Songwriters- how do you organize your songs/folders?

[SixChurchStreet]

I've never been good at organizing my audio drive. I start with good Intentions, with a folder for scratchpad ideas, one for songs i feel are mostly written and will be completed, and there's a Million grey areas in between. Some scratch ideas become full on songs. And some songs end up just nit working out. The. Of course there's the stuff that I WANT to complete, but at the time, need to set aside for a while because it's getting stale (writers block).

How do you organize new sessions so as to not make a mess of your audio drive? Any tips?

[daeron80]

First, I have one partition for my personal projects and another for client projects. On my personal partition, I organize by type or purpose of the session. E.g., folders for:

• seminal ideas
• sonic experiments
• instrumental music, with subfolders for different purposes
• songs by just me
• songs written with other people, with subfolders for each partner
• choral music, with subfolders for original music and MIDI learning tracks

Sometimes the purpose or stage of development of a piece changes. I then move the session to the appropriate folder. I keep Excel spreadsheets of projects when they grow large enough - the name, state, and location of each session; maybe keys, tempos, and lengths if appropriate; a notes field for misc info. I bounce down a rough mix when a project is going to be set aside for any length of time, and drop it in iTunes. There's a folder in iTunes for each project and/or type of project. That way, I can always hear where something left off without having to find and open the session.

I used to work for a commercial music composer who did some pretty large projects sometimes. If a project had multiple sessions, I made a project folder to hold them. All non-Pro Tools files went in an Extras folder inside the project or PT session folder, as required. E.g., we usually did the bulk of the composition in Studio Vision or Logic, printed scores from Mosaic, had spreadsheets and word processor docs, QT videos, custom sample libraries, and all sorts of stuff. All that went in the Extras folder. That way, everything was in one place and an entire project could be restored from backup by restoring a single project folder.

Sometimes I wouldn't be on hand when he created a new MIDI or audio session, and then he would usually put in the root directory (sometimes even on the system drive!). The moment I got involved, I would move it to the proper place and show him or leave a note for him about it. You have to be rigorous and ruthless about organization or things will get out of hand and important material can be lost.

[vinceh]

Some great ideas here, thanks!

[Carl Lie]

I'm not as organized. I do all my scratch stuff on my phone.

The one thing that I do that helps is once I start on a new track I force myself to come up with a name for the potential song. It forces me to go one extra step and think about what the idea means to me. Somehow that stays with me and I start thinking of lyrics and other parts that that go with the name. Doesn't always end up being the final song name but somehow I remember what they are after I do it.

Maybe that will help.

Carl

[[email protected]]

since you are on a mac, i would suggest the color coding that apple offers.
color coding folders as been useful for me during while tracking for an album.

any combos are possible, but this is what i do:

red folder: all current songs (every time i work on a session, i do a "save as+current date..." this allows me to go back to the birth of the song and retrieve anything i have done in the past...need a cool guitar sound from a previous version? import data from that date... you get idea...quick and fast, and nothing is lost...)

blue folder; archive, tune that i am not working on.

blue folders: slave sessions, midi folders/ used to export to portable system to track parts outside of studio (on laptop/ other peoples computers)

gray folders: mere songs ideas/new stuff.


organizing can be a bear,especially on a 1.5 terabyte drive. chekc out the link:

http://www.soundcurrent.com/PTGuidelines.pdf


i borrowed some ideas there (especially the idea of slave sessions, having only one is a good idea)



-SteveB.

[SixChurchStreet]

How do you do colored folders? I've been using Mac since last April but I've yet to come across that.

[Hotcrazyfruit]

D:/Sessions/ *cluster of sessions*

Thats about it for me

Nick

[JumpingInFire]

Right-click on a folder. Toward the bottom of the menu is Label: with several color options.

[daeron80]

Wow. OK, new to Mac. Mac makes life a lot easier in so many ways. +1 on folder colors. Read up on the dock, stacks, and Expose. Make a stack of a desktop folder in which you put shortcuts for active projects and common files. Huge time saver.

[paul_g]

for clients I start w/ client name

Audio Drive \ PT Sessions \
client 1 name
- Project Name 1 (EP/CD Name).
- Song Name 1 (session name) maybe mult songs...
- PT Folders are created
- PTF File = song name MM-DD-YY Ver#

*note - during tracking sessions I use the same PTF file.
During mix I "save-as" then add the date and version #. That way when I bounce the mix to MP3 or WAV, I bounce it with the same name as the PTF File, song-name MM-DD-YY ver#.

The bounce will correspond to the PTF File. That way if I do variations of the mix, (ver1, 2, 3, etc...) I can give the artist choice and if they say I like Ver# 2 - I know what PTF file to go back to for tweaks.

Also keeps my notes straight.