File Management for Music Production

[@grantr5417]

When it comes to backing up, there are two types of people. Those that do, and those that will

[@svenmatchell1076]

Hi, I was Will. And I the regret is overwhelming

[@vlone0018]

Man I needed this, I literally have fl studio files that are named “dasdas” “sasdsasd” thank you

[@marcell7406]

we all living one life

[@avenusbeats1016]

The real question is who doesn't? Have a nice day

[@KizzleTheKonqueror]

I work IT and when I saw you make a shortcut to fool the plugin location, I almost spit out my coffee. GENIUS MOVE. Very clever, sir! THAT is using your resources lol

[@spokansas]

Perhaps my least favorite AND most needed video you've done. It's to easy to let the creative process let things become chaotic, but preparation and organization ahead of time, can save a lot of time and frustration later. Something I am always needing to be reminded of. Thanks Mike!

[@kingech_B15]

File management just might be the most important thing about the studio.

[@thejackrhythm]

This is one of the most important topics as a music producer. You might not think at first but one day unorganized files might hammer your creativity and stall your progress as a musician/producer, at least it did for me. Everything is organized now. Good video Mike :)

[@gary4gill]

Huge amounts of info/education in 22 minutes. Love your tutorials Mike!

[@orderd29]

Add "mind reader" to your list of skills! I've been thinking for a week or so about organising my file locations in a more effective and productive way and this video is just what I needed. A huge thanks as always.

[@CreativeSauce]

Lol, so glad its helpful :)

[@koylbeats332]

I am diving into vocal production and audio engineering after aspiring to do so for years, finally took the step, did the research and bought pro tools. Then I started realizing how much of a hassle file management was after watching a few KZbin videos. Literally began stressing out all day today as I bought a new SSD and pro tools and already have years of samples and instrumentals from producing, and wanted to make sure I was setting everything up in a way I won't regret, and after having corrupt files nightmares I am very scared of having to move files too much later. Seeing some youtubers do it one way and some do it another, I had no confidence in direction. So I say all that to say, THANK YOU MAN, the wording, the knowledge and the visual representation literally massaged my brain and saved me hours of time. Thank you!

[@LonelyRocker]

The least sexy but one of the most important things to have a clear, effective system in place. Great resource. Anyone producing any kind of content should check this out...

[@ThePrideJJ]

Thanks! Do you provide one on one mentoring?

[@ScottRandall31]

Thanks, Mike! FYI I just finished my first solo album (being pressed as I type and already available online). I have to say, most of the credit for me being able to get to this point was due to your training videos! Thanks, again!

[@picardy1907]

Mike, first of all, please can I say a great big thank you for the vast array and comprehensive range of very informative videos you have produced. I will admit to not being very clever with computers but with your help, and the help of my son Ben (who introduced me to your channel) I manage to get on. Now for this video, FANTASTIC. I followed your advice and, step by step, rearranged my files and now my computer appears to be working much more quickly and efficiently, and my drives are clean and hungry with not a glitch from Cakewalk. I would add that during each process, due to my own lack of confidence, I kept taking photos of each step and writing down every folder/file move that I did so that I could double back if necessary. This, in the end, was not needed, though the whole operation did take pretty much a full day up... time extremely well spent. A big THANKS again, and following my experience, my son Ben E P (KZbin) is also watching your video to clean his computer up. All the best and keep well from England.

[@CreativeSauce]

Thank you, I'm so glad its worked out for you. Actually, I often do the same thing myself (taking sceenshots), so that I know what I've done in case of errors. Good habit to get into :) Please thank Ben for getting me a viewer:)

[@bennie_p]

@@CreativeSauce No Problems! When I set up my new PC it will be a little differently arranged than it is now, following your advice Mike!

[@CreativeSauce]

@@bennie_p awesome :)

[@mlwsf]

I have also noticed the Downloads folder chews up a lot of memory. I have had to dump most of those temp files clear up space.

[@CreativeSauce]

So very true. This is another great candidate for getting off the C drive!

[@moionne]

I'm looking forward to the backup-video Mike!

[@CreativeSauce]

On its way!

[@trajanledesma]

Hi Mike I just wanna say thank you thank you thank you for everything! I dream to be a music producer and I can start with your amazing vids! Thank you for being THE MAN for us cakewalk people!

[@CreativeSauce]

Hey TJ, thanks so much for your kind words. I have my dream job thanks to people like you :)

[@trajanledesma]

@@CreativeSauce awww this put a big smile on my face :)

[@B9ashtima]

I think we've come to the point in our relationship where I can like your videos at the beginning haha

[@CreativeSauce]

This is a cherished moment :) I feel there should be a ceremony and an exchanging of vows. "I, Creative Sauce, take thee as my subscriber, and promise to educate, enlighten, and occasionally entertain".

[@zomni1]

All my new build parts are being delivered tomorrow and this is exactly the video I wanted. Thank you!

[@JohnRedcorn822]

11:49 is the funniest segment break ive ever seen on youtube; you have earned a follow and a like 🤣

[@danielel9191]

Great video! Thank you. I stopped watching at 18:10 because I am on a Mac and at this point I need direction on how to do this on my system. I wish it was a video on macs because you are the best yet on this topic!

[@balorprice]

Another two big thumbs up to you Mike, this is absolutely what I needed. Everything you say has this level of "Of course! I KNEW that really", but just having it all laid out in easy to follow chapters really helped me sort everything out. I've found there are a few virtual instruments that have stamped their feet about where they are placed, but the major areas which were taxing the caching has brrj fixed now. Finally!

[@kuzbuz13]

This is hands down one of the best videos on this

[@makingmusiconline2309]

This is a fascinating topic! I'm setting up my first proper music laptop, with two SSD drives (2TB each) plus one or more spinning external drives. (I'll be upgrading to external SSDs when I can afford them, plus NAS for backups)

[@Andre4b]

Use the mklink command in the command-shell. That will always work in contrast to the shortcut.

[@CreativeSauce]

Thank you!

[@patrickburyk9973]

Greetings, Mike! Thank you for covering this, rather complex, topic! It's "complex" because there are as many workable solutions as there are users computers. BUT, users need to start somewhere and this video covers the bases - very well. I'd like to offer: YES - Samsung Evo SSDs are the way to go, if you can afford the difference in $$. But, regardless of SSD type - Do strive to keep their total storage below 75%. This is per SSD manufacturer's documentation (ALL SSD manufacturers, not just Samsung). Looking forward to your "Backups" video. !!!!!!!

[@striverfor7628]

11:50 12:49, 13:04 Recommendation for a Solid State drive

[@daniellesaux6152]

Great video, very well explained. You're an awesome teacher Mike! I'm looking forward to your backup video to compare what you recommend to what I'm currently doing. Stay safe!

[@CreativeSauce]

Cheers Daniel. Yes, that's around 3 weeks away, as its a little involved. But probably an even more important video!!

[@J.Livermore]

thank YOU!, important, very important information👍🏽

[@sevenfifteen]

An important topic that's rarely mentioned and never presented as you did. Very useful also to point others to. In Cakewalk you also want to adapt the paths in preferences. The default path for audio data is set to C:\\cakewalk\... for example. Those are not just lookup paths. They are used by Cakewalk to write data as well.

[@raidicmusic]

4:38 and 11:00 Thanks !!!!! I had to re.isntall some VSTs, because i did not found the samples folder of some VSTs. Now I now how to.

[@michael_j_s]

Thx Mike ~ Been considering this issue for a long time and your video really help!!

[@joegrint6280]

Great advice Mike - I have my VSTs on my data drive apart from the Air ones that seem unhappy unless they are on the system drive! I'll remember that tip for moving the documents drive - my system drive and much bigger data drive are neck a neck on space at the moment - I also have a couple of other drives with photos games etc. To reflect an earlier comment there are two types of people - those who have had a drive fail and those who will! That reminds me I must back up my recent photos!

[@justinritter9876]

Still a great video on practical logical File Management for Music Makers! Good Work Mate!

[@PowerDrumKit]

19:58 Here is a little shortcut for creating a shortcut: Drag the folder from the right window (the target) into the left window where the original path was, by holding the RIGHT mouse button. On release it will show a context menu with the option to create a shortcut with one click right away. It just needs to be renamed afterwards. Disclaimer: I never used this method for creating these kind of redirections for libraries (usually using symbolic links), but if your conventional method works, this shortcut method will probably work as well I guess. Good video!

[@hilltop565]

If you've never tried it yourself then you shouldn't suggest it.

[@PowerDrumKit]

@@hilltop565 It's the same type of shortcut as shown in the video, so I am just providing a faster way for the same thing he is showing. I was just stating that I haven't used it for the purpose he is using it here in the video. But since he did, it doesn't matter.

[@DavidSmith-ne1zp]

Exactly the info I was needing! Thanks for explaining the rationale behind where files are best located.

[@michaeltablet8577]

Thank you so very much and hello from Texas USA!

[@CreativeSauce]

Thanks Micheal. I'd love to visit there one day!

[@michaeltablet8577]

@@CreativeSauce would be honored if you did! God bless you and yours and thanks again so very much for sharing your gift of music and teaching!

[@justmejammin]

Thanks Mike I was just starting to think about this issue. Another hit.👍🏻

[@manuzid6837]

one of the best channels on youtube

[@CreativeSauce]

Thank you :)

[@MG-br5vc]

Never thought this would be a really nice post. Thanks Mike.,

[@CreativeSauce]

Thanks MG. The subject is certainly a little dry, so I'm glad people like it!

[@zendakk]

@@CreativeSauce It's one of those dry "boring" topics that can really come back to bite you if neglected. Once you have a good organizational system in place, you eliminate a LOT of potential for future pain, it's well worth the initial time invested. Thanks, your videos are always useful and well presented!

[@ronnyb5890]

great tips Mike, thanx,i moved every windows media folder to my D drive in a map called windows,in this map i created maps for download,pictures,document,etc and it works like a charm,only thing that cant be moved this way is the temp folder,there you have to create a dynamic link,wich is a lot harder,it can also be done via system variables,but either way is risky

[@CreativeSauce]

Thanks Ronny, some handy info there:)

[@ronnyb5890]

@@CreativeSauce youre welcome Mike,have a nice day

[@atypeandshadow]

I wish I came across this from the beginning 🎉🎉🎉 its a complete mess once you start adding files, pluggins. I recently canceled my Waves subscription and it was a complete pain seperating the pluggins to the recycling bin.

[@masterstacker2833]

I use a G-Drive HDD for my Time Machine backups. I do have separate drives for large sample libraries on my 27" iMac via Thunderbolt 3. But I went with one large drive on my new MacBook Pro Max. That drive is 3x as fast as the ones my 27" is using.

[@davidmeyer8756]

I really NEEDED THIS! Thank you!

[@CreativeSauce]

Awesome man - my pleasure :)

[@dogriver751]

Last year I moved my cakewalk projects to an external hardrive. When I went to work.on them next I could play them but I couldn't edit them, and I couldn't add to them. I eventually gave up on them

[@SamplesStudios]

This video is very helpful and I've been using it to organize my files. Thank you! I have a question for a common problem, which is deciding where presets go when using 3 drives. 9:43 It seems like they either belong in the 1st drive (with daw & plugins) or 3rd drive (with daw projects). My third drive happens to be a fast external ssd, which I'll use to load daw projects using several computers.

[@CreativeSauce]

Glad it's helpful. You could do either place. Presets are such tiny files, and not accessed often, so performance will not be an issue either way.

[@1wonderdrift]

I’m getting an error message stating that a folder exists in the ‘Documents’ location that cannot be redirected. How do I locate this mysterious folder that is holding up my moving the Documents folder to an external SSD? If anyone can help, please respond. Thanks!

[@JohnSmith-ut9ti]

Very helpful. Especially the shortcut thing. Thank you

[@ТимурГиев]

Thank You so Much, Mike! That's Incredible Perfect Guide!🎇🤠👏🤓🤩💫😍👍🎊😁

[@davidnienast7512]

Awesome video, it was extremely helpful. I also put my plugins on a separate drive because some can be rather large files

[@CreativeSauce]

Cheers David, interesting. Any in particular you find are large?

[@davidnienast7512]

@@CreativeSauce union, ascension vsts and a few other, but its mostly the presets/expansion packs

[@CreativeSauce]

Ah IC. Great tip thank you :)

[@MerK_San]

the video i should’ve watched before i ever even started this music journey 😂😂 oh the chaos i would’ve saved myself from 🙂‍↕️

[@technodust7833]

Best data management tutorial ever! Thx!

[@HeroMike17]

The shortcut tip is a great one. I had libraries which I could redirect using regedit, searching for and editing the original path. But that was a real HACK ;-) just for programmers

[@felixl2110]

Wow, Mike, What a pleasant guy

[@MrOnemoreknight0]

Mike if I had to compile a top ten of useful videos this would definitely be No1!! Not to say your other videos haven't been useful, of course they have, but this one is going to help me (and several others I bet!) enormously. One question, you talk about installing second, or third hard drives, but is it possible to use external HD's? I look forward to the back up video, I have a sneaking suspicion I am going to find that helpful as well.

[@CreativeSauce]

Awww thanks Mike, you are too kind. Connecting many external drives can get messy, but doable if you have enough ports. Doing it via a hub may cause a little bottleneck, but still probably preferable to a single drive. Another option is also a multiple bay hdd/ssd dock, I've used them in the past with good results.

[@G_handle]

Thank you Sir! This is a great gap you’re filling in the Audio KZbin arena, fundamentals. 1) Can you do one of these for Mac (or get one of your Mac based friends like you’ve done before)? 2) I also have dozens of those Samsung EVO internal SATA SSDs. They’re great bang-for-buck Internal SSDs. However, what do you think of using either the Samsung T5/T7 USB-C drives EXTERNALLY (or their Sandisk equivalents), now that they come in 2TB capacities and can operate at 500/ 1000/ even 2000Mbps? On modern Macs, the USB-C bus speed is theoretically 10Gbps, so technically you should be able to run 5 of fastest External SSDs into a hub on 1 computer port at full speed. And since you’ll never be running all five drives full throttle in Audio Production, you should be able to get a larger hub and even more drives, say for backup and redundancy, or multiple VSTi Libraries or multiple Client Drives, and stay well below the 10Gbps bandwidth bottleneck, all while NOT opening a computer case. I currently have 4 Mac Pro towers for Audio and Video production and post, loaded up with a Ton of stuff not worth listing, other than the many massive HDD RAIDs not mentioned in this video. As soon as I get the time, I’m getting a M1 Mac Mini with the intention of testing the above theory, and stress testing it as a 2021 alternative system setup. Thus far though, in their component parts, I think we may have just entered a whole new era.

[@whitewolfy1000]

Clear and efficient. Great ! A single question. Can you move data from C Program Data where some programs (Arturia,an ex.) goes by default,with all the content?

[@Tsietsithelele]

Beautifuly done, we'll done Mike thank you very much that was super helpful

[@rubdub4]

This was so perfectly helpful. Thank you.

[@AlexanderJAllen]

You folks amaze me! How do you get the time and resources to provide all this information for me for free? Thanks for doing what you do

[@mrlabon123]

Mike, can you make the video on backing up the files? Thanks.

[@ezgoen3882]

Nice Tutorial Mike - As Usual! Other ways of redirecting folders, files etc - read and learn about Hard Links, Junctions & Soft Links under windows. If you're from the linux world the concepts are common and very similar. USE WITH CARE! Might help someone.

[@RicheyZhang]

A very newbie question: why are plugins and instrument libraries separate? Many instruments are also in VST format, do they count as plug-ins and what is the boundary between plug-ins on the C drive and instrument libraries on other drives? What are the boundaries between plugins on the C drive and instrument libraries on other drives? please answer, thank you!

[@bangerdistrict7500]

Thank you so much, sir! This really helped me a lot. 🙏🤝

[@KarlDemo]

Hi Mike, I'm Peter from Holland and a persistent follower of your channel. And this Video was very groundbreaking for me. But it left me with one puzzle. If I'm correct, you put the plugins into the C-drive where all the I.O., Windows and the applications are. But the corresponding libraries of the Plugins you store onto an other drive. Why not store the plugins as well to another drive? And the second question. I assume that, with installing the plugin you designate the VST (whichever; VST, VST2, VST3 or yet another) to your C-drive and the corresponding libraries to the designated other drive? Is that the correct way to go? Thank you for much enlightment and insight. Peter.

[@SantiagoBarceloOk]

HI Mike, many thanks for the video, clear and useful as usual. We are synchronized ! Since a few days ago I'm exactly doing this, organising drives, libraries and folders applying the same concepts from your video. The regular shortcut didn't work for me but the "mklink" did (Kontakt didn't "see" the normal shortcuts). All the best from Buenos Aires !!

[@parambajaj85]

Great video!!!! I have a query- Should I use a pen-drive to keep some of my stuff onto?

[@SoleTecEx]

Thanking you for a very informative vid. Ta.

[@edblake9428]

Thank you very much Mike! But there are two things; 1. I have two internal drives. One SSD for my operating system and one HDD. Does it smoother my workflow if I move Documents to internal HDD? Because it is not as fast as a SSD drive. And 2. I’ve already moved my Documents file to second internal HDD as you explained successfully. But I can also see same documents in their previous place. It is not like moved, it is like copied. Should I go ahead and delete them manually?

[@gthcstudios]

Instead of using simple shortcuts I usually use junctions. So I make sure I can still navigate to specific files inside the folder from its original location. Just move the desired folder to its new location (or copy and rename the original folder) and then use command prompt (CMD) and enter the following command: mklink /j "SHORTCUT LOCATION" "TARGET LOCATION" Of course the SHORTCUT LOCATION and TARGET LOCATION have to be replaced with the corresponding folder names and locations. Like: mklink /j "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3" "E:\VST-Plugins\VST3" This is working great for all kinds of Sound and Sample Libraries as well as the VST3 plugin location or even your Dropbox folder, for example. Edit: Some locations require you to run cmd as an admin to create the junction, depending on the write permissions of the location where you want to create it.

[@gthcstudios]

BTW: Inside CMD enter mklink /? for a detailed description or help with this command.

[@gthcstudios]

One more thing: If you use junctions you should exclude either the junctions or the target folders from your backup. Otherwise the whole folder content gets backed-up twice, which is probably not what you want. Instead, you can create a simple batch file to restore all your junctions, if you havee to restore your system from a backup one day. And btw: Junctions are only working on NTFS formated drives, which is todays standard format on Windows systems. The drives can be internal or external drives but no network drives, as far as I know.

[@andressm9103]

What is the device you are using. the one that you can see behind the SSD box when showing the image of the Samsung 870 EVO. minute 13:13..

[@bhajan_bula_roo723]

Thanks for your tutorials Mike where did you put your Pictures and Music Folders or did you leave them on C: drive?

[@egetosun6144]

For the Kontakt case, will we think the Kontakt as a plugin and all Kontakt based Instruments as Library in terms of file management?

[@HeroMike17]

Backup twice. Put the second Backup in a fireproof safe. I had a "LITEON CV3-CE256-11 256GB" SSD which failed after 3 yrs of doing very small work. Please buy quality SSDs..

[@CreativeSauce]

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve learned the hard way (on multiple occasions). Now the way I view my drives, is that they WILL fail at some point.... so better make sure I had a ‘Plan B’!

[@ageshero]

If your documents are automatically shotgunned into C drive, like... how do you keep track of all that data and make sure it doesnt keep doing that when you install new paths? because theres intersecting file navigation for indivisual plugins?

[@AkibulanHorusRA]

Can you compress the plugin drive NTFS without Read/Write Compromise?

[@louiewgroenewald]

What do you do regards the Program Data folder in Windows, which is a hidden folder, where also a lot of VST and VSTi data (prsests and libraries) gets installed. That also takes up a lot of space on the C drive? Or do you leave it alone as is? This folder takes a lot more space up than the Documents folder.

[@guillermocossioovilla9629]

hello, in minute 14:57 you mention "sample libraries" is this the same as "instrument libraries"? i ask this because ive read that they are diferent and i am confused, thank you and sorry for my english

[@shirakuyanai4095]

What if I have 1 main pc at home and 1 laptop for traveling? What should I put in which computer and what should I put in external drives?

[@Moss-xk5zc]

Great video, thank you for the information.

[@buckriderbeats]

I've got a question. I moved my documents from the C drive to an external drive, and everything seemed to go fine. The only issue is that it didn't actually free up any space on the C drive. I checked before and after moving the folder, and the space usage remained the same. When I look at the properties of one of the folders, it shows that they're on the external drive. I'm really confused about what's happening here. Any suggestions or ideas?

[@richardharmon9596]

Awesome Awesome Video !!!! Thank You sooo much

[@clockworkorangelg5198]

Very useful reference!!thanks

[@mattavalon]

thanks so much for these videos! is the principal the same for mac?

[@velocitystudiomix]

Great information!😎

[@jimmiphaze5785]

thanks mike.....just what i needed.....great job

[@guillevick]

Whats the diference between "instrument libraries" and " sample libraries"?

[@michaelzissaleblanc1859]

Where would be ideal location to move things like kontakt or reason or should they be left in the c drive

[@tsmooveproductions9891]

I went through the process on my laptop to move my documents to my D drive that's in my laptop from my C drive once I completed that the document folder is still in the C drive. The question I've been having is can I delete the content that's in the document folder in C drive to clear up more space? And if I did that would it give me any problems with the stuff that's in there like my instruments😎🎼✌️

[@therealjackfisher]

Great stuff Mike. I also noticed that some of my plugins/ libaries install stuff in ALL USERS documents, and not my personal documents directory, and this is problematic because some people dont even know they have different users installed in their windows and they cant find the installed files. It took me few days and reinstalls before i figured out that many programs hide files there. Some software install in OneDrive wich is cloud space in windows and that cloud can get clogged and some files get lost fast. I had to turn off One Drive because that thing causes so many loses. OneDrives terrible design is a serious threat to data that is being saved there. I never trust OneDrive.

[@jonathanhoward5716]

Hey very informative video. This helps alot. I did have a question. Could you clarify pluggins vs instrument libraries and why you leave the pluggins on the main drive? I am getting confused by the different terminology. I dont understand the difference between DAW pluggins vs. 3rd party Pluggins vs. Pluggin Effects vs. Virual Instruments vs. VST/VST2/VST3/VSTi vs.....all of it. I have a basic understanding but alot of the terms overlap in nature. Thanks for any help you can provide.

[@Lordcamilli]

"Dislike twice" won my like. Great content, mate.

[@philodox7599]

Awesome video!

[@peterboom7249]

How can I move my fl studio sample packs to my new driver 😢pls I will be waiting for a reply

[@sticklebrickz]

Great, helpful vid. Thanks! Worst case scenario here - Running everything from a single laptop drive (2TB Samsung Evo SSD). Would partitioning the SSD for separating data be effectively the same as using separate drives?

[@director2bob]

Thanks for a great video and I found it very useful. BUt I am VERY confused about one concept. I am buying a new 16 inch Apple Macbook pro with Max chip, 64 GB of memory and have the option to install a 4 TB SSD drive. To me it would be ideal to have a single SSD drive for my music production workflow and use an external drive only to back up projects. I use Ableton, Komplete, Arturia collection, Omnisphere etc. Do you think it will be an issue with using the 4 TB SSD drive as my drive I use for everything and only use a external drive as a backup for projects? I also plan on using the laptop in a live setting running Ableton so trying to create an easy simple workflow. Thanks for any advice 🙏

[@ajbrunell8379]

I moved my documents folder. And now FL can’t find any of my plugins. How can I reverse what I’ve done here

[@johnbeal1109]

I’m obviously missing something here. Have tried this a few times on Win11 I just keep getting an error “ Can’t move folder because there is a folder in the same location that can’t be redirected , access is denied “ Really frustrated as I don’t want to load further plug ins until I got this licked. I’m Only on a laptop, but do have ext drives .

[@thebeigearea8929]

do you delete the C Drive shortcut folder for the drum library after connecting the plug-in to the dD Drive?

[@robertolopezfoto]

Excelent,, any advise for mac?

[@mrlabon123]

I needed this kind of a video. Thanks. I want to install a new drive to my laptop. Is there a way to do it externally via a SATA USB cable?

[@CreativeSauce]

HD/SSD enclosures normally connect USB, but have SATA connections inside. If your laptop has a USB C connection then use for faster transfer speeds. Failing that, go USB 3.