File Management?

[peritus]

After years of making music on my computer, I am drowning in files.

VST Plugins, RTAS Plugins, WAV Files (pre and post master/mixing), MP3 (same here), Instrument Patches, Sample Collections, Original Samples, Reason Refills, ProTools projects, Reason songs....and on and on and on...

Any advice on how to keep all this in line? I don't want to lose track of that one piece of a song that doesn't allow me to remaster it (etc)...

Aaaargh!

 

[sonnylarsen]

The only good way I have found is to burn the project to a CD including all files using the same directory structure from your computer. This is tedious to setup, but it works. Hopefully someday someone will come up with an app to do this, like cakewalk's audio finder only for everything.

 

[Creamyapples1]

I try to keep the originals with the original name, and then when I get something different I use something like |name mixed| or whatever, just depending on what I've done different that particular go round. |name with comp| or |name with lows| if I played around and it's bottom heavy, etc etc. Then I keep a folder on my desktop "Murf's Music Shit" with sub folders with each song name, and in those folders are each file of each particular song.

 

[peritus]

That gets me thinkin... Hmm.. too bad tapes and tapes drives are so expensive. I have read articles about CD vs. Tape shelf life... If I remember correctly, the shelf life is like this:

Short > Long
CD-RW/DVD-RW > CD-R/DVD-R > Commerical CD/DVD > Tape

Can anyone verify this?

 

[treymonfauntre]

it depends 100% on the archival properties of the material they use. gold cds last 100+ years, correct?

 

[lpdeluxe]

gold cds last 100+ years, correct?

If you're lucky. In fact, a lot of things can happen during those 100 years...exposure to heat, sunlight, UV, scratches, etc. There is no bullet-proof optical drive archiving.

 

[peritus]

Which brings up the question "Does bulletproof magnetic technology exist?"...

Wouldn't it have to be like a armor-clad hard drive? Cool!

 

[RWhite]

Gold CDs are more like 12 years.