How do you guys organize your sample library..??

[Matt Hartman]

but creativity can come out of chaos. so i must be very creative.....

Yes NickyNose, but hark, even chaos has relativity and counterpoint. What you want is chaos on the output, not input.  

Or put this way; you don't put orange juice into a blender and get an orange. That is, unless you've taken Einstein's work to the next level...  :idea:

[Poser]

I've have around 25 folders, including subfolders like for bassdrums:

Bassdrums
'-> 80es Kicks
'-> 909
'-> 808
'-> Sub&Deep
'-> Distortion
'-> Hard

Also the samples are not namend bassdrum1.wav but DMD-01-BassDrum1(poppy).wav - means it's from the sampe cd "dance mega drums", track 1... the first bd sounding "poppy"...

I'm deleting at the moment all samples which i don't need because i always mostly use the same samples for my tracks.

You can compose faster if you order your samples and only keep the really needed ones...

1.000 selected samples are enough for it....

[SoundCrafter]

Organization??? What is this you speak of? Naybe that's why I suck...hahaha .

Actually, whenever I download a pack of samples, I just make a new folder for 'em. But, sometimes I classify by type...By the way, without getting off-topic, anybody know where I can find some good leads?

[cyperkid]

seems that i am an exception (in style&sound too), as i work mainly with random choice and the effect of loading "something unknown" into my tracks (so my way of organizing probably will be useless, but anyway...)
my samples are simply put into folders that are describing their original source, but after using them i remove them direct into a folder named after the track (to avoid double use...)

in very old tracker time used to sort my *.sam, *.smp like "drums", "beeps", "strings", "xxx" (for fx, film-alike sounds, noizes)
after trying all files in the "drums" or the "claps" folder two-three times i regarded these categories as useless and never ever opened them again. meanwhile folders like "xxx", "soundfx", "effects" grew bigger and bigger as i was too lazy (and more occupied with tracking) to make subcategories...

well, kinda strange. didn't know that i am able to write more then 2 sentences about my handling of samples  

[xaimus]

My collection of samples are poorly organized.  I've tried creating directories for different classes of samples, but I never took the time to populate them correctly.

An excerpt from ls ~/Music/Mods/samples:

BASSDRUM.wav                            hattt.wav
BASSE.wav                               hauskick1.wav
BASSdrumo.wav                           heavy drum.wav
Baze.wav                                hellout.wav
CANT TAKE IT BSD45.wav                  helloutrobo.wav
CRASH.wav                               hit.wav
DISTORT.wav                             horn.wav
DRMNBS4.WAV                             horn2.wav
ELGOOG.wav                              illegalinstruction.wav
FULLLO.WAV                              kickickcikcickickc.wav
FULLLOhighpass.wav                      light square hit.wav
HATT.wav                                loops.tar.bz2