What’s up, everybody? ‘Tool here back with another post. To all my fellow producers, I want to give you an inside look into my file naming system that could help not only you but the artists and engineers you send files to. Stay tuned and gain some knowledge. Without your own file naming standard in place, you’ll most likely run into numerous problems when working with other collaborators, archiving a project, or even opening up old projects. In the short and long term, it’s quite beneficial to come up with a standard and tweak when necessary. How It’s All Setup Before we get in deep, I’ll show how my folder structure is setup on my external drive. Each time I make a beat I go into the following folders: PRODUCTION > DAW Name > Year > Month > Song Sampled - Artist Name [BPM] That formula can turn into: PRODUCTION > REASON > 2019 > January > Coffee - Rayana Jay [185 BPM] Not all producers are the same. They shouldn’t be. And not all of us will be in tune with being assiduous when it comes to being creative. But one thing to keep in mind is if somebody were to come behind you and see your files, you’d want them to understand what everything is without too much doubt. I’ve been doing this from Day 1 and it’s helped me tremendously. Keep in mind this is only for my internal convention so whenever I send files out I’ll just drop the Artist name. [Don’t need everyone knowing your sample sources!] On To The DAW 92% of the time I make beats in Reason. There’s a module named Redrum that I use to sequence my drum tracks. As you can see in the first slot is a kick sample titled “KICK_WUNK...” Once that track is routed to a mixer channel, I’ll simply name it “Kick.” Short and simple, I know what it is in a quick glance. If I were to add another kick, I’d name that “Kick 2” for the corresponding mixer channel. The main reason I do all this is because once I get ready to bounce the stems of the beat, everything is named precisely so it’s easier to manage. Exporting stems with Reason is easy and with a few clicks you’ll be on your way. Other DAWs are pretty much the same as the previous screenshot but refer to your specific DAW’s manual if you need to. Once the export is done, I’ll analyze the file names to make sure everything is up to speed. Next I’ll zip this folder and it’s now ready for sending.
Before this folder is accessed, someone will know that it contains stems for this particular beat, they’ll also have the title and tempo. My workflow may seem like overkill to some, but over the years I’ve noticed how easily accessible everything can be. Since you’ve seen my naming practices, tell me about yours below in the comment section. Maybe we can swap ideas and I could implement some new things to better my setup. I hope you guys learned a lot from this post. Until next time, it’s ‘Tool.
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instrumentoolI have a passion for teaching and writing. Some of my many thoughts are here. Archives
November 2020
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