seriously counterproductive.  If I remember, in the middle of making music, that once upon a time I made some sounds that would be perfect for what I'm doing, its not always easy to go back and find where that sound is, and often, by the time I find it the inspiration is gone.

Taking some time to consider how you like to work, and then coming up with a good file system to keep everything organised is essential for good work-flow.  I would like to go back and organise everything I've ever done but there is so much of it that that really needs to happen over time.

Now, every time I'm working with sound or music, I will store files multiple times depending on the file type.  All files from my current project will be stored in my current project folder, as well as separately in a dedicated folder for specific file types.  I have a folder for synth patches, a folder for audio that I have recorded, a folder for audio that I have recorded and processed, a folder with individual tracks from a session that could be useful in the future etc.  Making sure all of the sounds I make and all of the FX chains I make are kept in all these different folders takes quite a lot of time in a session, but the time saved when searching for what I need ultimately far exceeds it.  Having everything you need when you need it not only saves time but also gives you a feeling of clarity that is so important for making music.