How do you keep your sessions organized?

[Roy Howell]

Hey, I'm serious. I organize arrangements all the time, and do just fine. But, these sessions, mini-sessions, samples, and...
When my HD's start getting crowded, I have to make room. And even though I have sessions backed up on CD's, I have a rough time finding stuff.
Most of my CD's aren't labeled on the side, which makes it even harder. I have to pick em up to see what they are. Anyway...

What do you guys do for good, simple organization of your stuff? Any simple tricks?

Thanks, Roy

[pk_hat]

well, for one, I keep all the PT stuff on it's own HD partition. One folder called "PT sessions", which then breaks down into many folders, one for each project, bearing the same name as the song. In each of these, there's the Fade Files, Audio Files and PT session icon (sometimes a few different ones). I gather you're all too familiar with this so far...

When I'm done with a project and bounce to disk, I call it "***-final mix.pts" and keep it in a different "PT stereo mixes" folder. If I go another step and master it with Waves or T-Racks, I have yet another folder called "final mixes", same drive, different partition.

As for CD archiving, I've been lucky so far that a session has (yet) never occupied more than the 650mb a CDR will hold. I just keep a little Ikea steel box just for PT backup CDs. I also hate clutter, so too many duplicates are not allowed for Feng-Shui reasons ( [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] ), so if a change is needed on an older session, I just back it up to a new CDR with all it's data, and toss the old disc. One disc for each project keeps it tidy.

I think a CD case/wallet will be my next move, so to not have to deal with jewel boxes anymore, just one case (that would hold say, 64 CDs) in which the discs can be retrieved and neatly organized.

Not trying to get all Martha Stewart on ya, Roy!
Don't know if that info helps, but good luck! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

pk

[Roy Howell]

Not Martha at all, pk. I'm dead serious. I brought 40 Midi sessions into PT when I first got it, so you can imagine now. ALL my partitions on both drives stay almost full, and I cannot help but move some stuff in and out.
It actually makes me a little nervous, having lost a few things initially.
Anyway, thanks for the advice... I need some badly, because other than music, I am very disorganized.

[marcusb]

On my main audio disk my projects are arranged by client.

Inside a client folder I have each song as a folder which on big projects usually breaks down to:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">CLIENT\
CLIENT\SONG
CLIENT\SONG\session_file.pts
CLIENT\SONG\Audio Files
CLIENT\SONG\Fade Files
CLIENT\SONG\Bounces
CLIENT\SONG\Sequencing
CLIENT\SONG\Notes</pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Bounces folder - contains basically any interim bounces that aren't used in the sessions such as rough mixes, or stuff that I need to import into other apps (such as logic)

Sequencing - if I need to do any sequencing on a project I keep all my logic song files here

Notes - text notes, outboard recall notes, lyrics and stuff go in here

I use retrospect to backup so it's all very efficient. On larger projects I might use more subfolders under the client folder for storing stuff common to the whole project. Such as samples used throughout the project for sound replacer, and any other stuff like that.

Data management on large projects is a REAL major issue, and you're best developing a system that works best for your working methods.

I could also write a big essay on session file naming ideas too [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] hehe

Cheers,
Marcus

[Roy Howell]

Sounds like a great system..... thanksroy

[soundsurfr]

Hey Roy!

I'm not the most organized person in the world either, but the limitation on hard drive space sort of forces the issue.

I burn all of my PT sesssions to CD, except for maybe 6 or 7 that I'm actively working on or recently fininshed. After compacting, I can usually fit one or two session folders on a single CD, but every once in a while, for a big project, I have to split the audio files to two CD's.

Finished masters are archived on separate CD's. I burn them twice - once in data and once in audio format. I'm not sure why I do this...I'm just a little paranoid about it. I try to fit as many songs as possible on each CD, and I try to arrange them according to the type of project (TV Music, Personal Songs, collaborations, etc.)

I also have a large array of .wav samples that I've downloaded over the years. I keep some of them on the hard drive, but most are backed up to CD's in folders divided into three categories:
Drum loops/sounds, Synth loops/sounds and Acoustic (non-synthesized)loops/sounds.

As you can imagine, I have a lot of CD's. I keep them on a shelf-rack in thin-line jewel boxes with tabs on them so I can read the tab and pull the CD out of the rack. I don't want to be tossing around 52 different jewel boxes looking for my Koto sample (but that doesn't mean I won't be - I just don't want to. [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] )

[rfreeman]

Ive been usign the wallet idea for awhile and it works pretty well. I have one that holds like 72 CDs or something. Now I just need to be more diligent about backing up and also writing on the CDs. It minimizes clutter though and its easy to browse thru them quickly. I keep my commercial sample CDs in there too and stash the jewel boxes. I saw some giant CD sleeves that you hang on the wall like wallpaper in Media Play. Whadya think? Peace.

[Roy Howell]

If you happen to get a co. name on that 'wallpaper', let me know if you would. Even the wallet idea beats what I have been doing...

Thanks, Roy

[rfreeman]

Ill check it out for ya and get back to you. I also saw that stuff somewhere in a mail order catalog if I can only remember where.