Any good tips on file management?

[rockironwebb]

Doe anyone have any good tips on managing files within a DAW. I thought I had a pretty good system out. I have been giving bands sessions a number instead of a name(jam 1 and up) Now that I am playing around with my midi keyboard and doing some more electronic beat making I have a possible issue. I was just giving these beats the same number system (beat 1 and up) What happened though is that I had a few wav files that were on my desktop that I copied and pasted into ableton and was working with. I saved as beat number whatever. I then at some point "cleaned up my desktop and stuck the wav files into a folder with various other mp3 and wav files. When I went to open beat number whatever again, it says the wav files are "missing". WTF, Oh yeah, I've noticed this a couple of times in mixcraft and acidpro as well, which is why I am posting in the general newbie forum. It has only now become an issue that I am doing a lot more solo beat/song building.

 

[rockironwebb]

Thanx a bunch. That is a big help. several months ago I stripped my PC down to just studio software and music related stuff. I was intent on keeping thing nice and tidy but it seems that I let it get out of hand again. That is a great tip. It sucks to have musical inspiration on the brain and then have it ruined by technical disorganization. I will try what you said and hopefully get things more streamlined.

 

[fat_fleet]

THIS is Reaper-related, but it might help you.

 

[gecko zzed]

There some things that you can do to make managing plugins easier. If you have a huge collection of plugins but you do not use them all at the same time, you can waste a lot of time waiting for your DAW/host to scan all of them.

Create a folder labelled Components (Disabled) or VST (Disabled).
Simply drag the associated plugin to the respective disabled folder if you do not wish to load the plugin or have problems loading it.
Restart your DAW if it is running. Your DAW will rescan and load the plugins in your Components or VST folder, and ignore the ones in the disabled folders.
Remember to check for updates for your plugin first if they are giving you problems. Updates could provide compatibility fixes for newer DAWs or operating systems. Keeping your plugins in check and trimming it down can make your music making experience more responsive and trouble-free.

This should help you alot man i really hope i solved you problem a little atleast.

Advice on VST plugins would have been more helpful if that's what the OP had asked about.

But the OP was asking about WAV file management.

To rockironweb: The reason why your files went "missing" is because you changed their location, and the DAW couldn't find them.

One way of managing your WAVs better is to create folders for each song as you start to work on them. How you name them is up to you. But by doing it this way, you have a better idea of what is safe to delete or not. If you keep all your song folders in the one music directory, then better still.

 

[rockironwebb]

Thanx. Luckily I am just now starting with more elaborate solo songs, I think I may just spend some time going through what I have so far and "clean house" , get rid of the unneeded and organize the wanted. I am sure if I can get a good system sorted out now that it will save some headache down the road. So far I tend to just put together lots of rough free flow ideas and then save them to let them "marinate", Down the road when an idea pops into my head about some random mix I did two months ago, it'll be nice to be able to just pull it up and work with it. I will get back and report on my file management progress and if I have any more questions, I know where to come.