Song Tip Tuesday #21 – Record Your Song – Part 2 – Organize Your Song Library

Here’s a simple system for organizing song files. It is easy to set up and use. You will be able to quickly find any part of your song.

Let’s assume your song files are located ‘everywhere’. Song files tend to find many places to live, hiding out on internal and external hard drives, flash drives, cloud storage, and that old computer your planning on purging. If you are an older generation songwriter, your beloved songs might still be located on CDs, Cassettes, DATS, Reel-to-Reel and Vinyl. Over the years, I transferred many of my songs from analog to a digital format. While doing this I realized I needed a way to organize my music files so that I could immediately access any part of any song.

The system I developed works like this: Every song has its own MAIN folder. Within this MAIN folder are sub-folders: LYRIC NOTATION, AUDIO and FINAL. The LYRIC NOTATION folder contains all drafts of the lyric and notation. AUDIO folder contains the LOGIC (DAW) files and bounces, and the FINAL folder contains mixes and masters of the song. My song library is stored on an external hard drive which automatically backs up to cloud storage.

Every FILE is labeled in the same manner for search purposes.
Date (year, month, day), Title of Song, Description.
Here is an example of how ONE SONG folder may look.
MAIN FOLDER – song named Rosebud
LYRIC FOLDER
200107 – Rosebud – lyric draft 1 no bridge (.DOC file)
AUDIO FOLDER
190522 – Rosebud – initial idea – sketch (MP3 from my phone)
200203 – Rosebud – LOGIC files
200309 – Rosebud – reference track with vocal (MP3)
200510 – Rosebud – rough mix 1(MP3)
FINAL MIX and MASTER FOLDER
200819 – Rosebud – final mix. (.WAV)

Whenever I need to refer to any part of a song, I can search and access it easily. Date, title, description is the key. FYI – I am always behind in sorting my song files.

The art of writing is rewriting. Randy Klein