Archiv für die Kategorie „Audio Tips“

Organisation of Refills is a problem when you get a lot as download and stored all in one big folder . And you will forgete the patches and genres in the coming years when you use reason. I mean, you cant know all refill genres like classic, pop or combinator mastering suites by the name of the refills right ?

So here is my tipp for all users who want to get a real light help to handle the big bunch of the refill packs on hardisc.
first you must aks your self a question – wich refill genres i have. wrote down the genres, like dacne , rcok, instruments , piano etc. and then beginn to make a new folder on hard disc, call him “my-refills” or whatever. Then beginn to create some new folder with real short and  unerringly names that remember you for the genre of your refills.
The folder strucure can be named as : “Instruments” (For all Refills like piano,guitar,flutes,strings and other organic instrumental refills) A other
folder can be named as “Drum Library” (For all Drum machine Refills you have) here is good point to split the folder into a second like Drumkits too, so you can organize the real drumkit refills like the Propellerhead Reason Drumkit into a seperate and not to the electronic folder with drums. A next folder can be named as Analog Synths for all the Analog synths refills like the refills from exode or the monster analog refills from reasonbanks. Another folder you can create in example for the Classic Refills, like the Strings Refill or the miroslav ed. And so on. Okay it can be take times before all your Refills are sorted in diffrent categorys, but it make a sense because you found your needed refill quicker as before without categoring.
When you ready with categoring and sorting your refills on the harddisc go to the second step and open reason. When you opend reason so open the soundbrowser by loading an instrument. Now go to the desktop and open your hd drive and the specific folder where all your sorted folders are beeing.  Then put them folders with drag and drop to the path list of refills in the left side of the sound browser. Now you have all your refills in reason listet, seperatly in diffrent categored subfolders for each genre of refill art.

So here is a quick view how i have organized my refills on my hard disc folder:

Did you ever make Backups from your System ? – Okay, then you know what i mean. But a backup from a Song is not same as archiving a Song. There many problems in deep of these thematic, so wich save format is used or wich and the most frequenced question all about is the question about the Medium you use for saving and archiving your Songs. The most used Medium format is today the dvd, dual or single layered the most drives and systems can read and have a dvd drive. In the past, so where i start with computer, the only known savable medium was the floppy disc, before floppy disc was born, it was the datasette from a c64. but when you have the last, so no one can read this medium today or the fileformat in deep too. If you have songs on a floppydisc or Magnetical Optical Disc (Modisc) No one can read the disc, only you have a friend who has an old drive for it to copy the files on a dvd in ie. When not and no one can be open the medium you lost in ie your complete music production archive for ever. The best thing is that all archied files are stored on a harddisc, the only unknown variable is wich connecting plug is in the future the given format ie. firewire, usb 3/4 or above, sata x, only sd or flashcard or or or…..

So let me tell, you must very acurate thinking about these terms when you start to archive your produced stuff. And when i say “Archive your Songs”, then i mean a lifetime for more then 10-15years or longer.

But how you must archive a Song ?

The first question is what technic is in the song too. So did you use a lot of vst plugins in the song production or only pure recorded audio ? – So the idea to save the plugins are good but can you know if the plugins you use, in 10 or 12 years are alaways running as today on your daw ? – I think no.
You must save your Song in two steps for a good archiving. The first way is that you must seperatly save all audio tracks in your sequencer. All tracks and i mean very all seperatly like the bassdrum or hihats as a very single signal too. not togehter in one track. So you can edit this part in the future too in your next sequencer.

Then all other audiotracks in your sequencer must be saved as single audiofile too. In the first step let all vst and vsti’s active, dont deactive one, so you get the whole mix from the moment you record the song for the first time. But very importent is that all channels have correctly 0 db as audio signal and not over and not under them. Later in the future is it very difficult to change something in the loudness without loosing . When all audiotracks are saved into single audiofiles comes the second step. The second step is that all audiotracks in your sequencer must be saved as a “dry” version. So with this second variante you have the mix dry and when you need a dry variante of a lead from a old song, so you have the option to use the lead in later song remix dry or with all fx you used in the past. So, i think it is archived total recall
And when you will get on the very secure side, so dont kill your daw cause only while a new and better system was born on the audio marked. Archive your old pc system too, so if you can.

Save Format, use only the most used

So the next big thing is the save format for the files. So let say, it gives a lot of formats to save Audio. So take only the most used and a middle range for the sampleword adress. In example, Wave / 16bit Or 24 Bit, 44,1Hz / 96Hz Stereo. So with these your are on the right site for the first.

Yes when you get this little tips so your audio productions will alive and stay back in the future.