Sample Library Structure

I am a chaotic person and I find it difficult to keep order, unfortunately.
So it is with my samples.
Meanwhile I have a truckload of samples on my SSD at my disposal.

My current way of working:
Every now and then I throw a few samples on my Digitakt to have fresh material available again. Without a sophisticated folder structure.
Sometimes I have samples on the Digitakt twice, or samples that sound very similar, or samples that I do not even use in the end.
I have lost the overview.

Now I would like to bring a little more order into the matter.
I’m even considering factory resetting the Digitakt to have a clean fresh start.

It seems to me there are three ways to keep order on the Digitakt:

  1. a classic folder structure with kick, snare, etc.
  2. a folder structure based on sample packs
  3. a folder with samples per Digitakt project (so max 127 samples per folder)

Possibility 3 seems to be more interesting to me:
Doing so, you could delete old/orphaned projects incl. the corresponding sample folder without hesitation and maybe keep more order on the DT (even if some samples would be so redundant on the DT).

But having a folder structure is only half the work.
You have to curate it, so first listen through samples, select and assign them.
In general, though, I don’t want to limit myself to Loop Cloud or anything like that.

How do you do that?
Are there any good tools that support you?
Which way of working do you have?

Greetings, Marc

1 Like

Hi Marc,
case 3 is certainly interesting as it also reflects the MPC Project structure. However I do not sample that much into new projects on my DT, since this is quite a slow workflow.
Currently, I have a few curated samples from various sample packs and random recordings from stuff out off my DAW.
What suits me most is a structure in this form:
(1) Drums
-> Breaks (with BPM)
-> One shots
-|-> FutureGraragePack (Kicks, Snares, Hats, …) + a sample chain file " FUG [64].wav"
-|-> 808 (Kicks, …) + sample chain file
-|-> …
(2) Instruments
-> Bass
-> Guitar
-> Strings
-> Synth
-> Flute
-> …
(3) Vocals
-> Atmosphere
-> Adlibs
-> …
(4) Texture
-> Foley
-> Ambience

For the tonal files that came from sample packs I kept information on BPM and key.
So my file names are kept pretty short like: <flute 110_D#_burial2 =.wav>
The “=” stands for a stereo file that I processed in this way:
Stereo sum (left + right) appended by a reversed Side part (left - right) that is pitched up by an octave.
To access the side part I could just copy my sound to another track, reverse the sample, pitch it down 24 semitones and LFO the panorama.

4 Likes

Similar questions have been asked many times … for example, you may find useful info here, in addition to your specifics. I think these are all in the right ballpark.

FWIW there’s a whole category of videos on youtube on the theme: “I used to keep my samples organised by sample pack - then I realised my mistake”. YMMV, of course.