**Naming Your Projects! (Does anyone have a great system?)

Alienna · 2023-09-19T19:01:55.616Z

Finalfinalfinal2 etc…
harddrive crashed last week
Lost many of them

chrisroland · 2023-09-19T19:04:00.862Z

whatever the track’s name is i’m working on. that’s it. that’s the system

shigginpit · 2023-09-19T19:07:52.523Z

Alienna:

harddrive crashed last week

image310×300 9.17 KB

the only civilized solution.

Alienna · 2023-09-19T19:09:15.400Z

Yes it’s all gone following this topic, want a better management for future projects…

twelon · 2023-09-19T19:12:08.490Z

Random Word Generator

Generate random words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, letters, phrases, sentences or numbers to brainstorm and create new ideas at Random Word Generator.

g3o2 · 2023-09-19T19:12:55.992Z

My naming system is as follows:

1CAP + YYMM + project name: captures which could become an idea, most loops go here, consists of max 1 song part;
2WRI + YYMM + project name: capture which turn into potential songs, consisting of more than 1 song part;
3ORG + YYMM + project name: song idea with a clear structure and several song parts;
4WRI + YYMM + project name: written song in pre-mix state;
5DEL + YYMM + project name: delivered / released song.

Project name after the ghost track’s name, the situation, the instrument, etc.

palm · 2023-09-19T19:16:01.995Z

ya I do the YMD and number for the day, as well +[gear by importance used, clocking piece first]. keeps shit in order in a really good way. NEVER understood MDY…makes no sense. fucks up chronology.

example: 230919 1 [gear] [gear] [fx]

CLEAN…

Screen Shot 2023-09-19 at 12.16.51 PM194×1122 13.1 KB

HoldMyBeer · 2023-09-19T19:20:06.377Z

Alienna:

harddrive crashed last week
Lost many of them

Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. Is it possible to recover anything the hard drive? I had that happen years ago and lost a few things. It sucks.

Now, on top of using Time Machine, I install dropbox on all of my computers, and everything important like music, design, art, goes into dropbox so that it is always backed up/synced.

Suspect_Frequency · 2023-09-19T19:21:06.761Z

Date, tempo, followed by a name randomly chosen by flipping through the 1828 New Websters dictionary.

SoundReverend · 2023-09-19T19:50:58.834Z

As mentioned above, Date as 2023.09.19 so it sorts in a good way. And sometimes a stupid name.

I am really lucky it seems as I only do 5-6 ideas a months. Most stuff I just don’t save cause it’s crap

But out of these ideas I usually finish one song. And that is when it gets a stupid name.

Oh and for Ableton I create one Sub Folder for each month and then store the different ideas inside there.

palm · 2023-09-19T19:57:34.828Z

have redundancies…
ive got two externals I update with all the shit [projects, music] on my computer each month. two in case on dies, then I replace. [its happened]. it also keeps available space on the computer.

not that I have EVER gone back to anything ive done before. but I have it

petal · 2023-09-19T20:08:07.124Z

Not that I make many tracks, but I usually name them after, what’s been on my mind recently. It doesn’t have to be anything really special. It can just be something that you for some reason are focused on. After that, it’s just version numbers.

It also (have I found) a good way to pay homage to phases in your life

palm · 2023-09-19T20:14:04.506Z

I find those moments in time are captured in the music. names start getting meaningless when youre trying to name 1000s of tracks/loops. [at least for me]

when I go back and listen to old shit, I get the vibe of that time back.

petal · 2023-09-19T20:15:22.488Z

True. Maybe my system only works when you are not making a lot of different tracks.

Phillip · 2023-09-19T20:18:43.070Z

Yyyymmdd key tempo

Then have a table in notion with a lot of metadata, including but not limited to where the project is located, stage of production, notes, etcetera.

Alienna · 2023-09-19T20:26:59.640Z

Hiii thx for your sympathy . A specialist told me it would cost about 700 euros excl vat to recover the data with no guarantees. I have many backups from different harddrives (although I’m in need of good software which can mirror folders…) i also work in the cloud
Sadly from this external harddrive in particular i delayed the backup a few times , it was full with raw jamsessions, my radiofiles, and recorded loops
and to stay on topic, it was a jungle to find my way through,
That day I wanted to go through it, sort it out and backup it, right before it fell on the ground,
stupid stupid me

chrismcg · 2023-09-19T21:57:50.312Z

I love how the Push 3 standalone automatically names projects when you save.

I sometimes load a new project, hit save to see the name it generates, then figure out if I can make something I think matches the name.

ViolentMeals · 2023-09-19T22:10:59.860Z

Adjective + Noun + sequential numbers
Ditch the numbers and you’ve a song title

Paraphonique · 2023-09-19T22:13:26.943Z

I use a set of codenames for each track of a project (until I find something deep or meaningful) + BPM.

reeloy · 2023-09-19T22:18:21.323Z

…is all what u do, coming from the same mindset and serves just the purpose of one particular genre…?
if so, oops, ur doomed, since the only way to sort out ur way is, to actually come up with dedicated “song” names…but hey, even if it’s all instrumental, it’s a good sport to have at least one vocal snippet, one word or phrase u just whisper in a mic, even if it’s just ur computers inbuilt one, during ur first session and make it part of ur song project…and to use that as a clear name for later identification…
not to mention, that u of course, whenever u work on it again, u save that with a next to follow number version, so that u can always step back in ur progress u made along the way…
with every next evolving step in process, first sketch, first arrangement, first roughmix,final mix and whatnot, u better always have the option to step back…to try different approaches or mixversions, have snapshots to get back in…
so u end up with a folder that contains all recordings and project versions under that dedicated name…“smelling roses” for example…and in there u’ll find “smelling roses” 0.0, “smelling roses” 0.1 etc…

if u know already, hey i got some various genres i’m working in/for/out…
come up with “bandnames” for each of those and make them mainfolder destinations where ur various sonic results split into to be found there before u proceed like i suggested before…

u can always sketch whatever, but once u really start to create any audiofiles, u better dedicate a next save as process to one dedicated locaction from that point on…recording whatever comes to mind with ur mouth and and take that for name makes sure u’ll always stay connected to that individual project and helps u big time avoiding too many production zombies all over the place…good for continuation, oversight and backups…

ur an artist…act like one…and go for pro…some date and code jibberish each time and all over the place won’t get u there…