File Management

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CharlieErnst
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File Management

Post by CharlieErnst » Tue May 28, 2019 6:33 am

Hey All,

How do all of you organize your songs/tracks? What is the file management system that seems to work for you? I am trying to re-organize my music so I don't accidentally submit an already signed piece...it hasn't happened yet, but I can foresee that happening if I don't come up with a good system.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Thanks,
(Bombay)Charlie Ernst
www.taxi.com/charlieernst

"write songs"...Jeffrey Steele

Patrick
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Re: File Management

Post by Patrick » Tue May 28, 2019 6:55 am

The song about the aardvark goes first on your rolodex...the song about the zebra goes last! :D
Bad art can make you laugh
Good art can make you think
Great art can destroy you

- Me

(Did he just quote himself?? Yes! Yes I did!)

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ResonantTone
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Re: File Management

Post by ResonantTone » Tue May 28, 2019 11:19 am

Hey Charlie,

I’m still new to this side of things, but here’s what I’m currently doing.

I keep individual folders for the different libraries I’m working with. Any and all songs that have been signed by that library are stored in that folder.

All songs that aren’t currently signed go in my “Unsigned” folder, and that folder has sub folders of specific genres/types of cue.

I also have a folder for current Taxi submissions so I know what I’m currently waiting to hear back from taxi about.

More important than all that though is the google sheet I use to track every cue I make. It has stuff like the name, genre, current status (incomplete, complete, actively pitching, taxi submission, signed to exclusive, signed to non-exclusive, etc) I make sure that is up to date and it’s what I’m trusting when I make decisions about what needs to be submitted where. If something gets stuck in a wrong folder, it’s not a big deal.. I’ll move it when I get around to it. The spreadsheet though is what I’m relying on for information.

Hope that helps a bit or inspires some ideas. I asked a very similar question a while back and got some great suggestions. Hoping others chime in as well as to what works for them.

Andrew

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CharlieErnst
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Re: File Management

Post by CharlieErnst » Wed May 29, 2019 7:33 am

Thanks for the info. I like the sheet idea. I kind of started that awhile ago using a Google form...as I filled in the form it automatically fills out a spreadsheet. I think I stopped doing that as it was getting cumbersome. I then tried using Trello...with a column for everything but that gets a little unwieldy too.

Thanks again for taking the time to chime in
(Bombay)Charlie Ernst
www.taxi.com/charlieernst

"write songs"...Jeffrey Steele

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Paulie
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Re: File Management

Post by Paulie » Wed May 29, 2019 8:19 pm

Everyone has their own preferences, here's what I do. :)

I have an external hard drive dedicated to my music studio. In it is a folder titled "Logic" dedicated to my music projects. Inside that folder I have sub folders based on genre. Atmospheric, Chill, Christmas, Dramedy, EDM, Funk, Future Bass, Hip Hop, Latin, Jazz, Neutral, Piano, Rock, Swamp, Tension, Trap, World etc. (my genre folder has about 50 subfolders in it.) I sometimes create other folders with an underscore at the front for special projects I'm working on, such as _AlbumProjectName, _SoloPiano, _LibraryName-Brief, etc. This way they show up at the top of my genre list.

I have a separate folder specifically for music libraries. Inside that I have a folder for Exclusive libraries and another folder for Non-Exclusive libraries. Then inside those I create a folder for each library that accepts my music.

I also use the Mac OS color coding feature to indicate where projects are at. Works in progress get marked blue. Once I finish a track I label it Yellow after I submit it to the library. If it gets accepted, I change it to green and then move that project folder into the folder for the library that accepted it. Tracks that get rejected are marked red. I tend to work in batches, so I label the folders appropriately, eg. "052919 - trap - batch of 5" (the first number is the date when the files were accepted).

I have a second external hard drive that is a duplicate of the first drive. I use a program called "Super Duper" to keep the two drives in sync. I eventually plan on using a cloud storage service to back everything up remotely but I haven't decided on a solution yet.

Hope this helps...

Paulie
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CharlieErnst
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Re: File Management

Post by CharlieErnst » Thu May 30, 2019 3:08 am

Hey Paulie, thanks so much for taking the time to share your strategies. Very helpful.

Thanks again.
(Bombay)Charlie Ernst
www.taxi.com/charlieernst

"write songs"...Jeffrey Steele

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