How to ORGANIZE your DAW Sessions like a PRO
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- How to ORGANIZE your DAW Sessions like a PRO
Keeping your sessions organized is one of the best-kept secrets for increasing your productivity in the studio.
It’s not the most fun or sexy topic to talk about, but it will ensure that you get more music produced… and that IS fun and sexy!
In this video, I share my system for naming, saving, and organizing sessions and files.
What are your best tips for staying organized? Let me know in the comments!
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:58 How to start your session
1:12 A file management feature to AVOID
1:37 Storing sessions on a different hard drive
1:58 Why you need a separate folder for each song
3:26 An example of how to organize an album
7:00 Keeping track of your musical ideas
8:29 Using the Cubase Backup Project feature
10:00 Naming the projects files according to the production steps I'm working at the moment
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Some of the gear and plugins I use in the studio:
►►WAVES PLUGINS DEALS with the following link: waves.alzt.net/c/2353421/2868...
CUBASE 12 sweetwater.sjv.io/XxQVe5
STEINBERG LICENCE KEY sweetwater.sjv.io/6bBJNN
DAW CONTROLLER Presonus Faderport 16: sweetwater.sjv.io/5bXnGn
STREAM DECK amzn.to/3OFVHaO
MONOGRAM CC monogramcc.com/shop/
SPEAKER CONTROLLER sweetwater.sjv.io/gbvG75
MICROPHONE sweetwater.sjv.io/b3WVKB
POP FILTER geni.us/8AnqW7A
STUDIO MONITORS:
KALI Audio IN-8 sweetwater.sjv.io/XxQVBM
HEADPHONES:
Verum1 V2 www.verum-audio.com/
Austrian Audio Hi-X65 sweetwater.sjv.io/vno7MN
Beyer Dynamics DT770 sweetwater.sjv.io/LPzQ6O
STUDIO MONITOR CONTROLLER sweetwater.sjv.io/gbvG75
VIDEO FILMING GEAR
Video gear shared in this video
CAMERA geni.us/My8h
CAMERA PRIME LENS geni.us/Pu7i
CAMERA MIC geni.us/zBCdmg
LAVALIER MIC geni.us/DdQTq
CAMERA LIGHT geni.us/2fruo
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Haha first in! Going to be a one to watch and learn from! Thank you Chris!
YEAH! You got it!
Great Video! If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!
Totally agree, Ray!
Hey Chris, I lost hours trying to find lost or misplaced waves files costing me time, money and sometime the confidence of clients, This Video is GOLD Thanks
Oh Yeah! Glad I could help
amazing! thanks I really needed this video
as usual great tutorial Chris, thanks!... I always pick up some things from your lectures!
Chris, your videos are so helpful! I'm learning so much.
Chris, very helpful. I actually have a sub folder on each song for RECORDING, MIX, COMPLETE, & STEMS. It’s always been helpful to have contiguous audio and MIDI files that start and end at the same time.
Thank You so Much! Very PERFECT System!🎉💫😍🤩🤓👍👏🤠🎇📯
You are the best! :)
You are one of the best out there and your videos are awesome! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Keep up the good work!
Wow, thanks!
Thanks you very Much for your quality Video !!! You keep me motivated
My pleasure!
Thanks Chris great.
My pleasure!
Fantastic video Chris. It's just the info I was looking for when I started working with Cubase and wasted so much time experimenting! Thanks and I'm sure this will help so many people at all stages!
Very welcome!
Hello Chris. Thanks for sharing. Always useful.
My pleasure!
Very useful. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome overview. I guess a minor improvement I will add to my folder organization is to start the naming with 01, 02, 03 ... for each of the staging folders (Ideas, In Progress, Completed) or project stages. That way the finished product trickles down, and it's a more visual organization as well.
I use a similar scheme with numbers to provide more organization. I do this with ALL files that I work on that may be of a "project" nature - and not just with music files/projects. As you say, It helps visually and organizationally. And thanks Chris for bringing up this important topic!
Good call!
Due to not knowing this previously, I’ve unintentionally cleaned out needed audio files and had to re-record. This video clears it all up for me. Thank you Chris!
Glad it helped :-)
Great tips! I got rid of a lot of problems and issues once I got good at file management!
I would also suggest to add some folders to the project folder:
-Notes: here you have your text files with the notes (ideas, planning, lyrics, etc)
-Materials: I tend to difference Audio folder of the Materials like loops, libraries, raw files, etc.
-Recall: Here I have all my recall files (outboard gear templates, patching, etc).
I would suggest to include and "safe as" every project file (.CPR) starting with the date YY/MM/DD (Year/Month/Day) is far easier to track versions by date once you start adding cuotes at the end of the file (arrangement, test, etc).
Once you start to manage lots of projects and doing backups is good to have a "work in progress" hard drive and external HDrives for backups. I have a dock for mechanical Hard drives and I do backups every month.
Good tips Alain, thanks for sharing!
Thanks Chris,I'm just starting a new project so this will come in handy,
Great! You're welcome, Mark!
@@mixdownonline Thanks Chris,😊
Interessante as dicas. Vou aproveitar várias!
Obrigada :-)
Thanks 😊 mate
No problem 👍
That was much better organized than my file-management & work flow, which is more like monkeys throwing color-coded darts. Thanks Chris!
You're welcome, John!
That was quite helpful Chris, although I am already organizing my projects similar to how you do it, I didn’t know about the backup feature to move folders 👍🏻
Glad it was helpful!
Too much helpfull
Glad to hear that :-)
Thank you Sir :)
Most welcome!
Thank you Chris, very interesting and useful video as usual. On my side, I add a few informations in the names of my projects: title, bpm, number and the eventual specificities of the current version. Ex.: Im Only Sleeping_103bpm_04 (piste accords Ebm)-01.cpr, Im Only Sleeping_103bpm_05 (LeadV1).cpr, Im Only Sleeping_103bpm_06 (Lead V comped).cpr, etc. That can be useful if I want to go back to an old version of my project.
You're welcome and Thanks for sharing!
Great video as always! One suggestion, define a file for VST plug ins to go so Cubase can find any downloaded plug ins
Thanks! Cool tip!
Thanks Chris. My structure is similar but occasionally, I backup a project and then record a new guitar part and it will save to the default Steinberg audio location on my C drive - not the project audio folder. I can change the record folder by right clicking the track but surely that shouldn't happen. Love your work.
Thanks and you're welcome!
As a person with ADHD, it's impossible for me to organise everything in my DAW so I beg people to not be scared when throwing glances at my screen when I'm making music. Everything is quite messy but I love it. It seems like all my motivation is gone when naming and colouring tracks and busses to me...
As far as it works for you, you're good!
Good video,again, I use more or les the same folder structure and the backup technique but the folders get a datestamp as well because I send them over and forth with my partner in music crime ;-) , that works for us anyway.
Thanks!
At 5:16 I learned that the hard way awhile back deleted so many songs not knowing this!
And you're not the only one who went through this! thanks for your comment!
Chris, how do you keep saving my life? :D :D
I didn't use the "backup" feature and alwys copied the folder manually. In that way the problem was that all the unnecessary audio files were also copied. With the backup feature you have just the files you need!
Thanks again!! 💥
You're more than welcome!
Excellent as always Chris. If only I'd known this years ago! One question: after you've done the 'Back Up Project' into your 'In Progress' folder, do you delete the original folder from the 'Ideas' folder?
Not really, those folders are really not huge, mainly MIDI data for the most part. I could delete them, though
@@mixdownonline I guess that's because you create a new folder every month
Is there any good way to clean and sort your files out after years of doing it the wrong way?
Hi Chris! Do you export multitrack after arrangement/recording/production stage? When you go to mixing stage are you creating new mixing session and import multitracks or you just save arrangement project with "Mixing" suffix and continue with the new version of the same project previously created at arrangement/tracking/production stage?
I think I've found answers to both questions in your earlier videos.
Thanks for this! Is there a way to quickly delete the files that remain in your ideas folder, after you do the backup process and copy them to a project folder?
You'll have to re-open the song idea from the song idea folder and delete the audio form the project and then from the pool of that session :-)
@@mixdownonline That's really good to know, especially if some don't have a separate folder every month and the data becomes larger. Thanks Chris!
Thanks for that Chris. I understand the Workflow for producing only Songs.
But, how is you Workflow when producing a whole Album? Do you save all Songs in dedicated Folders? During the mixing process it will be difficult, because of the settings in the Plugins , etc.
To have all Songs in the project makes more sense to me, or what is your recommendation?
Thanks
For albums or EPs, same thing, It's always one Folder per song. I make a Mix Template out of the first song mixed and use it for the other songs :-)
Before the DAW only a part of your brain was required. Now your entire brain is required to create music. Especially when you are working solo. This is where this organization thing is SO important.
You got it!
The "Backup project" function is not working for me as advertised. All the sample files used in the sampler tracks (where I use Cubase stock samples) are still being pointed to the VST folder location and not being copied into the backup audio folder. Any tips?
6:40 - the main problem here is the "save as" (even if you go into a different folder, the references to the old wav files are still in the pool) - so you must remove everything from the pool (without deleting) if you "save as" - which is something you may do if you want to keep your FX / Mix settings. A lot of people my think saving to a new folder does that for them, but it still keeps references in the Pool
That's why the Backup Project is so useful :-) Thanks for watching, Axel!
@@mixdownonline always a pleasure to see your hard work come to fruition!!
Isn't there a need to "prepare archive" anymore to get all the used/referenced files into the backup folder before going onto the next step? I see that option is still there under Media. How does that work? When do you need it?
Never used this before, to be honest, and never had a problem. Good question, though. I'll have to check this one out.
ngl.. for a second i tought i was watching Vsauce XD
Lol! Just not the same amount of subscribers LOL
@@mixdownonline hey.. ill subscribe.. why not :D
Hi Chris, I've been running cubase 10 for a couple of years now, and hadn't thought of deleting unused files.
I only keep all cpr. files in one untitled folder, and to open a song I just scroll down to find the cpr. title and open it.
Lately I just use the Recently used option to find a song.
My question is , does having a multitude of unused files slow my imacs performance? Secondly if I did delete unused files, I know it will prompt me to either find files or ignore, before opening the song.
Should I delete or will they simply not work any more?
How do I go about deleting all unused files in one go, or do I open each individual song, and if so, where is the command to do so?
Cheers.
Steve
I've answered my own question and freed up 20 gig of space.
Each song is down to about 50 files from 4oo up to 1300 files.
Cheers anyway
Awesome! Thanks for the update!
rule number one: every song deserve his own folder
There you go :-)
can u recommend a SSD? are 1TB enought?
I use Samsung T5. 1TB. Love it! Zero problems
Like @Arlo Tarr, Samsung T5. 1TB is what I use
There should be a world law that doesn’t allow the ratio between weight of folders “song ideas”/“completed songs” is greater than a determined amount. I would be in jail. I would be a world criminal.
Lol!