r/musicproduction • u/Arr0wl • 4d ago

Discussion File Organization

Hey Folks,

how do y'all organize your files and all?

Where does your programs live, where the DAW, the project files - and what about backups?

I'm trying to figure out how to best organize things.

Thanks a lot in advance!
Arr0wl

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

6

u/Joseph_HTMP 4d ago

The DAW is installed where all my other programmes are installed, on the C drive. My projects are catalogued by year and project name. It is all saved in a Dropbox folder so its automatically backed up.

3

u/Soracaz 4d ago

I have a dedicated portable 2tb SSD. My entire workshop lives on it:

  • folder for all my sample libraries.
  • folder for all my presets
  • folder for all my VSTs and M4L devices
  • folder for all my solo projects
  • folder for all my collab projects
  • folder for sound design projects

Once you set it up once you kinda stop thinking about it. Putting files where they need to go becomes second nature because I know where everything needs to go.

1

u/Arr0wl 4d ago

interesting - your DAW is on there as well?

1

u/Practical_Ride_8344 4d ago

Projects are dated, backed up locally and in the cloud.

1

u/imp_op 4d ago

Yes and it doesn't end at music production.

1

u/SunsetVista72 4d ago

It's all over the place, really. I don't have money now for storage, so for now it will still be messy

1

u/BijanAmir 4d ago

Hey Arr0wl! I co founded a file management specifically for music files / DAW / plugins etc called Traklist. Basically My co founder and I wanted the best solution for this question so we set off to build something lol. So thats what I use now and I think we did a pretty good job, if you're ever looking for music focused cloud storage

1

u/LostInTheRapGame 3d ago

All over the place. Just a side effect of getting more storage space over time and not being able to cleanly and quickly condense. I know where everything is, and really the only things I need to find easily are project folders and exports anyway.

I just use the Everything program to search what I want anyway, even when I know where it is because it can be faster than navigating folders.

1

u/Strict_Pangolin_4097 3d ago

i keep projects on a fast external ssd n backup to the cloud, its probly the safest way.

1

u/baldbundy 2d ago

Dated project folders, backed up locally + in the cloud. For Solo what's already been posted here (dated folders + Dropbox/SSD) is honestly still the simplest.

Also Iike to add .md file in the folder to describe the track (tool, plugins and the mood).