Cataloging Your Music

[Lando]

You wrote something 3 years ago and, at the time, gave it a meaningful name. Now you haven't a clue what it is and have to load it. So I've been using a spreadsheet to track my music, putting in things like genre, key instruments and a general description to help me track both completed, WIPs and even fragments. It's a bit of a pain but it works. However, I'm wondering how others keep track of tens or even hundreds of songs.

 

[SwitchBack]

Spreadsheets are excellent for this, and you can make them searchable for text fragments too. In excel I use conditional formatting so that I can type say 'blue' in my 'find' cell and it will highlight all cells which contain 'blue' (blues, blue moon, ...). That way I can put all my search terms in one or maybe a few cells rather than having to think about dedicated columns for everything I may want to search for. Works great.

 

[Lando]

good idea. Thanks

 

[ozinga]

I just do a mixdown, even it is a 2 bar idea and keep it at the top level of the folder.

 

[Davey]

I organise the songs into three folders: finished, wip and shelved.
wip currently has about 25 songs in it and most have a long title that is a memory trigger for me rather than the finished title. That title often quotes the lyrical hook and/or the genre or style. Some titles are more like a sentence than a name. The shelved section is a right old mish mash and it's rare for me to venture in there!

 

[hieroglyph]

You wrote something 3 years ago and, at the time, gave it a meaningful name. Now you haven't a clue what it is and have to load it. So I've been using a spreadsheet to track my music, putting in things like genre, key instruments and a general description to help me track both completed, WIPs and even fragments. It's a bit of a pain but it works. However, I'm wondering how others keep track of tens or even hundreds of songs.

I like the spreadsheet idea. After seeing this thread a few days ago, I made a spreadsheet of albums, song titles, stage of production, etc. It's nice having a central spreadsheet I can reference as a most up to date listing of where every song should be.

Previously I only focused on organizing by folder and sort of moving the songs through folders as they progressed toward the finished folder. And then there's also the problem of moving songs around between albums. I found all that problematic because when I moved a song and contents, I had to remember exactly where it came from since S1 will not initially recognize the new file location.

Also not a good habit to go renaming folders willy nilly

 

[John Vere]

I actually believe it or not insist on finishing anything I start. It might be pretty rough but I just keep it simple.
Those are in my main folder that is marked Original Song Projects. There’s about 50 songs in there in various stages of production.

I finally got around to picking 14 of the ones I thought were my best and I copied them to a new folder - Originals 2021. I worked them over and over and over. These had a “Band” with drums, Bass, keyboards and guitars. I did my best to make it so all 14 songs had a “sound”. A typical album and finally published them after fussing with them for 2 years.
I am banned by my family from ever working on them ever again.

The others I will leave out of harms way and Im now going to start fresh here with Studio one and strip my “sound “ down to me and a guitar and bass. I could use a 4 track.

But the bottom line is, don’t fall in love with everything you create. Keep going and the good stuff will be the creation you will be inspired to actually finish. The rest is probably boring dribble. Keep it fresh.

 

[Vocalpoint]

You wrote something 3 years ago and, at the time, gave it a meaningful name. Now you haven't a clue what it is and have to load it.

Studio One and Track Notes - is a complete diary of everything I do within a track.

I update this area after every tracking session. And then copy it all out to OneNote once complete.

With this system - there is no concept of not knowing everything about a given track

VP

 

[lokeyfly]

I'm wondering how others keep track of tens or even hundreds of songs.

Like SwitchBack, I use Excel with many conditional formats, and a lot of vlookup conditions. It just works, both in the workplace and at home.

Another suggestion that hopefully paves a way to minimize clutter for numerous songs is, if you at some point need to create a new title for your song and you're firm on that decision, there's no need to keep two of the same song (unless you're backing up).
To make a complete changeover to your new songname, use File>Save to New Folder. Locate the new songname so that it prepares the file under the default Documents\Studio One\Songs location. Just save under [Save to new folder] and Studio One will create the song folder with your newly named song within that folder. It will include all of the necessary sub folders for that song. Thereby leaving any redundancy out, such as the old song folder files/folders. Now, your new song will reside in a properly named folder within the same "Songs" location as your other songs.

What I then do is if I opt to delete the old song folder with the old songname, delete it, but don't remove it from your recycle bin.

Check that the new song works first. If it doesn't (for some odd reason) and is looking for some old file, you'd be able to restore the file back. You could also relocate the old song folder at another drive location, if you have reservations about sending the old song to the trash bin. The point is, ensure your new song fully works without needing the old song folder. Then delete the old song folder, so that you remove redundancy. Some choose to keep the old song, as they might be creating a new song and continue to revise the old. Youre choice. This is where having the info on a spreadsheet is all too important. Even if you dont use conditions or formulas in place. I do this to hundreds of songs, and its simply what one should have in place for tracking a lot of valuable work. Especially, when a client is involved.